In today’s first reading, we hear from someone who might easily be described as a pessimist. The Book of Ecclesiastes sums up the wisdom of Qoheleth, a mysterious figure who seems to have been something of a philosopher or sage living four or five hundred years before the time of Christ. Qoheleth takes a rather dim view about a lot of the ways we human try to find lasting happiness, and in today’s passage he describes how earthly riches are not the answer. Those who strive for earthly riches, he says, end up deluding themselves: their labors only cause anxiety and worry, and even if they do attain wealth, they will have to pass it on at the end of their life to someone else who didn’t work for it. Qoheleth sums up his gloomy outlook with the famous words: “All things are vanity!”
In the Gospel, Jesus gives a parable with much the same point. It’s foolish enterprise to place our hopes in earthly pleasures and pursuits, because they will pass away; even more, so will we someday, perhaps without warning. Like the man in Jesus’s parable, it might be tomorrow or even this very night that our life will be demanded of us and we will have to give an account for our time on this earth. How foolish, therefore, to spend the limited span of one’s life seeking earthly comfort and security, since those things are fleeting. “All things are vanity!”
James Tissot, The Man Who Hoards (c. 1892)
Of course, not much has changed since Jesus’s day. We still pay a lot of attention to material things in today’s world. We may not think about the size of our barns, but we do watch the stock market, track commodity prices, try to maximize investment returns, and spend time and effort managing college savings funds, and health care packages, and retirement plans, and much more. The pragmatic voice inside of us says it would be foolish to ignore the fact that money is what seems to make the world go around. And yet we also know implicitly what today’s readings tell us: that trying to find happiness in material things is a losing game. What are we to do?
Obviously, we can’t avoid material things entirely; neither Qoheleth nor Jesus is advising us to try to do that. But the point of today’s readings is that our end goal should be something much higher. As human beings created in God’s image and likeness, our mortal lives are a preparation for eternity, one way or the other. Material things can’t be the key to happiness for a very straightforward reason: when we die, we don’t take them with us. What we need to accumulate is wealth of a different kind, something that will benefit us beyond death.
St. Paul has some good advice for us in that regard in today’s second reading. He tells the Colossians: “Seek what is above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand.” In a sense, Paul is providing a response to Qoheleth’s “All things are vanity!” Material things pass away, true, but what will not pass away is the Resurrection of Jesus. His life, his kingdom is the final reality, the only thing in the end that will endure. Ultimately, then we must strive to be a part of that reality; we should be seeking above all else to store up our treasure there. The kingdom of God is counter-intuitive to the logic of this world. Greed, ambition, impurity, passion – the very things that define people who are successful by the world’s standard – those things don’t get you anywhere in God’s eyes. Thus, St. Paul says we should “put to death” those earthly desires and goals where they are present in ourselves. We have to be single-minded in setting our sights on our goal of the heavenly kingdom, determined not to let anything lower, anything earthly take its place.
If you feel as if you have heard all of this before, you probably have. But the Church keeps giving us these lessons to ponder, and this encouragement to seek what is above, because earthly things remain such a tempting distraction. St. Basil the Great, a monk and bishop of the fourth century, once preached to his congregation: “You are going to leave your money behind you here whether you wish to or not. On the other hand, you will take with you to the Lord the honor that you have won through good works. In the presence of the universal Judge, all the people will surround you, acclaim you as a public benefactor, and tell of your generosity and kindness.”
What a powerful image! St. Basil says that when we meet God at the end of our lives, we will present to him not our earthly possessions but all of the people for whom we have done good works: the poor whose need we met, the sinners to whom we showed mercy, the disagreeable to whom we were kind, the downtrodden whom we encouraged by prayer and example. That’s the kind of treasure we should be seeking: to serve God and those around us. The way in which we use our material blessings indicates whether we are trying to do that – whether as individuals, as family, or even as a Church. But just as important is examining our own hearts. You don’t have to necessarily be rich to fall victim to greed in the heart, to letting material goals and concerns blind you from seeking your heavenly homeland.
Friends, in the end, not everything is vanity, not if we seek what is above. True wisdom is attained not by the pessimist nor the optimist but by the person who understands how to use rightly the things of this world in order to attain the heavenly goal. Let’s reexamine our hearts this day to make sure we are taking heed of what Qoheleth, St. Paul, St. Basil, and indeed Jesus himself tell us: to seek the heavenly kingdom and make it our true goal. May we use the material blessings entrusted to us not in foolish ways but to build up spiritual treasure, so that one day, when we stand before our heavenly Father, the universal Judge, we may give him a full account of how we have used all that he gave us.
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