The Psalm Verse for today is: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”. This is a good phrase to base my life on, if I am willing and open to take seriously, and allow it to have an impact on my day. It is also a good way to look at today’s readings. The Gospel Story (Luke 12:13-21) is a parable of a rich man and his attachment to his many possessions. The parable says he is going to die that night, and what about all his possessions? He can’t take his stuff with him.The majority report sees this parable as a warning not to get too wrapped up in our money and “stuff”.
The minority report can be as specific as I am willing to let it, and it can be unpleasant and challenging. There is a line in the parable that really struck me like a HEAT (High Explosive Anti Tank) round — a round so powerful that it penetrates tank armor: “You fool, this very night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”. This really speaks to me, and not in any theoretical sense. There are the constant physical reminders of what is going on and where I am headed, the limitations of what I can do, which at times are humbling. While they are unpleasant and physically uncomfortable, they always bring with them a sense of peace, wonder, and often a subtly new or different way of looking at every day, as well as unexpected opportunities to do some good, for which I am most grateful. The limitations, humbling as they may be, are reminders of a lot that I can’t really put into words. I wouldn’t change a thing. I am most grateful for my heart attack in the car experience a few years back. I’m still trying to figure out what other all means. But it still impacts every day. I know I am not alone.
I have a lot of “things” that are important to me, but not to anybody else, things I acquired while on active duty. When I retired from the Army I was living in a 7 room house. Before my move I got rid of 5 rooms down in Georgia. When I moved into my retirement apartment, I had to get rid of 2 more rooms. I still have a lot to find homes for. Before my last evenI I had just bought a new car. In the hospital I remember thinking, “I wonder who I bought the car for?”. It is not easy, as we all know. Fortunately there are occasions of humor. It’s not all doom and gloom, In fact I haven’t found any doom and gloom, just a lot of excitement.
What is a lot harder than material things is looking at my way of living, of thinking, of interacting with folks every day, deciding what has to go. What excess junk do I have? My own way of thinking, believing, treating folks whose only “fault” is they are not as I think they should be. This has to stop. Every person I my life is a gift to me as I am to them. The wrapping hides their goodness, their unique reflection of Abba loving me through them, as my wrapping hides Abba loving them through me. I can do something about my wrapping, and begin by knowing it is there.
“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”. The Spirit speaks to us in everything, and everything that happens somehow is of Abba. Hardened hearts are painfully everywhere. The smaller my world gets, the bigger the “little things” become, eg unpleasant uncertainties where I live, really good people working hard to do what they think is right, and hurting and paying the price for their caring, while they do it. People on all sides are feeling ignored and taken for granted. The easy way to deal with the stuff is to blame somebody: authority, mis-management, food services, far away headquarters. If I can blame somebody for what I don’t like, I don’t have to do anything myself. I can be just “poor me”. My heart was hardened for many years, so I know what it’s like from the inside. I blamed everybody else for everything. A terrible way to live, but I didn’t know any better. I find the Welcome Prayer to be a great gift. It offers a perspective that helps me live in whatever is going on: “By your grace I welcome everything that is coming into my life today because it is of you, and I let go of my desire for security, approval, and esteem”. Letting go of all this is a liberating experience. No matter what is going on around me, I have to keep asking, “Abba, I know you are in this somehow, are you saying something to me, is there something you are asking me to do?”. I don’t ever want to go back to a hardened heart. Where I live is Catholic-oriented. Might we make the effort to hear these words ourselves:“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”, and ask what is Abba saying to us on all this? Perhaps some prayer of sorts. Finger pointing, scapegoating, hardened hearts do no good. We are exactly where we need to be for Abba to be with us and in our every day living. And we are all in this together.
There are terrible things happening in our country and around the world that there is little I can do about: Ukraine, Gaza, the way my country treats immigrants and rips families and lives apart, the deterioration of our national values. All these I lift up in prayer. Not sure what good, if any, this does. There is a lot of suffering close to home: the recent ambush of our local police officers, joblessness, homelessness, trafficking, violence, economy, etc. Religion is not a matter of morality, a series of rules that we have to keep or else. It is a relationship of love with the Person Jesus Christ, something that is deeply personal. This past week Pope Leo told the young people gathered in Rome, “We have a duty to work together to develop a way of thinking, to develop a language of our time, that gives voice to Love”. It’s not a matter of “proving” anything. It is allowing Jesus Christ to speak to our hearts in the ordinary affairs of every day living, being willing to listen to what he has to say in our life. So often Abba does things in our life through other people, and does things in others’ life through us. Abba is a person, a verb, a dynamic living relationship that becomes as real to me as I let it. I don’t need to “build barns” for my stuff, my ideas and ways of thinking. I don’t need to build walls to protect me from people or ideas that I don’t understand and so am afraid of. I need to carry a light ruck, but not a shammer’s ruck, to be aware of and accept my own often strange questions. and go where they take me, while not imposing them on anybody else. Just sayin . . .