(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
God does not believe in trickle-down economics, at least not the way we practice it. God emptied himself and took up the appearance of a slave so that God could make us rich. God’s economic policy should more correctly be called gushing-down economics or thunder-storm economics because God’s policy is to pour out upon us all that God has or owns. In God’s policy, we get everything and God loses nothing.
Our trickle-down economics says that as a rich person gets richer, the poorer people will become richer because the prosperity will trickle down to the poorer. The reality is that as a rich person gets richer, the rich one tends to hoard the wealth and pay less income tax. Trickle-own economics says to the poor person, “since I have wealth, you likewise can become wealthy. Go in peace and be well fed.” Wealth, like faith, without action, is dead.
When we have money, we tend to want more money. If a goal in life is to have X amount of money in the bank, we will inevitably want X plus 500 hundred dollars more in case something should happen to the X. The richest person in the world does not want to become the second richest person.
God’s trickle-down economics works because God emptied himself to make us rich. If what we do is what shows the kind of faith we have, then God must have had great faith in us to give us everything God has to make us rich.
Words without actions are empty words, words without life, lifeless and incapable of giving life. Faith is like words: without action, faith is lifeless and dead.