Aim At Heaven

Welcome to Pier for Daily Family Prayer. Thanks for joining our family and letting us join yours. If you like Pier, consider making school of love one of your charities and help us reach more homes like yours. In the Gospel today, Luke says, while people

were listening to Jesus speak. He proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the kingdom of God would appear there immediately. What the people, a lot of the people who believe in him are expecting is that he, Jesus, is going to come in and declare himself king in Jerusalem.

And that's what these people want. And in fact, Jesus is the king, and he does come and take his kingship in Jerusalem, just not in the way that any of them expected. So Jesus tells a parable, and he tells a parable about a noble man who went off to a distant country to obtain kingship for himself and then to return.

But in the meantime, he calls a servants and he gives each of them a coin and has them engage in trade with the coin so that when he comes back, each of these coins can have obtained even more money to invest these in some way. Now, it's worth mentioning that these coins are not maybe of the same value of our coins. Most of us adults aren't going to think of these small coins as having much value, but

Here in the translation that we, for instance, read for mass, we have the word translated coin, or some other English translations might call it, for instance, 10 pounds. But the actual word is mina, which is about three months worth of wages for a laborer.

This nobleman leaves quite a bit of money with these people and tells them to take this big amount of money and to turn it into a even greater amount of money. Well, we're told that when he returns, the one who was given the largest amount of money, invested it and did very well, and then the nobleman, now the king, gave him as many cities as he had given him coins. And then the one who got the second most amount

and had invested and done well was given as many cities as he was given coins. And then the third one who was given the smallest amount ended up taking the coin and burying it because he was afraid and he didn't want to lose it.

But basically, he had the table set for him to go out and to make money off of his master's coin, and he didn't. He squandered the opportunity that was in front of him. He wasn't a good steward of the money he was given. So the end of the parable goes on to say this.

The nobleman now the king is mad at this particular servant, and he says, take the gold coin from him and give it to the servant who has ten. But they said him, sir, he has ten gold coins. He replied, I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

So again, everyone who has more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Now, that might seem odd, but if we wish to understand this particular scripture passage, we have to read it in light of the whole. Jesus is not saying that the rich will become richer by getting the money of the poor, nor is Jesus saying that the poor will lose everything.

That would be a contradiction of the teachings we hear in the rest of the Gospels. Jesus isn't saying this particularly about money. That's just a parable, an analogy. Jesus is really talking about truths about the spiritual life. Jesus' words in the Gospel refer to spiritual riches, specifically to faith. If we are rich in faith,

we will receive more and more faith. But if we have no faith, but have devoted our lives to having other things instead, even these things will be taken away. So C.S. Lewis explains this truth really well, asage in his great work, mere Christianity. And he says,

and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither. So again, aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither. We must nourish our faith. Our faith ends up meaning everything for us.

What might we all do to help us better love, better learn, better live our faith?