PROPER 13, YEAR C

July 31, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Ecclesiastes 1: 12-14; 2:18-23

Psalm 49:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

 

Running through today’s readings we encounter a certain streak of pessimism, even cynicism. The Old Testament reading from Ecclesiastes sets the tone: “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!”

 

I must admit that I love the Book of Ecclesiastes precisely because of its brutal honesty and realism. The author, who calls himself “the Preacher,” complains that he’s destined to leave all that he’s worked for all his life to those who’ll come after him; and who knows whether they’ll be wise or fools? What have we, he asks plaintively, from all our toil and strain under the sun? All our days are full of pain; our work is a vexation; even in the night our mind does not rest. Behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind. 

 

I’m sure we all have days like that and undergo moods when we can relate to those sentiments. Ecclesiastes is utterly devoid of sanctimonious piety. A somewhat vulgar contemporary saying concisely sums up its message: Life is a [b-word] and then you die!

 

Psalm 49, ingeniously chosen to complement the Old Testament reading, takes up a similar theme: “There be some that put their trust in their goods; and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches” … but “we see that the wise die also; like the dull and stupid they perish and leave their wealth to those who come after them.” 

 

Then in the Gospel reading we have the Parable of the Rich Fool: again, one of my favorites among all Our Lord’s parables. The land of a rich landowner yields abundant harvests, so that he pulls down his barns and builds larger ones to store his crops. Then, noting with satisfaction that he has goods laid up for many years, he says to himself: “Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry” only to be told by God, “Fool! This night your life is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” 

 

What a bummer. After surveying these readings, the question I find myself compelled to ask is: Where’s the good news here? At my seminary, incidentally, we were taught in our homiletics classes always to ask ourselves this question when preparing our sermons. Our job as preachers, after all, is to proclaim the Gospel; and the word Gospel means good news. And this question is a useful one to ask ourselves as we listen to sermons. Where’s the good news here? If we can’t find an answer to that question, then that’s a sign that the preacher isn’t doing his job properly. So, when a sermon begins, always expect to hear, always listen out for, the good news!

 

In today’s Gospel reading, I think that the good news comes in Our Lord’s statement immediately preceding the parable: “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness, for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” That statement carries good news because it implies, if only negatively, that there is available to us a life—true and everlasting life—that exists apart from and independently of material wealth and possessions. That life is equally available to rich and poor alike; and it’s the one thing worth seeking above everything else that competes for our attention and effort. (To circle back to Ecclesiastes for a moment: the book's beauty is precisely that it describes so accurately the futility of a life lived apart from God.)

 

 So, the question becomes: How do we gain this life of which our Lord speaks? Here I think at least part of the answer comes right at the end of the Gospel where Jesus contrasts laying up treasure for ourselves and being “rich toward God.”

 

The implication is that the rich fool’s mistake lies not in accumulating wealth per se, but in what he chooses to do with it: hoarding it in larger barns and settling down to take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He’s looking first to his own interests, to his own comfort and enjoyment, rather than to how he might use his wealth in God’s service for the advancement of God’s Kingdom. He could donate at least some of those stored crops to feed the poor and the hungry, but he doesn’t think of that. That choice, to lay up treasures for himself rather than to be rich towards God, is what makes him a fool in the end.

 

So, the parable’s point is not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong—for those of us who are that fortunate—with our pensions, 401ks, investment portfolios, and homes with paid-off mortgages. The question of eternal importance for us is instead how we use this wealth: to what end and to whose benefit?

 

Indeed, no matter how much or how little material wealth we may enjoy in this life, the existential question for each of us is whether we’re laying up treasures for ourselves or being rich towards God. So, in the days of this coming week, we might do well to reflect and pray on this question. What would it mean in my own unique circumstances to be rich towards God? What would being rich towards God look like in my life? The answers might not be immediately apparent, but sometimes the best we can do is simply to keep on asking the right questions, and that is absolutely the right question to ask.

 

For by being rich towards God, we take hold of and enter into that life which does not consist in the abundance of possessions. And that, in the end, is the only life that matters.