The Meaning of Life

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Sunday Reflection

Read Tamara Hiscocks’s reflection on this sermon called, “The Meaning of Life” on the Sunday Reflections’ blog.

Sunday Scripture Reading: Luke 12:13-21 (NRSV)

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  Read more…

Looking to Sunday

by Elaine Poproski

I am among the privileged in our country who have an actual pension plan through my place of work (or at least, through the denomination with which my place of work is affiliated). I remember the excitement when I opened my very first piece of mail that told me how much money I had in my pension plan. I remember the reality check when I did the calculation and realized that I could retire for a total of 3 months if I needed to that day. However, as the years have progressed, the amount of time I can retire for has steadily increased. Retirement is still a long way off, but it’s not impossible to imagine that it’s something I may be able to do one day.

Why do I tell you all that? I tell you that because Sunday’s sermon text comes from Luke 12 and includes the so-called Parable of the Rich Fool and I can’t help but think as I read it that I may be the fool Jesus is talking about.

Couched as it is in the context of greed and worry, I could conceivably let myself off the hook, by claiming that a pension plan is wise and isn’t the same thing as the greed and the worry Jesus was confronting in His audience. But is that true? Or am I doing what Christians have done since our very beginning and rationalizing Scripture that confronts my cultural values and worldview such that it doesn’t confront me?

As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to read Luke 12, at least as far as verse 31. (We’ll be in this chapter for the three Sundays, so it may be helpful to read the whole chapter.) Is there anything in these words that makes you uncomfortable? Is there a truth about yourself that God may be trying to unveil? How do you understand this parable of the Rich Fool in terms of your own life? Are there parallels? Is it completely foreign to you? What might Jesus say to you if He were standing right in front of you today having this same conversation He had with His disciples back then?