2nd Thursday in Lent, March 17. “Rich towards God”

Prepare to Listen.  Be still and ask: Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.
 
Prayerfully Read Luke 12:13-21
13Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ 
14But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’  15And he said to them, ‘Take care!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’  16Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  17And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?”  18Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”  20But God said to him, “You fool!  This very night your life is being demanded of you.  And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”  21So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’
 
Prayerfully Wonder
“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.”  Those who store up treasure for themselves, Jesus says, are a “fool.”  Jesus shows little interest in possessions and the need we all seem to have to accumulate more and more stuff.
 
Years ago, a student offered to store my stuff until my new apartment was ready.  He warned me that, despite the fact he lived in a high-risk theft area, he never locked or secured his home.  He figured if anyone wanted his stuff they’d find a way in whether locked or not.  I respected, even admired his attitude towards his possessions.  He wasn’t possessed by them.  I confess I found another place to temporarily store my household goods!
 
Jesus’ message in these verses, therefore, has always challenged me.  I want to be “rich towards God.”  I’m sure this doesn’t mean being perfect (none of us would ever make it), obeying some arbitrary moral principles laid down by our church, belonging to the right political party, believing the correct doctrinal statements.  Being rich towards God has more to do with making daily, even moment-by-moment conscious decisions to live in God’s presence.  In the words of Heschel, “The essence of Jewish [and Christian] religious thinking does not lie in entertaining a concept of God but in the ability to articulate a memory of moments of illumination by his presence.”  We then become witnesses of God’s presence and action in our lives and in the world.[1]  And this makes us rich towards God.
 
Prayerfully Reflect
How do you think you can live today in order to be rich towards God?
 
Respond to Jesus
May my living today, Lord, reflect your richness and not my own.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Be rich towards God alone.
[1] Heschel, Abraham.  Between God and Man.  New York, NY: Free Press Paperbacks.  1997, p. 70.