19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A barber, who was passing under a haunted tree, heard a voice say, "Will you accept seven jars full of gold?" The barber looked around, but could see no one. The offer of seven jars of gold, however, roused his curiosity and he cried aloud, "Yes, I shall accept the seven jars." At once came the reply. "Go home, I have carried the jars to your house." The barber ran home in hot haste to verify the truth of this strange announcement. And when he entered the house, he saw the jars before him. He opened them and found them all full of gold, except the last one which was only half-full.

A strong desire now arose in the mind of the barber to fill the seventh jar also; for without it his happiness was incomplete. He therefore converted all his ornaments into gold coins and put them into the jar; but the mysterious vessel was as before, unfilled. This exasperated the barber. Starving himself and his family, he saved some more amount and tried to fill the jar; but the jar remained as before. So one day he humbly requested the king to increase his pay, saying his income was not sufficient to maintain himself on.

Now the barber was a favourite of the king, and as soon as the request was made the king doubled his pay. All this pay he saved and put into the jar, but the greedy jar showed no signs of filling. At last he began to live by begging from door to door, and his professional income and the income from begging all went into the insatiable cavity of the mysterious jar. Months passed, and the condition of the miserable and miserly barber grew worse every day. Seeing his sad plight, the king asked him one day, "Hello! When your pay was half of what you now get, you were happy, cheerful and contented; but with double that pay, I see you morose, careworn and dejected. What is the matter with you? Have you got 'the seven jars'?"

The barber was taken aback by this question and replied, "Your Majesty, who has informed you of this?" The king said, "Don't you know that these are the signs of the person to whom the devil consigns the seven jars. He offered me also the same jars, but I asked him whether this money might be spent or was merely to be hoarded. No sooner had I asked this question than the devil ran away without any reply. Don't you know that no one can spend that money? It only brings with it the desire of hoarding. Go at once and return the money." The barber was brought to his senses by this advice, and he went to the haunted tree and said, "Take back your gold" The devil replied, "All right."

When the barber returned home, he found that the seven jars had vanished as mysteriously as they were brought in, and with it also had vanished his life-long savings.

Throughout the course of human history, we regularly encounter people who behave like the barber. They just have the compulsion to hoard. Some of these people are born rich but still possess an innate desire to accumulate more wealth, some are born dirt poor and have the burning ambition to never be poor again. Either way, people who hoard will never be satisfied with what they have.

It is like the 7^th jar in the story, which can never be filled, people who hoard can never be satisfied. Today’s gospel speaks about the cost of discipleship. I just want to focus on one part of the gospel, which is “where your treasure is, there your heart will be” The question would be what is our treasure? Is it riches of the world? Property? If yes, then our hearts will be there and we will never be happy in life.

I am not saying that money is not important, far from it, all of us need money to survive and live a comfortable life. But we need to constantly ask ourselves how much is enough? That is the thing we need to be aware of. People spend half their lives finding wealth and use the other half looking for health using their wealth.

We need to constantly reflect on the question of what is our treasure because that is where we will set our hearts on. Jesus tells us to tore up treasures which will never rot and this is what we need to set our hearts on. Then we will be truly satisfied and contented with life.