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Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Imagine a three-year old walking gleefully out of an ice cream shop, grasping onto her mother with one hand and holding a big ice cream cone in the other.
She goes to take her first lick of ice cream, when suddenly her single scoop slides off of her cone, crashing onto a red-hot side walk.
She bursts into tears. Her whole world and happiness is gone.
Her mom may even laugh, knowing there’s not only more ice cream, there’s also more to life.
But this toddler’s had it. All she cared about is melting at her feet.
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Often enough, that’s us.
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While we know there’s so much more to life, we can spend a large part it distracted by worldly things – good things – such as planning for retirement, saving for college, re-modeling our homes, looking for the next trend, or buying our next toy.
But ask anyone who lost their home in the floods in Kentucky, life is fragile; all things in this world are passing, except for our faith in God.
“Seek first the kingdom of God,” Jesus says, “and everything else will be given to you.” Not only temporary things, but also life eternal.
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Today’s Gospel begins with a familiar scene: like a three-year-old weeping over melting ice cream, brothers are arguing over an inheritance.
Money has ripped this family apart. So, the youngest brother seeks counsel from Jesus. Imagine that. This man can ask for anything … and he asks God for money.
Instead of arbitrating over this family affair, the Lord tells them a parable about a man who had more than enough.
His harvest was so bountiful that he decided to retire early; he’d build bigger barns for himself, allowing him to, “rest, eat, drink, and be merry!”
But for his selfishness, God demanded his life that night.
“What does it profit a man,” Jesus says, “to gain the whole world – to have a bountiful harvest, to be the sole heir, to build bigger barns – but to lose his soul?”
Jesus does not condemn this man’s work ethic; nor does he condemn his success; nor his desire to secure his future.
Jesus condemns him because he focused solely on material things, much like a toddler licking her ice cream. His happiness was attached entirely to his harvest.
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So, what might this parable say to us?
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Certainly, there’s the warning not to get caught up in materialism.
But there’s also the deeper challenge to keep God present in all areas of our life, which is a lesson that builds upon the Mary-Martha story we heard two weeks ago.
Remember what happened: Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him speak.
Meanwhile, Martha was banging pots and pans in the kitchen, angry at her absentee sister. When Martha goes to complain, Jesus tells her she’s, “anxious and worried about many things.”
To be “worried” means, “to strangle.”
Martha became so preoccupied with getting dinner done, that she strangled all of the grace out of her work. Jesus was no longer the center of her mind; she was.
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The man in today’s parable is no different. God isn’t the center of his life; he is. “I know what I shall do!” he says. “I shall build bigger barns! I shall rest, eat, drink, and be merry!”
He refers to himself eight times in this passage!
He’s tricked himself into believing he could secure his own future, without ever asking, “Lord, what is your will for me?” He’s chosen to squeeze God out of the picture.
And so, this man loses his “life.” The word used here means more than “time on earth;” this man lost his soul, all for a harvest of grain.
“O vanity of vanities!”
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At times we can all focus too heavily on worldly things – even when they’re good things. Perhaps this is where the Gospel is leading us to focus this week:
Do I find my security in things other than God? How attached am I to people and fleeting things?
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“Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven,” Jesus says.
Treasure, which comes by keeping God – not passing things – at the center of our lives.
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Image credits: (1) St. Michael Catholic Church, Livermore, CA (2) Sun Journal (3) iStock