Service for July 27 Seventh Sunday of Pentecost
Sermon for July 27, 2025 Seventh Sunday of Pentecost
Both readings today place a heavy emphasis on death and how knowing that death is a part of our lives can help us live a life that is full of meaning and gratitude. A deep understanding of our own mortality can help us to organize our lives in a way that aligns with our values. The passage from Colossians tells us that as Christians we have died to the old life and way of living and thinking and being and that our new way of life does not recognize insiders and outsiders, masters and inferiors. We use the language of baptism, of being drowned in the waters of baptism with Christ so that we are raised to new life in Christ. As God’s new creation we see only Christ in each other. We see that we are part of the body that lives for us and dies with us, just as we live and die for each of them. We have no time or reason to lie and scheme as we did in the old life.
The story of the rich fool gives us a negative example of a person who is very much still engaged in the old life. He thinks only of himself as an individual, a self-made man, with no one to thank for his success and responsible to no one in using his wealth. He talks to himself, not even thinking to discuss his ideas with anyone else and so he is caught in a cycle of self-perpetuating delusion. He doesn’t think to give thanks for the abundance the land produced. He doesn’t think to acknowledge the people who came before him that made his success possible or the people who worked for him or those who will come after him. He thinks only of himself: “What should I do? With my crops? I will do this. I will do that.”
But, the truth of all life, that there is death, gives the man the only answer that matters! It all ends today for you because you are alone in your world. You did not see the community of which you are a part whether you acknowledge it or not. You did not see the abundance and fruitfulness of creation that made your bounty possible. You did not see the people who made your wealth possible: those who prepared you and your place, those whose labor benefitted you, those around you with less support and possibility who are also your siblings. This isn’t God’s punishment. This is the order of the universe. It is reality for us all.
Jesus’ parable reminds us that death helps us live. It gives us the boundaries within which we can live well, in which we can live “rich toward God.”
Paul Kalanithi, is a neurosurgeon and author who lived just a few years after his diagnosis with incurable cancer. In that short period of time, he at one point went into remission and gained back much of his strength. His oncologist suggested he go back to working as a neurosurgeon. When Kalanithi reminded his doctor he was dying, she responded, “True. But you’re not dying today.”
Knowing there is an end makes every moment precious. It puts all things in proper perspective: all of life. It gives us the space we need to remember one of the essential elements of a life well-lived: gratitude, that we are not the author of life; that everything is gift. And that is possibly the essence of a life lived “rich towards God.”
Recently, our son-in-law, John, sent us a video of he and Eloise putting the finishing touches on the bookshelf John made in their home. Eloise was squeezing the trigger on the staple gun while John held the trim in place. In the video John says, “Don’t pull the trigger until I’m ready, Eloise.” And immediately Eloise quietly asks “Are you ready?” John answers, “I’m ready.” And Eloise pulls the trigger. Then John immediately says, “Oh, I wish that piece of wood was a little longer.” To which Eloise replied, “Maybe you could pretend that it’s longer?” To which, of course there really is no reply.
In the real world, we can’t just pretend that a piece of wood is longer than it really is. It is what it is and if it’s not long enough it might not work right! Some things have to be faced as they are at least by adults.
But, in another sense, I love the wisdom of a three-year-old. We don’t have to see something that is less than perfect as a disaster. We can see the world as it is and be thankful for it, with all of its imperfections, realizing that perfection is not the most important thing. The attitude with which we respond is more important. Of course, we want to build a sturdy and reliable world. But it will never be perfect and “pretending that it is good enough” or another way to say that could be “seeing through the eyes of gratitude” for what we have and for the relationships that made that good moment possible may be the best way to live rich toward God.
When we remember that everything we are and everything we have is thanks to someone else and that ultimately, it’s all thanks to God’s gracious gift of creation and unconditional love, we are freed to live a whole life fueled by gratitude. That is the proper center of a life lived in Christ and with the community of Christ.
May we be empowered by the Holy Spirit and encouraged within this community of siblings in Christ to live a life that is rich toward God. Amen.