8th Sunday after Pentecost

August 4, 2019

“’25,550’ or ‘Flowers Never Bend’”

St. Luke 12:13-21

Life does not consist of the abundance of possessions. 

                                                St. Luke 12:15

25,550 or ‘Flowers Never Bend’ is an intriguing title.  But this title is an entry point into the gospel reading about the Rich Fool.

25,550 is a number.  You could buy a decent car for $25,550.  The same amount might even get you through two years at Rock Valley College or one year at a private college.  It is a little more than a year’s minimum wage.

 

25,550 is a number.  It is the number of days most people have to live.  It is 70 years’ worth of days.  People are living longer so consider those bonus days – the countdown has begun.

‘Flowers Never Bend’ – Flowers never bend with the rainfall is a line from a Paul Simon Song some of which goes like this:

"Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall"

Through the corridors of sleep
Past the shadows dark and deep
My mind dances and leaps in confusion.
I don't know what is real,
I can't touch what I feel
And I hide behind the shield of my illusion.

So I'll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end,
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall….

It's no matter if you're born
To play the King or pawn
For the line is thinly drawn 'tween joy and sorrow,
So my fantasy
Becomes reality,
And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow.

So I'll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end,
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall.

25,550 days not a lot of time! Yet we live with the illusion that our days are not numbered, that we have all the time in the world.  We live with illusions that our lives will never end and that flowers never bend with the rainfall.

The Rich Fool in the parable is living an illusion.  The illusion it that life revolves around him.  The fool has not numbered his days.  He lives as though life will never end and flowers never bend with the rainfall. 

It is the ‘Me, Myself, and I’ illusion.  It is the illusion of self-aggrandizement.  He believes that he built it.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his sermon "Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool," preached:

"There are a lot of fools around. Because they fail to realize their dependence on others. Finally, this man was a fool because he failed to realize his dependence on God. Do you know that man talked like he regulated the seasons? That man talked like he gave the rain to grapple with the fertility of the soil. That man talked like he provided the dew. He was a fool because he ended up acting like he was the Creator, instead of a creature. And this man-centered foolishness is still alive today."

[Source:  Sundays and Seasons – Year C – 2013, page 235]

In the parable ‘The Rich Fool’ was successful because he inherited land from his father.  The roads that got him to and fro on his land were built by common laborers.  The silos that contained his wealth came from bricks and mortar brought in by beasts of burden.  When he assumes:  “I built it – I built this business” he is living an illusion.  He did not build it without depending on others to create a system of commerce.

The Rich Fool is self-centered and blind to his interdependence and the grace that surrounds him.

Are there ways in which people today continue in their self-centeredness and fail to realize both their dependence on others and their ultimate dependence upon God?

Jesuit Priest and Spiritual Writer, Anthony DeMello tells this story:

  

“A miser had accumulated five hundred thousand dinars (pronounced dih-nahr: Middle Eastern coinage) and looked forward to a year of pleasant living before he made up his mind how best to invest his money, when suddenly the Angel of Death appeared before him to take his life away.

The man begged and pleaded and used a thousand arguments to be allowed to live a little longer, but the angel was obdurate. "Give me three days of life and I shall give you half my fortune," the man pleaded. The angel wouldn't hear of it and began to tug at him.

"Give me just one day, I beg of you, and you can have everything I accumulated through so much sweat and toil."

The angel was adamant still.

He was able to wring just one little concession from the angel—a few moments in which to write down this note:

"Oh you, whoever you are that happen to find this note, if you have enough to live on, don't waste your life accumulating fortunes. Live!

My five hundred thousand dinars could not buy me a single hour of life!"

[Source: The Heart of the Enlightened – Anthony DeMello, S.J., page 23]

25,550 – flowers never bend with the rainfall.  Our days are numbered and flowers do bend with the rainfall.  So how are we to live?

Jesus teaches that we are to live ‘rich toward God.’  That does not mean we do not look ahead or save for the future.  After all we see how Joseph of the Old Testament aided the future of Egypt by accumulating grains during the seven years of abundance to prepare for the seven years of famine.  Note that what he did aided people.

How are we to live those 25,550 days?  Without the illusion that flowers never bend and selflessly savoring our days – in other words live life ‘rich towards God.’

This summer we are emphasizing Jesus according to St. Luke.  The Lukan Jesus teaches us what ‘being rich toward God means.  Being rich toward God means using our resources for the benefit of others – like the Good Samaritan in the parable we heard just several weeks ago.  In that story the Samaritan paid for the victims stay at the inn and offered to come back and pay more if necessary.

St. Luke tells us that being rich toward God means intentionally listening to the teachings of Jesus as Mary did in the Mary and Martha incident related in Luke.  Martha is distracted by many things.  Mary sits at the feet of Jesus open to his every word.

Being rich toward God means prayerfully trusting that God will indeed provide for the needs of life as we participate in the presence of Christ among us in relatives, friends, neighbors and even strangers.

Being rich towards God involves selling possessions and giving alms so that others may be fed and sheltered and cared for.

Christianity is not just a set of propositions about Jesus or a nice religious club that gathers on Sunday mornings for fellowship.  No, Christianity is an orientation to life.  In other words the way of Christ is a way centered in God.  Our faith is a constant striving for God’s realm. 

Jesus explains this orientation and way of life several chapters before this parable of the Rich Fool.  In chapter 9 of St. Luke, Christ teaches:

23 Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. 25 What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?

The Christian life is a cruciform life – it takes the form of a cross: in ‘losing life’ we find genuine life – in letting go we take hold of a new life.

25,550 - time is running short and flowers do bend with the rainfall. 

Is it time for a reorientation in our lives and in the life of our church?  Amen.

May be quoted with permission.

kennstorck@gmail.com