Pentecost 10c - conclusion

Ecclesiastes 1:1-2:23; Psalm 49:1-12; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

A week from tomorrow I’ll turn 54 which means I’m only one year away from being able to order from the senior citizen menu at I-Hop without having to use a fake ID. I suppose that is the silver lining in my graying beard and even though the teacher insists that everything is meaningless, a stack of pancakes smothered in syrup for pennies on the dollar make life sweet. I think the texts for Pentecost 10c are a little like balancing the inevitable (“Life’s like hour glass glued to the table” Anna Nalick) with qualifying for the senior citizen discount at I-Hop. There is a time for every season in Ecclesiastes and living life as if that were not so is what the teacher pronounces as utterly meaningless. The psalmist trusts that what cannot be done can be done by God and the ransom paid is more than able to redeem one’s life from the grave. Paul exhorts the Colossians to put to death the words and deeds that diminish life and with minds set on things from above live lives worth living. And Jesus telling it like it is to someone in the crowd redirects his greed for what his brother will not share to the brother he shares, for life is about relationship and not the measure of one’s possessions.