Luke 12:16-21 (The Rich Man and His Granaries)
Until we figure out who we are, our actions have no purpose. We will end up doing one thing one day, and something contrary the next.
Because we are fallen, our default purpose is selfish and egoistic and sees other people based on what they can do for us. Some days we see benefit in working with and helping other people, but other days we see no benefit from helping them and so we ignore them or even work against them.
So it is with all of our riches, whether they are material or spiritual. Our default setting, in our selfishness, is to dole them out tactically – if at all – based on our feelings will bring the greatest security, influence, pleasure, or the most of whatever will satisfy the emotional impulse that is dominating us at the time. People with friendly emotions will share more, people who are dominated by fear will invest in protection, people who are more epicurean will invest in luxuries, people who crave status will use their resources to show off, and so on.
This has a certain kind of logic, but it is the logic of the world, not the logic of the Logos; nor is it the way to live a joyful life here or in the eternal life that is to come.
We need to know who we are. We are certainly more than our emotions. They are a poor guide to living well and a poor guide for making sound decisions.
So who are we? What were we made for? We are sons and daughters of the Most-High, created to accomplish God’s will that humans and humanity are healed and brought into a joyful fellowship with one another and with Him now and in the world to come.
Understanding this allows us to rise above our captivity to our feelings and act in ways that are productive.
The rich man in today’s Gospel didn’t get this. He made the decision about how to use his extra grain based on his feelings rather than on who he was called to be.
It isn’t just that the grain that could have been used to feed the poor will now rot and be stolen; it is that it could have been used to create and sustain connections with the poor to create a bond with them that would have pulled the rich man out of his existential loneliness and completely selfish concerns.
It would have opened a world of fellowship and virtue to him; a world that is denied to all who confine themselves to serving just their feelings; a world that would have transformed him into something greater, something that would have transcended the simple creature his genes and environment alone would have allowed.
Spiritual resources are the same. If we hoard or spend them just according to our feelings, we are no better than the rich man in the parable. They will rot and fester and disappear when they could have become the thing that feeds the hungry, connects us to them, and draws us all up into the glory of God.
We – as individuals, as a parish, and as the Orthodox Church – have an abundance of material and spiritual goods. Far more than we need for our comfort and sustenance. This bounty was not meant to be hoarded, but to be shared; not because we are nice or because we want more friends, but because it is our calling to serve others, to draw us all into unity with God through Christ Jesus. This is the only way to change the wealth of this world – both material and spiritual – into an internal inheritance.
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