You know the story.
He worked and worked, was busy and more busy, putting things off with his wife, with his children, with his friends and community, with his faith. He would get to all that later, when there was more time. Finally he had a more time, but the kids were grown and gone. They didn’t seem to have much interest in being with their father now.
He didn’t know his wife anymore. Finally it came time to retire and he could do all that he had put off and neglected, and he died the next day.
We all know different versions of that story, a fatal loss of perspective, a life not so much lived as just sort of visiting.
The book of Ecclesiastes, we hear from that writing this morning, a poetic essay of wisdom and folly. How do we live our days? What does it all add up to when we die? Usually a great deal of wasted time, missed opportunities, busy and worrying about the wrong things.
You know that saying about arguing over deck chairs on a sinking ship? That’s what Ecclesiastes says about how we live. The boat is sinking and we spend our last moments arguing, fighting and worrying over who gets the best seat. That is Ecclesiastes.
Sometime if you are wondering about the futility of existence, take 30 minutes and read this book. At first it will make things seem worse. It is sobering. Not quiet depressing, but sobering, a painful jolt. Most of life is futility, and we do almost anything to hide from that. So this book asks hard questions about how a life should be lived.
We all know the Charles Dickens story, A Christmas Carol, about Ebenezer Scrooge who was rich in money but poor in everything else. The ghost of his old business partner came to visit him, covered in chains, weighed down by all the money he used selfishly. He visits Scrooge to warn him not to fall into the same trap of eternity bound to chains, to change his ways before it is too late, and to tell him that he will be visited by three ghosts to convince him… this very night.
You know the story. It makes the rounds every Christmas. There are so many movie and TV versions of it. I like the one the Muppets did.
Rich in money but poor toward God, that’s how the parable in Luke’s Gospel puts it. In the parable of the Rich Fool the man had a tremendous surplus, and instead of sharing it he hoarded it, and then he was caught up short. His life ended. God called him a fool. He was rich in the wrong way. Rich in treasure put poor toward God.
Ecclesiastes finally concludes that everything is ultimately vanity, and chasing the wind, except the fear of the Lord.
What is the fear of the Lord?
What does it mean to be rich toward God?
The parable leaves us with a gut wrenching anxiety. That’s how parables work by the way, they leave us with a twist in our gut, and a question about what do we do?
What am I rich in?
Am I rich toward God?
Where is my time and attention and treasure buried? Where do I hoard it?
What kind of folly and vanity am I pursuing?
Parables are inherently anxiety producing.
We all have a terminal case of mortality.
I am going to die. You are going to die.
The saints have said over and over again to always hold our death before us. Classical paintings often have a human skull somewhere in the composition as a reminder of our terminal mortality.
St. Francis is one of those saints. We (will study him) (studied him) in Sunday School this morning. St. Francis tried to live in a way that was utterly exposed, powerless before the wills and whimsy of others and the randomness of life and nature, radically unprotected.
Wealth, possessions of all kinds have a way of possessing us. St. Francis tried to divest himself so that he was free to be generous, free to serve lepers, free to worship God. He was often called God’s fool. Exposed. Vulnerable.
St. Francis called death his sister, a close companion, family.
How do we cultivate the fear of the Lord?
How do we grow rich toward God?
In Luke’s Gospel he says over and over again that it is to pray, to practice hospitality that cross boundaries, to be generous beyond reason and to show mercy especially for the poor. It’s that simple. That is a life rich toward God in the Gospel according to Luke.
This might seem like folly to our culture which wants us preoccupied with consuming and accumulating, but the folly of the Cross of Christ shows us the wisdom of God.
At the cross God embraced our death, our folly, giving all that God may be rich toward us. The cross as not only the example but also the power that gives life, that liberates.
How do we grow rich toward the cross? The cross that exposes our deadliness while at the same time invigorates our liveliness.
Rich in treasure?
Or rich toward God?
A rich fool?
Or God’s fool?
That is the question Jesus’ parable asks of us.
This day, what will it be?
Every day, we must ask ourselves which will it be?
Chasing the wind?
Or being consumed by mercy?