THOUGHTS OF A MONK

“The great give-away”

December 5, 2004

O King, live forever!  One of the most exciting pieces of music I have ever had the pleasure to hear and sing is William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast.  William Walton knew how to write music that could raise the roof of a concert hall—or a movie theatre for that matter, since, in addition to concert music, he wrote a lot of music for films too. He captured in this music both the hubris of the King who thought he would live forever by simply having people tell him so with great fervor, but he also captured the starkness of the hard reality when death came and took the king away.  The Pharaohs of Egypt had a similar idea.  They built huge monuments to their own glory that would also be their tombs where they would begin their journey to the other world. And they surrounded themselves with all sorts of goods they thought they would need for the journey, a boat, furniture, and many other implements of daily life. The monuments they built were never completed because they believed that once the tomb was completed they would die. It didn’t work, they died anyway and thieves came and robbed their tombs of all the valuables. The pharaohs hadn’t yet heard the expression: “you can’t take it with you.

How easy it is to live our lives as if we’re going to live forever and to act as if we’ll be able to take all we have acquired with us. In my room I have books that I’m convinced I’m going to read before I die, but the truth is there are more there than I will ever get to, and in fact they keep multiplying, even though I put them in the monastery library

When someone dies and the family has to go through all their possessions and dispose of them, it can be a very sad time. But it can also stir up family quarrels. I can remember when my great aunt Mary died and some cousins came with a U-haul truck and made off with a truckload of her personal possessions and furniture. My grandmother, aunt Mary’s sister, was furious because people had carefully identified various things that would be distributed to other members of the family, but all of this was disregarded by our cousins. The result, people didn’t speak to each other for years. A cloud of anger hung over certain relationships as a result. As we might say today, there were all kinds of boundary violations that took place there. And all of it had to do with possessions. Just like this morning’s gospel lesson. Jesus is accosted by a man demanding that Jesus make this fellow’s brother give him his inheritance that is his due. But Jesus will have nothing to do with this issue. But isn’t this a grave injustice, you might ask. Isn’t this precisely what Rabbis were expected to adjudicate? Maybe so, but Jesus would have none of it. And then he goes on to tell a parable to explain why. And what he is telling us in that parable is the same message we heard in Ecclesiasticus—those who grow rich and think they can sit back and enjoy it don’t know how long they’ll have before they die and then the goods will go to others.

Piling up possessions, elbowing out others so that we will be sure to get ours, this is not the message Jesus is spreading.  If that is where our concern lies then we have missed the point.  Piling up treasure in heaven is not about piling up treasure on earth and then loading it onto a boat in a pyramid and setting off across the River of death to the next world, fully equipped to carry on just as we have been doing here on earth.  As St. Paul says to the Ephesians, Christ’s kingdom is something else completely.  It is that the forgiveness of sins is the “richness of grace” that he has showered on us. And the treasure we store up in that kingdom is all about how we treat others here on earth, not how much we acquire for ourselves, whether that be things, status, or just getting our way all the time. As Luke’s Gospel says, the real goal is not storing up goods but being rich in the sight of God.

In the last few sermons we have heard about the Good Samaritan and what it looks like to be a good neighbor. We heard about God providing all we need in this world already so we do not have to constantly be grasping after more or worrying about where things will come from.  And today we get the hard reality check, in case we missed the point: no matter how much we store up for ourselves here on earth, it won’t save us from the destiny we all face: death. 

St. Nicholas understood that too, from what the church tells us about the man.  I used to attend St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington DC.  And on the north wall of the church interior the entire life story of St. Nicholas is depicted in wall icons.  Much of that story is not based on recorded biographical information; it is drawn from the hagiography of the saint.  Now we might wonder what that is all about. And the answer is that it is all about a truth that lies beyond facts.  The stories about St. Nicholas’ helping prisoners, the ship wrecked, children, and many others are not intended to give us memorizable facts about some historical figure’s life, the stories are about our lives and how we are to live them.  The stories depicted in the icons of St. Nicholas are to remind us that we are to lay up treasures in the Kingdom of Heaven the way St. Nicholas did.  The things that are truly memorable in our lives and things of true value are not the things we can take with us, they are the aspects of us that we give away to others: our time, talents, yes, even our possessions.  St. Nicholas’ life isn’t about piling up a huge library, or investment portfolios, or barns filled with grain, St. Nicholas’ life was about what he did for others. This is what Christ is telling us in today’s gospel. Life is not the great take away; it is the great give away. And when it really is all gone, we are then one with Christ, in the Kingdom, the true storehouse of all good things. Christ is in our midst!