Sunday August 4th 2019
18th Sunday Ordinary Time (Cycle C)
What’s it all about?
The tie in between
today’s readings: Meaningful living
“Vanity of vanities!
All is vanity.” Sounds like a sound bite on an HGTV bathroom show, but no. It’s
the lead off to the most depressing book of the Bible: Ecclesiastics. In our chapter
two reading for example, our “what’s the use king” Solomon bemoans the fact
that you can’t take it with you. In the end you die and the fruits of your labor
go to someone else. Chapter after chapter, the book drones on in existential
fashion as it expounds the useless futility of living. But hold on! Our Prozac
monarch doesn’t off himself in a final exclamation point. He discovers four
principles to make life worth living or at least bearable, which I will share
at the end of this essay. So put the top back on that bottle of pills and turn
off the gas! There’s a real light at the end of the tunnel and His name is
Jesus.
The problem
presented in our readings today is how to live our short lives knowing that
troubles are common and death can surprise us at anytime. Psalm 90 recognizes
the brevity of life and asks God to give a proper perspective to live it. The
Psalmist asks to have the joy of the Lord in the sorrows, to give faith that
will pass on to the next generation and for a secure future for all. The key
here is that he goes to the Lord to make sense of our short time here on earth.
We truly live when we value a relationship with God. He offers us His security,
sufficiency, and satisfaction. The alternative is going our own way on an
aimless voyage, floating on a senseless sea, without a compass. Seek God first.
He will be that friend that sticks closer than a brother. Be rich toward Him
and he will make you a treasure to others. That’s a life worth living.
The characters in
Luke 12:13-21, like most people, ignore death and focus on temporal things. In
verses 13-15, we have two brothers squabbling over the family inheritance. Did
you catch that? Inheritance! At least one person has recently passed with
apparently little impact on the short sighted siblings who value possessions
over each other. Jesus leverages this into a teaching moment with the parable
of the Rich Fool. We wish we had this guy’s problem. He has to figure out what
to do with the windfall that has dropped into his lap. Not to worry, he quickly
comes up with the solution and a retirement plan to boot. Then he suddenly dies
and someone else gets the loot, probably the aforementioned quarrelling
brothers. The neighbors gather at his funeral and say, “What a shame, just when
he was starting to live.” From the Almighty’s point of view, he never lived a
day in his life. Instead of being focused toward God, he was self centered. He
loved his life in this world and so lost it for eternity. Jesus said, “Store up
for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matt 6:20). He didn’t. “Whoever wants to save their life will lose
it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matt 16:25). Failed
there too! Who or what has the hold on your life?
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So what’s the secret
of living in this world? Live your life with eternity in mind. Die now and move
on ahead! In Galatians 2:20, Paul writes: “I have been crucified with Christ
and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I
live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” In
Ephesians 2:6, we read: “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in
the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” So we have died in Christ by faith and
are in heaven with Jesus...but not yet. Live down here like you’re there
already.
We’ll tie Solomon’s
principles for living in Ecclesiastes along with today’s reading in Colossians
3:1-11 to get a better handle on what the wisest man who ever lived has to say.
Principle #1 Life is
a school; learn your lessons. Therefore
if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ
is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on
the things that are on the earth (Col 3:1-2).
Principle #2 Life is
a gift; enjoy it. Life in Christ is the Father’s gift to us and there is glory
to come. For you have died and your life
is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then
you will also be revealed with Him in glory (Col 3:3-4).
Principle #3 Life is
a stewardship; God will demand an accounting. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amount to
idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come
upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were
living in them. But now you also put them aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander,
and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid
aside the old self with its evil practices (Col 3:5-9).
Principle #4 Life is
an adventure; live by faith. Put on the
new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the
One who created him- a renewal in which Christ is all and in all (Col 3:10-11).
The Lord God
Almighty knows your situation. He knows that you are born to trouble as surely
as sparks fly upward (Job 5:7). Here on earth you will have many trials and
tragedies (John 16:33). But happiness does not come from a lack of
difficulties, but in the triumph over them and you don’t have to go it alone.
Hear what Jesus Christ, the man of sorrows has to say. “I have told you these
things, so that you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulations.
But be of good cheer! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). So take heart!
Take Jesus, the light at the end of your tunnel, and hope for years to come!
And remember this too...life can be good if you let it be!
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