Somebody sent me this piece of thought via facebook : The
three stages of life—Teens. You have all the time and energy but no money;
Workers. You have money and energy but no time; Oldies. You have money and time
but no energy.
If the meaning of life were to be sought in purely
materialistic terms, there is the inevitability of ending up with a pessimistic
conclusion: Life is absurd and tragic. When the Dalai Lama was asked what
surprised him most about humanity, he said: “Man. Because he sacrifices his
health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his
health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the
present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he
lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
The pessimism of Qoheleth in the first reading (Eccl 1:2;
2:21-23) expresses too the meaninglessness of man’s toil and anxiety of heart,
as he would just leave his property to another who has not worked for it. For
Qoheleth, “all things are vanity!” This pessimism propels us to search further
for the enduring meaning of life. If material things and preoccupation with
them leave our life in vain, what, then, makes a meaningful commitment and
occupation in life?
The gospel reading (Lk 12:13-21) further presents what
comprises our human folly. Christians ought to be wary of these three related
forms of foolishness: Greed, Hedonism, and Materialism.
Greed. Jesus, in the gospel, teaches the crowd: “Take
care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does
not consist of possessions” (v. 15). Greed is a selfish insatiable desire for
more material things, more wealth, more possessions. At heart, it is a
disordered love for created things. It is not farfetched, then, for St. Paul to
regard greed as a form of idolatry (Col 3:5). Greed is foolishness because it
loves deliriously the wrong object. This disordered love leads to frustration
and not satisfaction: “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in
an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction“ (Erich Fromm).
Hedonism. The
parable of the rich fool alludes too to the foolishness of the hedonist
philosophy in life. The character in the parable hoards his bountiful harvest
in his new and larger barns and plans for a life of comfort and pleasure. The
rich fool says to himself: “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored
up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!” There are people who subscribe
to a philosophy that glorifies pleasure as the principle of a meaningful
life. Yet experience tells us that
pleasure are passing and does not makes us truly happy. Making it the ultimate
goal in life leads to suffering because it only ushers us to an endless cycle
of frustrating attempts to satisfy our desires. The cycle can lead to destructive
patterns of addiction and all of life may be wasted.
Materialism. The parable concludes with the reminder of
the foolishness of materialism: “You fool, this night your life will be
demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”
(v. 20). Our contemporary lifestyle is
materialistic. We are made to believe, by way of advertisements, that a good
life is one that has acquired the latest gadgets, cars, and stuffs. Hence, we
get up every day pursuing “earthly treasures,” accumulating more and more of
material things. We ignore the deepest
longing and spiritual yearning of our hearts, hence we are never happy. And we
will never be, as long as we persist in our foolish quest: “Thus will it be for
the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to
God” (v. 21).
In both the first reading and the gospel, the death of the
man whose life is preoccupied with material pursuit exposes the vanity and foolishness
of such preoccupation. Death, indeed, reveals to us what is essential. It gives
us a clear perspective. I would like to suggest two Christian perspectives
discernible in our readings today as our invitation: Christian Stewardship and
the perspective of freedom.
Stewardship. Material possessions and wealth are not evil
in themselves. Rather, they are gifts entrusted to us by the abundance of
nature and God’s providence. They have instrumental value. They are a means to
our end, not our goal itself. They help us fulfill our mission. When material
things are entrusted to us, we are invited to be a responsible steward. In the
spirit of gratitude and generosity then, we are to share what we have been
given to those who are in need. Sharing
becomes our way of loving. And we don’t love things; we love God and neighbor.
Freedom. In this materialistic era, Christians ought
to heed the gospel’s invitation to grow in freedom—freedom from and freedom
for. We need to be freed from our greed
which enslaves us to our material desires. When our possessions possess us, we
become slaves and no longer responsible stewards. We need to grow in our freedom
from our inordinate attachments to created things. This allows us to be free
for the Creator himself. Real freedom is
freedom for God, that capacity to choose God as our fundamental option and to
love God above all else with ease. We are invited to grow in this ability to
commit to “what matters to God,” to expend our energies in toiling for what
endures—the real treasures in heaven.
When life is unreflected, it is not worth living. But when
it is lived according to the gospel values, life finds its enduring meaning. It
ceases from becoming a pitiful affair of vanities and foolishness.
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