Move from the Reign of Quantity to the Reign of Quality

11 Pentecost, Cp13,August 4, 2013  

Ecclesiastes 1:2,12-14;2:18-23  Psalm 107:1-9,43

Col. 3:1-11  Luke 12:13-21

Lectionary Link

    Carlos Slim Helu, Bill Gates, Armancia Ortega, Warren Buffett,  Larry Ellison, Charles Koch, David Koch, Li Ka-Shing, Liliane Bettancourt and Bernard Arnault.  These are the current top wealthiest persons on Forbes list of Billionaires.  It is a phenomenon to be impressed with quantity; the greatest number is a telling sign of importance and that is why I try to make reverse quantity work in my favor, as in, one who is missing most of his hair.  We have an official score card for quantity in all manner of things; the Guinness Book of World Records is a constantly being updated book of world records.

  We are very impressed with quantity when it comes to money and possessions.  We often worry about the quantity of our money and possessions.  We often live in the fear of lack and as a result we can practice hoarding.  But hoarding is really the financial virtue of savings and one can never have enough savings.  We save for the rainy day and if we don’t have rainy days to use up all of our savings before we die then it gets left to our survivors.

  Coupled with our Gospel lesson today we have the introduction of the book of Ecclesiastes with the famous phrase, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”  This expression was written by a wisdom writer in the Hebrew Scriptures.  One should really read Ecclesiastes to appreciate the variety of writing genres that are found in the Bible.  The writer of Ecclesiastes claims to be one who seeks wisdom; Ecclesiastes,  had the fortune of being very wealthy but came to realize that the one who was wealthy was equal in death to the one who poor because “you can’t take your wealth with you.”  You leave your wealth to be managed by those after you and you cannot guarantee how your wealth will be used after you are gone.  It often happens that one’s wealth leaves discord in a family after one is dead.  Heirs often disagree or lose their good relationships in the distribution of the one’s wealth.  Such was just another vanity of vanities for the writer of Ecclesiastes.

  The distribution of inheritance is the context for the Gospel parable of Jesus in today’s Gospel.  Jesus seems to be a bit different kind of wisdom teacher than the writer of Ecclesiastes.  The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote in small wisdom phrases, sometimes call Proverbs.  The book of Proverbs is from this wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures as well.  Jesus as a wisdom teacher was known both for his proverbs but also for the more indirect method of teaching in his use of parables.  The parable is a story.  A story is a an art form in language performance; a story employs the re-representation of some life events in time-lapse form so that an entire sequence of events is sped up because events of an actual past cannot be truly parallel with the time when the story is being told.

  A parable or story speeds up past time and the purpose of any story is to get people engage as if they were a part of the events of the story.  And as we hear a story we interact with the events of the story by making judgments upon the characters who are presented in the story.  And we may be drawn to a story for entertainment purposes and suddenly in the parable there is a “gotcha” moment.  Suddenly we are confronted with having made judgments on the characters in the story and the character turns out to be us.  A parable is not a frontal attack; it is an indirect attack, even a sneaky attack.

  "Jesus please be the arbitrator in our family inheritance dispute."  Jesus is the one who had no earthly wealth at all except the clothes on his back.  Jesus was not going to leave any property or money and he did not have any heirs in sons and daughters.  Jesus had no family and no money to leave anyone. And perhaps this would seem to make him the perfect person to arbitrate the family will.  When the worth of a departed loved one is reduced to the money that has been left, then the value of that person’s life has been minimized or missed or lost.

  The parable of Jesus was about how we assign or express the value of people in life.  What is my treasure?  What is my worth?  We are taught to regard personal value or worth in terms of dollars and cents or in terms of property that we own.  Yes, money and property can seem to be important treasures in our lives supporting the comfort levels of our lives.

  With his parable, Jesus confronted his listener about the tendency to measure the worth of life through the practice of greed.  Greed is the addiction to have more for the sheer purpose of having more.  Greed is to make the reign of quantity supreme.  I cannot rest unless I have more.  Quantity of money and property is what will allow me to rest and take my ease.  Quantity of money and property is my blessing and my heavenly rest.

  And then Jesus stated the ancient truth that was also stated in Ecclesiastes, “Sorry, but you  can’t take it with you.  You came into this world naked and you leave as dust.”  And once you’ve left this earth what is the quantity of your money and property going to do for you?  You cannot control it after you’ve gone.  Yes, there is the legal instrument of the Will; but if money and property is the only thing that you leave in this world, then you have no guarantees and final say.

  The issue in life about human worth is the issue of having treasure and wealth toward God.  Jesus had nothing but he has left endless wealth to everyone by the example of his life.  This is the kind of treasure and wealth that we need to be concerned about in our lives.  Can we live in such a way towards others that we create a domino effect of goodness that will truly ripple into the future forever?  A legacy of greed and hoarding can inspire future greed and hoarding as a devastating domino effect of sin and selfishness and  we already know this legacy in our world because of uneven distribution of the goods of this world.  The message of Jesus is to inspire us to counter the selfish hoarding syndrome that is so prominent in our world.

  We cannot avoid money and property in life even if we try to; so the issue is not really about the goodness or badness of money and property; the issue is about over-coming the reign of quantity in life with the reign of quality.  Life is not about having the most; life is about how we put together what we do have.

  How are we putting together what has been given to us in our lives?  How are we putting our community lives together?  How are we putting our families together?  How are we putting our parish life together?  Are we learning to let the reign of quality take over our lives.

  Money and property are nice; they are so easy to count.  But we can fool ourselves in thinking that we can quantify our value by such easy mathematics.  Quality cannot be so easily quantified.  How many tiny and small acts of kindness does a parent perform to add to the character of a child?  How many small acts of mentoring does a teacher perform to bring excellence to a student?  The love and care and concern with which we express our life gifts towards the people in our life cannot be quantified. But in our world where quantity is often regarded as being what is valued we are tempted to say, “What’s the use in bring quality to life?”

  The Gospel of Jesus for us today: Let us not be dominated by the reign of quantity in life in terms of money and property; let us enter the realm of the reign of quality and let us be rich toward God by placing ourselves in this tradition of the domino effect of the love and kindness of Jesus.  Amen.