Investment Policy

August 19: Tuesday of Week 20 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Ezekiel 28:1-10; Canticle: Deuteronomy 32:26-27, 27-28, 30, 35-36; Matthew 19:23-30

Thoughts to help us surrender to Jesus expressing himself through us in ministry.

Investment Policy

“Everyone who has given up… will receive a hundred times more.” Matthew 19:29

We naturally assume rich people know how to invest. We should assume the opposite. Jesus says they know the least about it. What they have tends to blind them to the best deal on earth. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

This is not a condemnation. It is a warning. Being rich isn’t sinful. It is just dangerous.

The “smart money” is money given to the poor—or to whatever can help the poor: both the materially poor and the spiritually poor. Jesus’ financial advice is:

Sell your possessions, and give alms. Get yourselves an unfailing treasure in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Luke 12:33).

Call this “charity” if you want. Jesus calls it a good investment policy.

Begin by sharing your gifts of faith, hope and love with everyone you deal with. By expressing them—sometimes explicitly (don’t be afraid to), but always implicitly, by speaking and acting in a way consciously inspired by what you believe, live for, trust in. And by love.

What you got for free, give for free (Matthew 10:8). Gifts of grace grow through physical expression.

PRAY: “Lord, give yourself with me, give yourself in me, give yourself through me.”

PRACTICE: Every time you use something, ask how you might share it.