Sunday Reflections
You will leave the world with nothing
- 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”(Lk12:13-21). Taken from today’s gospel for Sunday week 18 of year C.
- The wiseman in today’s first reading from the book of Ecclesiastes ( 1:2; 2:21-23) decried the lot of humans who have to labour all their life time in acquiring material and immaterial things only to die and leave the things behind for the enjoyment of those who did not labour for them. He described all as vanity. He is of the view that man should wisely spend his days and accept only reasonable struggles because no matter what he acquires he will end with dead carrying him off one day.
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The gospel try to domesticate the advice of the wiseman by telling the parable of a rich selfish man. The man had abundant harvest and his only worry was on how best to enjoy his riches. He decided to stock everything securely and spend the rest of life in merriment. God decided to call him from life the very day that he concluded his plans. He called him a fool for thinking only about his own comfort in a world filled so many miserable persons.
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Does the sudden death of the rich man mean that we should not acquire riches? Does it mean that it is foolish to plan for the future? The answer is no. We must work hard to have a good life for ourselves and others who depend on us. However, we must not forgot the demands of the commandments of God to care for the poor and the needy. We must not forget that are life on earth is the preparatory ground for our eternity. The success of this phase depends on our closeness to God and other people. This was the understanding that the rich man lacked.
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We must live like pilgrims on earth and not forget that a day that we do not know is already scheduled for our death. When that day comes we must leave behind every finished and unfinished project. Above all, we must only leave with the good deeds we have done for others and carry the load of the good we failed to do. If we are conscious of this we will quickly understand the stupidity of hoarding riches, cheating others and executing substandard projects in order to maximize profit. We will quickly understand why fraud is a madness. We will understand why corruption is not beneficial to anyone. We will understand that what we give to others are the only things that we cannot lose and that what we keep behind is already lost.
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Today’s gospel invites you to include others in your plan of comfort when God blesses you. It challenges you not to hoard the goods of life beyond your needs and those of your dependants. Remember that you came into the world naked and with nothing and must leave it the way you entered into it. Learn from the wiseman that vanity of vanity, all is vanity except the love of God and service to humanity.©Vita, 31/07/22.
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