8 Pentecost, Cp13,August 4, 2019
Ecclesiastes 1:2,12-14;2:18-23 Psalm 107:1-9,43
Col. 3:1-11 Luke 12:13-21
One of my favorite skeptics is the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes. He seems to be one who had the resources in life to make a grand experiment and concludes that life is not all that it seems to be, especially if you think that being or existence is having things.
Each person in life has the main longevity question: How long will I live? And when the longevity issue hangs over one's head the question becomes what do I do in the years of the life which I have. One cannot be sure that the writer of Ecclesiastes believed that one could "have" eternal or everlasting life. Perhaps for the writer, immortality was connected to the traces of oneself that one would leave in this world after one died. One's immortality was objectified by the traces of oneself in one's offspring and in the possessions that one had accrued.
The teacher of Ecclesiastes was a skeptic about the value of leaving possession behind for one's heir. Who would know whether they would use them well, squander them or bankrupt their lives with being "born on third base and believing that one had hit a triple."
The teacher of Ecclesiastes did not think that "having" was "being" and even though we say that we "have life," existence itself cannot be a self controlled personal possession.
Probably the hidden message of Ecclesiastes is that Someone greater has us and if we are owned by the Great One who endures and lives longer than anyone to be the true possessor of all things, then we should aspire to learn the rules, the laws of the Great One and adopt the attitude of the kind of fear for such a being, that is known as profound respect or learning to live with awe before the Awesome One.
And if the teacher of Ecclesiastes tells us that we "can't take it with us," how should we then live? We should live as though we are a personal possession of the enduring One who truly can make the claim to have everything. What can one give as a gift to the One who has everything? Awesome respect, ultimate regard, worshipful living.
Awesome respect for God and ultimate regard for God and worshipful living toward God, in short, loving God, is how Jesus taught we could be rich toward God.
In the metrics of the external world we have come to determine the value of our life by how much we possess. Who are the famous people of the world? The ones who can buy their fame by what they possess through wealth, power and education. Everyone seems to want the metrics of possessing success. We are what we have can be the temptation for what self worth means.
The parable which Jesus told emphasizes that no one has the ultimate metric of longevity. No one is everlasting like God is everlasting.
We can build our bank accounts, our educational degrees, our possession of homes and lands and businesses; we can pile up honorific titles and political positions but death, sudden death will end our possession resumes. And the questions become: What do we want to leave objectively in our world after we die? And how do we want to enter the mode of God's preservation of us when we die?
Injustice and uneven distribution of the goodness in life inspires the notion of posthumous liminal phases of equalization for the dignity of all people. How do we want to enter the liminal phase of post-life? In need of serious rehabilitation because of the selfish havoc that we have reeked in the wave of possessing without sharing purposes?
If God is the only one who is truly great enough to possess all because of divine eternality, then it behooves us to live not has possessors of our lives, but as good stewards of everything in our life on behalf of God.
Today the Gospel of Jesus invites us to some conversion. It is no longer, "I have, therefore I exist," but rather "God has me, therefore I exists for God." Jesus came to teach us this lesson of learning to be loving heirs and sons and daughters of God. Amen.
Each person in life has the main longevity question: How long will I live? And when the longevity issue hangs over one's head the question becomes what do I do in the years of the life which I have. One cannot be sure that the writer of Ecclesiastes believed that one could "have" eternal or everlasting life. Perhaps for the writer, immortality was connected to the traces of oneself that one would leave in this world after one died. One's immortality was objectified by the traces of oneself in one's offspring and in the possessions that one had accrued.
The teacher of Ecclesiastes was a skeptic about the value of leaving possession behind for one's heir. Who would know whether they would use them well, squander them or bankrupt their lives with being "born on third base and believing that one had hit a triple."
The teacher of Ecclesiastes did not think that "having" was "being" and even though we say that we "have life," existence itself cannot be a self controlled personal possession.
Probably the hidden message of Ecclesiastes is that Someone greater has us and if we are owned by the Great One who endures and lives longer than anyone to be the true possessor of all things, then we should aspire to learn the rules, the laws of the Great One and adopt the attitude of the kind of fear for such a being, that is known as profound respect or learning to live with awe before the Awesome One.
And if the teacher of Ecclesiastes tells us that we "can't take it with us," how should we then live? We should live as though we are a personal possession of the enduring One who truly can make the claim to have everything. What can one give as a gift to the One who has everything? Awesome respect, ultimate regard, worshipful living.
Awesome respect for God and ultimate regard for God and worshipful living toward God, in short, loving God, is how Jesus taught we could be rich toward God.
In the metrics of the external world we have come to determine the value of our life by how much we possess. Who are the famous people of the world? The ones who can buy their fame by what they possess through wealth, power and education. Everyone seems to want the metrics of possessing success. We are what we have can be the temptation for what self worth means.
The parable which Jesus told emphasizes that no one has the ultimate metric of longevity. No one is everlasting like God is everlasting.
We can build our bank accounts, our educational degrees, our possession of homes and lands and businesses; we can pile up honorific titles and political positions but death, sudden death will end our possession resumes. And the questions become: What do we want to leave objectively in our world after we die? And how do we want to enter the mode of God's preservation of us when we die?
Injustice and uneven distribution of the goodness in life inspires the notion of posthumous liminal phases of equalization for the dignity of all people. How do we want to enter the liminal phase of post-life? In need of serious rehabilitation because of the selfish havoc that we have reeked in the wave of possessing without sharing purposes?
If God is the only one who is truly great enough to possess all because of divine eternality, then it behooves us to live not has possessors of our lives, but as good stewards of everything in our life on behalf of God.
Today the Gospel of Jesus invites us to some conversion. It is no longer, "I have, therefore I exist," but rather "God has me, therefore I exists for God." Jesus came to teach us this lesson of learning to be loving heirs and sons and daughters of God. Amen.
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