The Man Who Hoards (L’homme qui thésaurise), James Tissot 1886-1894, Brooklyn Museum, New York City, USA.

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[The rich man said to himself] “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…..”

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This Sunday’s readings seem to want to pull us into big-time reality. The very famous first line of the first reading seems to sum up what is to come: Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities!  All things are vanity! When looking at a word you do not encounter every day – “vain” in this case – I find it almost always a good idea to return to the roots of the word. And behold, vain comes to us ultimately from the Latin word “vanus” which means “empty” in the sense of “without substance”. And there is the foundation of today’s readings. And to say all is vanity at least challenges us to come up with a counter argument, unless one agrees with it of course. I happen not to. I think Qoheleth might be wrong! Qoheleth, by the way, is a not the name of a person, but rather a profession. It means “preacher” or “teacher” or “collector of sayings”. So I think it can rightly be called an opinion rather than a statement of fact. After all, preachers can be wrong (!). But this is not to suggest that this saying is completely wrong; it might be right on target when dealing with certain individuals. Do you know someone whose life seems to be focused on money, on gathering as many material things as possible, having more of everything compared to others? I remember knowing a married couple years ago whose lives seemed to be totally fixated on possessions. In a word, it was creepy. Perhaps Qoheleth was right in such a case. “All things are vanity” might bring us closer to the truth of the matter. So what springs from that insight? Perhaps in each life, what is really important lies elsewhere, and not in “things”. That is certainly to be found in today’s gospel. Here a man in the crowd shouted to Jesus apparently about a dispute with his brother, perhaps after the death of a parent. He asked Jesus to intervene in a dispute over the inheritance, something that Jesus was not prepared to do! Instead Jesus took the opportunity to focus on something supremely wider, more important than possessions, hence the picture and quote above.

Ecclesiastes, New Life Presbytarian Church, Tifton, Georgia, USA.

Jesus points to the ultimate reality of life and death. Is our life directed to the ultimate or to the things that do not last? And he says clearly and without hesitation that one’s life does not consist of possessions. Yes we need essential “things” to keep us going, to ensure that we remain strong and healthy so we are able to praise God, and fulfill our destiny as children of God. But if we move up or down beyond that, we enter either the domaine of the saints or of the sinners! And it is so much easier to identify with the sinners, and become the materialistic individual we see constantly on the TV commercials, praised as “happy” and “contented” and “satisfied”, glowing smiles everywhere, because of what they have bought (and what we too might strongly desire but might be beyond our means). It would be much better to bewail our unhappiness over the starvation or war or evils being reported on TV daily alongside the commercials, and try to figure out how we can lessen the suffering we see there. And remember we are not being asked to embrace poverty unless it is our own decision. Some are called to that; the majority, not. But we certainly are called to lessen suffering as much as our means allow.

We need look no further than the city of those people to whom Paul wrote, Colossae. That used to be located on an important trade route in what is now Asia Minor in Turkey. There is almost nothing left of it as the trade route shifted. It is unexcavated and probably has sheep grazing where a once proud city stood. Quoheleth is certainly correct there! Certainly ruins must lie there, and Colossae is certainly dead, if not forgotten. However, the Colossians, if they heeded Paul, are singing right now in the halls of heaven, happy and fulfilled! As he said, “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”. And that just about sums it up.

Site of the City of Colossae, Turkey.

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Reflections on next Sunday’s Mass Readings will be posted on Wednesday.

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