7/31/2016 – 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23, Luke12: 13-21

      It is hard to believe, but this summer marks 19 years since Princess Diana of England was killed in a tragic car accident in a tunnel in the city of Paris.  Not only being a glamorous princess, Princess Diana earned the love, respect, and admiration of many throughout the world for her charity work and for the way she reached out to many of the poor and oppressed of the world in great love and compassion. More than 2.5 billion people around the world watched her funeral on TV in 1997.  Her friend, English singer Elton John, brought tears to the eyes of many when he sang his song “Candle in the Wind” at her funeral.   Yes, the flame of a candle can go out so easily with the blow of wind.

And our life here on earth can seem as fragile. We can live to an old age, or we can die when we are young, but all of us will die one day when our earthly lives will come to an end. 

     The strong words from Ecclesiastes really gets our attention this morning: “Vanity of vanities!  All things are vanity!”   These thought-provoking words seem on the surface to be very pessimistic and cynical, but what do they really mean?   The Hebrew word “hebel” that is translated into the English word “vanity”, is the Hebrew word for breath or, more specifically, for the fleeting vapor that we see when we breathe into the cold air.  The author of Ecclesiastes is telling us that life can be like a fleeting breath: filled with emptiness and futility.  We human beings often attach ourselves to material things, thinking that these things will make us more secure or more appealing, thinking that these material things will satisfy our desires and our needs and make us feel like we having meaning in life.  Often these things just leave us empty and wanting more, especially when we compare them to God and to the eternal life of God’s kingdom. We definitely don’t start out with a comforting message in our readings this morning, but rather it is a message that calls us to reflect upon life and our earthly existence.

      We know that giving thanks and expressing gratitude to God is not only an important part of our Christian faith, but gratitude and thanksgiving are important parts of our secular world as well.  Think of how the holiday of Thanksgiving is such an important part of the fabric of our American society.  And saying thank you to someone is one of the first things we learn to do as a child.   In the Gospel today, there is a rich man who is blessed with a bountiful harvest.   This rich man’s Jewish tradition would call upon him to give thanks to the Lord in the form of prayers, fasting, and almsgiving.  But instead, this rich man hoards his riches, sharing them neither with God nor with his fellow brothers and sisters.  Instead, he plans to enjoy himself, to “eat, drink, and be merry”.   Jesus calls this man foolish because he puts all his trust and values in the material things in the world, not in God.   The rich man is unable to see beyond himself, being selfish to his very core.  The rich man gave no thought to the poor and the hungry.  He did not think about the laborers who brought in the harvest for him.  He feels no responsibility to share his blessings with them.   The foolish man is perhaps exemplified by this Roman proverb: “Money is like sea water; the more a man drinks the thirstier he becomes.” 

       We contrast this rich man in the Gospel who was so self centered and so tied to the materialism of the world to the poor, humble French priest, Father Jacques Hamel, who was martyred last week in Normandy in France by two men who claimed to be militants with Islamic State.  Father Hamel, who was 86 years old, was still very active in his ministry, having served 58 years as a priest.  In contrast to the bitterness, anger, and hatred in the hearts of these terrorists who act out so violently against their fellow human beings, Father Hamel had this to say in a recent parish letter: “Let us hear the invitation of God to care for the world, to make the world we live in a warmer, more friendly, more human and fraternal place.”  What a wonderful, faith-filled outlook on life Father Hamel must have had.  Ironically, Father Hamel was martyred just outside the city of Rouen, the same city where seven centuries ago a young woman named Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, declared a heretic. Just 25 years after her death, Joan of Arc was declared a martyr of the faith and innocent of heresy.  She is now a beloved saint in our Catholic faith.

      In our life of faith, in our participation and membership in a parish, we can easily get distracted by vanities as well.  That can really hold us back in our journey of faith, because our relationship with our community of faith is so important to that journey.  Recently, a friend sent me an article entitled:  “5 ways to be unsatisfied with your church.”  It was written by a Protestant pastor, but I saw a lot of parallels with what happens in our Catholic parishes.  The first thing the author cited was having an attitude of consumerism, rather than the desire to truly participate and engage.  It seems like the consumeristic culture of our modern world has tried to take over almost every facet of our society.  We want the latest technology in our cars and in our homes.  We go to a movie theater expecting wide rows and extra padded seats that lean way back.  We come to church, and a lot of us have the same attitude.   Just like when a movie starts in the theater, some of us go to church, we sit in the pews and expect the production to begin.  We want to be entertained, and then want to leave, satisfied when it is all over.  The author of this article stated that some of the most dissatisfied of his congregation, and the most vocally critical, were the ones who would occasionally show up for the Sunday church service, but would not participate in religious education classes, service projects, and ministry within the church. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and just criticize, isn’t it?  There are a lot of parishioners here who are so intimately engaged in our parish in so many different ways.  But, it would be good if all asked ourselves:  Am I truly engaged in my parish?  Am I truly a member of my parish community?  Or do I just come with the attitude of a consumer? 

      Our readings today call out to us to look at the priorities we have in life, to look at the things we consider to be our riches and our treasures.  Lord, help us to grow in our holiness.  Help us to be loyal to our journey of faith.  Help us to be true disciples.