Many people struggle financially trying to keep their head above water. Christ reminds us that our true wealth is in loving others so that we can find real meaning in life.
The context, just before today’s passage, was Jesus’s teaching about money.
He said you can’t serve two masters. Either your life will be driven by the love of money or the love of God. And, if it’s driven by money, then, in God’s eyes, you’re set up for failure.
The comment on divorce may seem out of place. But, remember, marriage was a common metaphor for loyalty to God: the church is the bride of Christ, the bridegroom.
What it means is that if you neglect God to seek after money and riches, then you’ve committed adultery with God—you’ve abandoned him.
Money will always be a temptation in this life.
But, if we learn to love God and our neighbor, and learn to forgive, then our lives will be full and rich in a way we couldn’t imagine!
The Reading
And he said to them, “You are the ones who are offering justifications of yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; because that which is lofty among men is an abomination before God. Until John, there were the Law and the prophets; since then the good tidings of God’s Kingdom are being proclaimed, and everyone is being forced into it. But it is easier for sky and earth to pass away than for a single serif to fall away from the Law. Everyone divorcing his wife and marrying another commits adultery, and the woman divorced by her husband who marries commits adultery. . . . And he said to his disciples, “It is impossible that causes of faltering should not come, but alas for the one through whom they come. Better for him that a millstone be placed round his neck and he be thrown into the sea rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to falter. Keep watch upon yourselves. If your brother sins, admonish him, and if he changes his heart, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and seven times turns back to you saying, ‘I change my heart,’ you shall forgive him. (Luke 16:15-18, 17:1-4)