To read the texts click on the texts: Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23; Col 3:1-5,9-11; Lk 12:13-21
Two
contrasting images bring out the meaning of the readings of today. The first is
this: An advertisement company offered as its first prize, a two week paid
holiday on an island. The winner would be the one who had the most money on the
day he/she died.
The
second is this: A televised interview with a man who had lost his house and all
his possessions to a raging fire driven by strong winds somewhere in the world
provides a striking contrast to the rich fool.
Shortly before the fire, this man recalled that his brother had mused
that they should be careful not to allow their possessions to possess
them. Seeing everything he owned but the
shirt on his back go up in smoke, he announced to the reporter, with a note of
unexpected triumph: “I am a free man now!”
The
Gospel text of today and the first reading are emphatic: We can take nothing
with us. We leave everything when we leave.
The story is told that, at the funeral of the fabulously wealthy
Aristotle Onassis, one of the mourners turned to another and said, “How much
did he leave?” The other replied, “Everything. He left everything.”
Both
the Gospel and the first reading speak of a person so possessed of his
possessions that he does not really possess them, but allows them to possess
him. So deep is the man’s self-centredness that he can only think in terms of
“my crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, and, finally, my soul”. This
selfishness is what comes to haunt him at the end. His possessions have claimed
him, they have controlled him, they have used him and, they have led to his
death. The illusion that his properties and riches are inalienable and absolute
is stripped away by the inalienable and absolute reality of death. He did not
enjoy his riches when he was alive. And,
another will own and possess them after his death.
This
fact is made absolutely clear when not once in his soliloquy does the rich man
of the Gospel think that he could give away out of the abundance he possesses.
His concern is only to build bigger barns to store, for his sole benefit, the
bounty he receives. This very clearly, according to the first reading of today,
is vanity. Such a person is restless in the day and unable to sleep at night.
He is worried in the day and anxious at night.
An
antidote to this way is suggested by Paul in the second reading of today. He
invites the Colossians to be concerned, not merely or firstly about earthly
things but, to seek the things that are above. This heavenly mindedness is not
to be understood as a form of inattentiveness about the things of this life. On
the contrary, because one is first concerned about heaven, it will drive and
motivate believers to put things in perspective. Believers will strive to live
a full earthly life, one moment of one day at a time. This kind of life means that
one is not obsessed or fixated on the future. Seeking the things above does not
mean reduction of the Christian hope to “a pie in the sky when you die”. It
means putting to death in oneself everything that is selfish and self-centred,
especially insatiability which reveals itself in making things ends in
themselves and giving things the status of a god. To seek the things above
means seeking Christ and his way of proceeding. His way of proceeding always
put the other before self. His way of
proceeding is always concerned to share, not only from one’s bounty but, even
from the little that one may have.
The
challenge of the readings of today is an enormous one. We live in a world in
which the larger majority live, not in the present or the now but mainly in the
future or the tomorrow. It is also a world in which “having more’ is the
criterion by which success and failure are defined and judged. The more one
has, the more successful one is regarded. Thus, there is in many, an obsession
to keep accumulating even at the expense and discomfort of others. These want
bigger homes, bigger cars, bigger anything and everything simply because they
have been taught to believe that bigger is always better. These are like the
fool in the first reading and in the Gospel of today who will not share their
bounty with anyone and who will never be satisfied, no matter how much they
accumulate. These die without ever having lived.
Yet,
there is also another way. Jesus has not only shown us this way, he is this
way. He is the way of selflessness, self-sacrifice, and living contentedly in
the present moment with no regrets about the past and no obsession with the
future. He is the way in which “being more” and spending oneself in the service
of others means more than egocentric, inconsiderate and uncaring living. He is
the way in which success and failure are measured, not in terms of how much one
possesses but in how much one dares to give away. He is the way which does not
die but lives forever.
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