Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost. Octoechos Tone 1; Our Venerable Father Alypius the Stylite (610-41); James the Hermit (457); The Blessing of the Church of the Holy Great-Martyr George which is in Kiev, before the Gates of Holy Wisdom Cathedral (1019-54).
Nativity Fast.
Ephesians 5:9-19; Luke 12:16-21.
Read Luke 12:16-21
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
“Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day so much that we will never have to rely on You or anyone else ever again, so that we can do whatever we want for the rest of our life.”
We would never be so audacious as to pray such a prayer out loud. Today’s gospel reading warns us, though, that we may say such things to our soul. But how could we knowingly do even that? This parable is a warning about the ways we may legitimize such a thing to ourselves.
There can be a fine line between stocking up and hoarding; stewardship can become self-serving. Our responses to hurts, fears, insecurities, and times of deprivation require self-examination so that we don’t normalize life goals and daily behaviors that do not have an eternal future.
1 John 2:16-17 warns us away from a kind of love for the world that is very different from God’s love so beautifully stated in John 3:16 – “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” That is an apostolic explication of the truth behind Jesus’s parable: “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Bible References