Readings for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23 | Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11 | Luke 12:13-21
Life is not about possessions.
Often these days I reflect on how quickly time goes. It seems time has sped up since the birth of my two girls. Each day passes with greater swiftness. One day I am feeding them with bottles, and the next day I am preparing a plate of chicken and vegetables for them to eat on their own. Life comes and goes. To put it more spiritually, all things pass. Nothing lasts forever. Most major religions share this wisdom, and it is essential to today’s Gospel. We hear this message and instinctively recoil. We don’t want to think about nonexistence and death. Still, it is a fact of life. Accepting it represents a huge spiritual step forward.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites us to treasure what is real and lasting, not what is ephemeral and passing. He says to “be rich in what matters to God.” He seems to be saying a life lived on the surface, a superficial existence, is empty. He invites us to go deeper, to go within our souls to discover the Reality of God. But we just want to survive! Who doesn’t feel like this sometimes? There are moments when we’re just trying to make it through the day. Jesus, however, is telling us to thrive and not merely to survive. He is telling us to live in God’s Presence now. Heaven is not just after we die. It begins here and now.
Jesus says, “one’s life does not consist of possessions.” The amassing of wealth is not essential. We can’t take our wealth with us. Attachment to our possessions and wealth serves only to make us feel more secure. We feel this way when we spend more on the military, when we tell ourselves we need stronger borders, or when we talk about strengthening the economy. For Jesus, financial security should not be the central concern of one’s life. Money does not give life; capital does not save. The pharaohs’ tombs were filled with treasures, but they were dead! The security that wealth brings is a lie, an illusion. Jesus is clear on this. The rich man puts all his trust in his cultural symbols of security: bigger barns filled with a plentiful harvest. He then lives a superficial life. With all his wealth, the rich man proceeds to live vainly. He is completely blind. He does not realize all things pass away. He does not see the great majority of people in his time who are oppressed. He does not understand how God is within not only himself, but also within all things. This is the delusion of those who are rich then and those who are rich now.
Admittedly, most of us are privileged. We have resources most people on this planet do not have, nor can even access. Does our privilege keep us locked up in superficial lives of luxury and comfort? Do we see how others do not enjoy the privileges we have? Unlike the rich man Jesus calls us to see reality beyond our comfortable lives. God is here and now within us. Oppressed peoples all over the world suffer because of our hoarding. “Bigger barns” symbolize this hoarding instinct. We stockpile wealth, property, and food. We invest a great deal of resources in defense. Jesus rebukes this instinct because it characterizes a vain and empty life, which refuses to accept all things pass away.
The brothers who ask Jesus to settle their dispute at the beginning of the Gospel story are asking an inconsequential and ultimately distracting question. What does a legal dispute matter when all things are passing away? More to the point, what does it matter when God is within us here and now? Death has a way of reprioritizing lives. It can come when least expected. This is exactly what happens to the rich man.
Heaven is available now. God is within us at this very moment. And it has no monetary cost. There is no fee! All that is needed is to turn our attention within to know the Eternal Reality encompassing and embracing everything.