Rembrandt van Rijn, The Rich Fool

The Point in Pointlessness
Homily delivered the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13; Year C RCL)

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
31 July 2022; 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Said Mass
Parish Church of St. Mark the Evangelist, Medford (Oregon)
Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-11; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

homily starts at 28:45

God, take away our hearts of stone
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

I am so happy to be back here in Medford with you. I just finished 3 weeks of vacation house-sitting for a former parishioner who now has a lovely home in Palm Springs, California. I didn’t realize until I got there just how much I had shut down emotionally and physically in the last few years. Our identities are in part composites of those we spend most of our time with, and care-giving for the last 10 years for my increasingly disabled beloved Elena (who died in December), as joyful and happy as it was, took its toll on me—I was going through life with one foot in the grave myself, overly concerned about my minor aches and pains, 69 going on 89. I was also trying to figure out who I was after retiring from full time parish ministry in early January. I had gotten through the major grief by April. But I could see that it all had taken a toll on me. So this respite was life giving indeed, and help me restart parts of my personality and life that I had put away years ago. First thing I did in Palm Springs was join a gym. I hadn’t been back to the Y in Ashland even after it reopened after the peak of Covid. I went every day. And I hosted old friends, and tlked and talked and talked. I worked on my Bible translation. And I even had some real party time with friends—nice dinners out and even a stupendous Drag Show at Toucan’s Tiki Lounge! I feel 15 years younger now than when I left for Palm Springs a month ago. Life is good.

And so what do I get from the Lectionary to preach on this first day back? Holy cow! The most pessimistic and grim of any selection of scripture in the full three year cycle!

The Lectionary readings for today seem addressed to moments when we look at the broken world about us and wonder if there is any meaning, any point.

הֲבֵ֤ל הֲבָלִים֙ אָמַ֣ר קֹהֶ֔לֶת הֲבֵ֥ל הֲבָלִ֖ים הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל׃

Haveyl havalim ,’amar Qohelet, Havel havalim, hakkol havel.

“‘Zero of Zeroes,’ says the Gatherer [of Sayings], ‘Zero of Zeroes, it’s all a big Zero.’”

These grim intonations begin the book of Qohelet, or, as it is called in Greek, Ecclesiastes. There a jaded old man, who has been through it all, and found it all pointless, condemns all human efforts, whether frivolous and sinful or even serious and responsible. They all are, in the words of the King James Bible, “vanity of vanities (totally pointless.)” They are “chasing after the wind.”

The Psalm picks up the theme: “We cannot pay the price for our life, the price of not dying and escaping the grave, because it costs more than any of us can afford. For even the prudent and wise end up dying just as the foolish and stupid. Their legacy is the place they rot, like wild animals.” Such pessimism, common in Hebrew Wisdom Literature, is expressed most clearly in another passage in Qohelet:

“What difference does it make whether we love or hate? Both are equally pointless, because we all share the same end, whether just or wicked, good or bad, clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. As it is for the good person, so it is for the sinner; as it is for those who take their oaths seriously and those who violate them. Among all the things under the sun, this is the worst: that the same end awaits us all. This fills people’s minds with evil, their hearts with madness as long as they live: for in the end, we all wind up dead… and a dog alive is better off than a lion dead” (Eccl 9:1-5).

These words ring true for many of us, because we look around at times and wonder if indeed life is pointless. But to find this in the Bible shocks us: isn’t God’s word supposed to tell us of hope and meaning, say that love must and will overcome hate, and we should observe faith in practice, not pursue nihilist pleasure. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!” says Qohelet, “And even this too is totally pointless.”

There are many ideas and teachings included in the Bible by way of expressing partial truth on the way to fuller revelation. Some are there, I think, simply by way of bad example: the Deuteronomist suggests that God commands genocide against idolatrous peoples; the Psalmist prays that soldiers will bash in the heads of his enemies’ babies… This is the Bible we’re talking about here! “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” And indeed, many other passages condemn such a take on the world.

Within the whole arc of scripture, admission of the pointlessness of life apart from God is in fact a step toward accepting its deep meaning when we are within the living Christ, as pointed out in today’s epistle. In light of Jesus’ resurrection, we know that in death life is not ended, but changed. All will be right in the end, and if things are not all right, then it is not yet the end. But in this life, we walk by faith and not by sight, so Qohelet’s specter of pointlessness still speaks to us in our bad moments.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus himself expresses a pessimistic view of the best-laid plans of mice and men. He tells us the exquisite little parable of man who is a model of responsibility and prudence, yet whose efforts end up pointless. A wealthy farmer plans carefully to insure his security, only to be caught unawares that very night by unexpected death. He talks to himself: “Self of mine, you have many good things stored up for years to come. So take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy it to the max!” He is quoting Qohelet’s line, “Eat, drink, and be merry,” without realizing that “this too is pointless.” He talks to himself as if to a stranger: such chasing the wind means alienation from self.

That is because it comes from feeling alienated from God, who replies, “You fool! This very night your life will end! Now who’s going to get all that stuff?”

“You fool!” The reference is to Psalm 14:1, “The fool says in his heart, there is no God.” The rich farmer has thought, felt, and acted for all intents and purposes as if there were no God: an atheist in practice. His praiseworthy prudence has distracted him from the truth that in this life, nothing apart from God is truly secure. Nothing can be taken for granted; rather it should all be accepted with thankfulness.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus points to birds and wildflowers as signs of God’s love. If God feeds and clothes his lowly creatures so well, there is no need for worry, no need to strive for more: “Your Heavenly Father knows all that you need… So work first for God’s Reign and the justice it demands, and God will make sure you get what you need” (Matt. 6:19-33). The point is thankfulness and the compassion that comes from it, not being “righteous.” “God sends the blessings of Sun and Rain both on the Godly and the Ungodly alike” Jesus says. “We cannot enter God’s Reign unless we become helpless like little children.”

“Being rich for God” or “storing up treasures in heaven” for Jesus is not another struggle, a way of bribing love out of a supposedly unloving God, or of showing how much better we are than others. All that, too, is pointless chasing after the wind.

And yet Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Criticized regularly for being too lax in his expectations of his followers, he throws lots of parties and regularly tells them to rejoice and be thankful (that’s why “hallowed be thy name” leads in the Lord’s Prayer). So “eat, drink, and be merry” is not pointless within this new context.

A heart gaining gratitude leaves its baggage behind, whether it be guilt, resentment, fear, or greed of any kind. “Go in at the narrow door; for the door is wide and the path easy that leads to losing yourself. Many people go in there and do not come out. The door is narrow and the path is tight that leads to life. At any given time, there are only few who can manage it.” (Matt. 7:13-14, paraphrased). There is no room for baggage. If our hearts are weighed down with desire rather than lifted up with thankfulness, we simply cannot squeeze through. C.S. Lewis expressed it this way: hold anything back from God, and sooner or later you will lose it. Give it all up to God, and God will give it and more back to us, created anew.

Acting as if God were not taking care of us, were not a good and loving Parent, as if we thought that God did not exist, or that God were not unconditional Love itself—this is foolishness, “totally pointless.”

Our eyes must see God at work in the world about us, and our heart must be thankful, set on God the giver of every good gift. In this world that appears so forlorn of love, so seemingly pointless, there is no room for illusion or fantasy. No room for self-alienation, seeing yourself as a stranger. No room for alienating others, identifying them as enemies or competitors, or scapegoating and blaming them for our own failings. No room for letting our fears, anxieties, and guilt run rampant and blot out the table of plenty already set before us. Acceptance, thanksgiving, and openness are the right posture of any soul that would enter the heart of God. Greed—whether for money, security, pleasure, power, prestige, beauty, knowledge, sanctity, or perfect domesticity—greed is baggage that simply cannot fit through that narrow door.

And that, I think, is the ultimate point in life’s apparent pointlessness. As William Sloane Coffin said, “The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.”

If we're not quite there, that's OK. Remember Jesus said our heart will follow where we place our treasure. We can act as if we had faith, and faith will come. Fake it ‘till you make it. This is not hypocrisy: hypocrisy is pretending to be something you’re not so you can continue being the way you are. Faking it ‘till you make is so you can actually change. And it works.

Jesus here is not telling us to forgo any thought of modest retirement accounts or prudent savings. Elsewhere he tells us to be harmless as doves but smart as snakes. He expects street smarts, and part of this is putting aside chasing after wind, being fools.

Practical atheism is not an option. We mustn’t tart up our greed and say it is prudence. We mustn’t justify our desire to be in control and autonomous by saying this is our right. Our trust in God must show fruits in our life, in how we use our time and resources. Jesus does not call us all to be spiritual supermen, or ascetics. He calls us all simply to take up his easy yoke, his light burden: trust and love God, be honest, and act with the compassion for others that grows from this. In a word: Work justice, do kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

In the name of God, Amen.