To make Forbes Magazine's list of the 400 wealthiest people in the United States you must have at least $415 million. Toward the bottom of this year's list is one Robert Georgen, for example. He has $490 million. He made it with candles. For $100,000 he and 3 partners bought a Brooklyn candle factory that sold to churches and religious goods stores. They now do a 331 million-dollar business a year, having bought out 6 competitors along the way. There is money in candles.

To come down in the world a bit, there are 1.3 million millionaires in our land. That is the latest and not updated. There are probably 2 million by now. 20 years ago there were 120,000. So we do well in millionaires.

The top 20% of households control 47% of our wealth. The average income for the top 20% is $105,000. The bottom 20%, $7,760. We are of all advanced countries worst in terms of the gap between rich and poor. It used to be England. We have long since outdone England. A U.N. Report says one in five U.S. children live below the poverty level. We are the worst. 21% below the line. The average low-income child in 17 other nations of the industrial West is at least a third better off than a child here. Yet the world's richest children live here.

Talent in the Scriptures means a measure of money. It has come to mean among us that or any endowment in terms of personal gifts, aptitudes, native skills.

Christ's parable in today's Gospel portion tells us of gifts given and responses made. We are subject to judgment in terms of what use we have made of what God has given us.

Gathering extravagant quantities of money is a use of talent that will never pass a final assessment. That the rich man will hardly enter the Kingdom of Heaven is perhaps a reality. And if he does, certainly not as a rich man.

We are born to life to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world that we may live with Him forever in the next.

Gathering a fortune for yourself is not the service of God. Our talents are to serve the common good, to give glory to God, are meant to be shared.

That said, we can come down to the practical and apply the parable to ourselves. Surely a sense of submission to God's Will is in order in terms of what gifts we have or do not have. And in terms of what we do have, modest or much, to develop those gifts for the honor and glory of God. We take what we get and make the best of it. Surely that is the thrust of the parable. A sort of responsible stewardship. And we ought to be aware too of our need of gratitude for what we have and invest it for the good of all. Pride is not solved by denying great gifts, but by acknowledging their source. Sin would lie in wasting talent or in using it for ignoble ends. Great gifts of any sort do not make one better. Rather, they exact a developed sense of responsibility.

Forbes Magazine lists our 400 wealthiest and says of them as a group: "they are super-competitive and always comparing themselves with others. They are obsessively competitive, these highly successful entrepreneurs... Sneer at this competitiveness if you like, but it drives the most productive economy the world has ever seen."  Maybe... But it is also the world's sickest economy and most unbalanced. And who ever called Americans this happy people?

We have here, we hope, what might be called a mitigated capitalism in our abbey, a Christianized economy. We try to control it. We earn our own living. And we are satisfied with that. We have a good product worth the price. But we earn to make a living. We do not live to make money. Choir comes before cake. Prayer comes before cheese, not to mention fudge. And we need and have quiet and place and a non-aggressive milieu. I do believe that when Christ taught us to develop talent, He had something like this in mind. I do not think He had the Forbes' 400 richest in mind, with an average of over a billion dollars each. This is called greed.

Our efforts to exemplify a good life, well rounded and complete may hopefully contribute toward building an American way which is more human, more humane, more fair. And surely those of you with families do not nurture greed. Indeed, the struggle to have enough, even a modest measure of prosperity, is endless and at times seems even hopeless.

There will be a reckoning one day over children world wide, but a most severe reckoning here most of all, first of all. Our talents ought be applied to a worthy end. Our land is not pleasing to God, that is sure.  Amen.