First Reading Leviticus 25:1-17
Second Reading James 1:2-8, 16-18
Luke 12:13-21
13Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”‘ 20But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
In a way we always live under that sentence—“you fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” A pandemic puts the fragility of life into stark relief. All of a sudden the things that we thought were so important—the goals, the plans, the things, bigger barns—appear as they truly are: inconsequential next to the thing that matters most. We work for what we want, which, if we thought about it, might not be all that important. God wants us to have a life instead. Why would we settle for anything less?
Lord, it is enough. We thank you for your love and grace that is with us every day of our lives. Keep us in the way Christ leads, to find our way to life in you. We pray through Christ. Amen.
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