Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 114

Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill,

and yet to another who has not labored over it,

he must leave property.

This also is vanity and a great misfortune.

Today the Church prefaces Jesus' parable about the wealthy, self-indulgent farmer with ominous words from Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities! Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!" We know little of their author, Qoheleth. His voice is more like the voice of doom heard in a darkened theater. It is the threat of futility that stalks us throughout our lives.

As human beings we face an extraordinary challenge, the question, "Why am I here?" No other animal, so far as we can tell, must deal with this problem. They may suffer hunger, cold, heat, injury and disease but they don't ask, "Why do I bother?" What am I trying to prove?" "Where is this going?" "How much longer do I have to put up with this?" Many don't even mind being pets, that is slaves to human beings, so long as they are fed and safe. Whether they're required for work or play or to swim around in a tank, they're happy to serve us.

But we're different. For some reason, even before we left the primeval forests of Africa, we chose to walk on two legs. All other mammals sensibly walk on four legs. Standing upright and walking like that are the hardest things we ever learn. And they are difficult to sustain in old age. We defy gravity with this posture. The head, balanced atop the neck, is the heaviest mass in the body and gravity is always pulling it down. We see its slow tumble as the muscles of the back grow weary with age. The spine curves and a hump appears, sometimes to rise higher than the head.

I think of gravity as a metaphor for the challenge of existence. As a chaplain in the VA hospital, I encounter this challenge often. It comes in many forms, but its end is often the same -- a pathetic surrender to the inevitable. If not in so many words, they seem to say, "I just want to lie down and die. I can't deal with the complexity, the loneliness, the work, the pain and misery of being me."

But that's the last stage. Before that there are the distractions. The illusion of control and the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, power, fame, friends, adventure, knowledge, experience, success; while avoiding failure, sadness, disappointment, pain, discomfort, loneliness. Given a modicum of good health and the basic structures of human society, we can enjoy the challenge for a while. We may think we're pretty well on top of it!

And then things go wrong.

Some patients are quite sure their being in the hospital is only a momentary crisis. "Just let me get back to normal." they say. Sometimes the crisis is only a warning shot across the bow. "Stop what you're doing and live right!"

Sometimes they think all this pain started in the hospital. "I didn't have this pain at home. Let me go home!" 

But in many cases, what was normal is gone forever. The new normal will be more confined and less free.

It's the curse of our human nature, the severe limitations of the flesh. All the freedom and pleasures of the body seemed to disappear one day. The joy of dancing, singing, eating, of walking into the kitchen to open the refrigerator. Are they gone forever?

Our Christian faith remembers the God who created this distressing universe with its overwhelming size and staggering complexity, who took up a cross like any man and carried it to his own crucifixion.

If human life is a journey of futility, the faithful walk with Jesus.For we have seen in his resurrection a promise of complete satisfaction.