Note: the word "fool" here is not "more," the word the Lord uses in Matthew when he says, "Whoever calls his brother 'fool' shall be liable to hell fire." The word here is "aphron," which means more literally, "unthinking."
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“You fool.” They were probably the last two words he ever
expected to hear of himself. He was careful with his assets, crafty in his
dealings. At a time when few could consider retirement, he had arrived. He told
himself, “Soul, take your rest; you have goods laid up for many years. Eat,
drink, be merry.” He had climbed the ladder of success, and was about to reach
its top.
But just there was the problem. He had climbed the wrong
ladder. And now he heard God’s judgment: “You fool! This night your soul will
be required of you; and who will enjoy all the things you have gained?” Then
the Lord concludes, “So is he who lays up treasures for himself, and is not
rich toward God.”
It would be easy to read these words and see them
applying to someone else—a Donald Trump, say, or a Bill Gates. They, after all,
have lots of money. Like the man in today’s story, they’ve reached the heights
of the ladder of success.
But the Lord does not condemn the rich man because he
reached the top of the ladder. He condemns the rich man because he climbed the
wrong ladder. And whether our bank account is full or we struggle to make the
next paycheck, we’re all alike in danger of that same condemnation if we’re
climbing that same ladder.
How can you tell if you’re on that ladder? Listen to what
the rich man said. “Soul, take your rest; you have goods for many years.” He
thought his life consisted in his possessions. Do we?
Do we feel more secure when our bank balance is higher,
and less alive when it’s not? Do we think, “If only I could gather more, then I could really live?” Are we elated
when stocks rise, and depressed when they fall? Those are warning signs, my
friends. They suggest that we might be climbing the wrong ladder. We’re not
thinking right if we think that life is something yet to come.
Moses says that we are like grass. Grass is beautiful,
but it lasts only a day. “In the morning it flourishes and grows up; In the
evening it is cut down and withers.” The fact is, tomorrow never comes. You and I are
alive but one day: today. Let us not be always getting ready to live, and never
living.
When
we lived in Canada we had a landlord named N___ P_____. We told him what a
beautiful house it was we were renting, and he told us his story. He had
married a nurse. They planned to work full time and pay off the house early, so
that they could retire early and enjoy life. Then she got breast cancer, and
died. “Don’t put off your life together!” he told Cindy and me. To live in the
future is not to live at all.
The man also thought that he was master of his
possessions. They were his, and he could do with them what he wanted. And they were his—but he was God’s! He didn’t own himself.
We
may say that we own things, but we really don’t. What we call “owning” is just
the right to use them as we see fit. God puts his things into our hands,
and gives us more than we need, so that he can test us. They don’t belong to us. They, and we, belong to God.
The
holy fathers teach us that we make progress in the path of holiness when we
keep two things in remembrance: death, and God. Those thoughts are like the
guardrails that keep us on the path. When we remember death, we learn to humble our pride; when we remember God, we learn not to despair.
For
the God we remember is the God who spoke these words: enfleshed God, our Lord
Jesus Christ. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, “You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ who, though he was rich, yet for your sake became poor, so that by
his poverty you might become rich.” He
emptied himself to fill us; he bore our sins to redeem us; he endured the
cursed death of the cross that he might freely give us the blessed life of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Beloved,
the tasks God sets out for this parish are great. None of them can be done if
we climb the wrong ladder. They can only happen if we give up trying to be rich
for ourselves, and learn, as Christ calls us to learn in this text, to be rich toward God.
