Have you checked your accounts lately? Your balance sheets? Are you operating in the red or the black?
Do you seek financial advice designed to boost your bottom line?
Perhaps it’s not a bad idea … after all, we should be prepared to provide for our loved ones and our neighbors as best that we can, both now and in the future.
Despite what some may think, having money and assets is not of itself an evil thing. We don’t sin when we get a bonus at work or win the lottery.
But as you might suspect, things get a little complicated when we start to seek out financial riches not for the sake of providing for others, but simply for the sake of having more – wanting more.
More, more, more.
Today’s Gospel should frighten all of us into examining our heart’s desires when it comes to seeking treasures here on earth.
Jesus says then (and now) …
“You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you.”
Yes … it will happen just like that. We may think we will have time to prepare … and some of us do. But even those who are gravely ill are not sure when death will come knocking on our door. It is not ours to know when …
And yet we spend so much time planning our futures and worrying about what’ going to happen tomorrow, next week, next year.
You could die today. So could I. So could the next person you see.
Life and death can be brutal.
“And the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”
The notion of building bigger barns or opening more bank accounts to help store the treasures … how silly, when you stop and consider the suddenness of death.
We should be storing treasures of love in our hearts, not money in the bank. Seek out what is pleasing to God, not what pleases us. Love, kindness, compassion, humility. The list goes on.
Spiritual Lives Matter.
Physical things don’t … no matter how much we think they do.
As the saying goes, you can’t take it with you.
“Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”
When death finally does come, there will be a separation – spiritual from physical. All those physical things we care about will remain here. Our souls, however, will move on …
The best way to prepare for that separation is to focus our lives on matters of the soul.
Certainly we can and should use our things … our money, cars, houses, tools … but use them wisely to help others and help God build his kingdom here on earth.
But don’t plan on having those things with us on our journey.
Only what we have in our souls will make that trip and, ultimately, help determine which way we go from here.
