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.”
It was a simple text message I received this last week from a couple I’ve known for over 40 years. It said, “I have sad news, Martin died in his sleep last night. Pray for him.” I was utterly shocked since I had just had lunch with this couple last year and he was in perfect health. His wife, Marianne, a woman of deep faith, understandably devastated at this completely unexpected death, accepted this moment with characteristic surrender to the loving will of God. I don’t know if I would be so accepting.
Brothers and sisters, so much of our life’s preoccupations are concerned with things that from eternity’s perspective are of little worth or consequence. There’s so much wisdom in the words of the first lesson in today’s Eucharist from Ecclesiastes:
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
From God’s perspective there is only thing that is necessary in life’s pilgrimage and that is following the roadmap that St. Paul gives to the early Christians in Colossae where he reminds them that they have been ‘raised with Christ’ and are therefore challenged to ‘seek the things that are above.’ He then gives a litany of very practical behaviors for one who is privileged to bear the name of Christ if they wish to gain the eternal reward of heaven:
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Stop lying to one another,
since you have taken off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self…
Buried within this list is the simple admonition to stop lying to one another! Friends, the daughters and sons of the Father are called to live daily in the truth. We are to shun the one who is called ‘the father of lies’ so that we can let the truth shine forth in our lives.
And what is that truth? It is the profound reality that you and I have no earthly city here. Rather, we are all immigrants yearning for our true homeland that is in heaven with all the holy ones who have gone before us.
It is this reality that should be uppermost in our minds rather than ‘storing up treasures for ourselves.’ Rather, each day that is before us is an opportunity to grow rich in what matters to God. Friends, that is not vanity but rather eternal wisdom!