People's Prayers: Prayers of the People: Storing the Treasure ~ 8th Sunday after Pentecost '19 Yr C

For Sunday, August 4, 2019 ~ 8^th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-11, Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21

…even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity. [Ecclesiastes 2:23b]

My mouth shall speak of wisdom, and my heart shall meditate on understanding.

[Psalm 49:2]

Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God...no longer Greek and Jew...Christ is all and in all! [Colossians 3:1-11]

But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God. [Luke 12:20-21]

As the saying goes, "You can't take it with you" though heaven knows how hard we try. What we do take with us is the baggage of foolish neglect or even ambivalence toward God in our daily living. Those of us privileged enough to have options to build our barns and store up earthly materials, often shield ourselves and deny the ticking clock. It is as if in unknowing what hour the chime will toll for us, we have the time to acquire, accumulate, and just have more. I am reminded of the late comedian George Carlin’s brilliant riff on Stuff [see YouTube, there’s even a censored version], at once a hilarious and sobering look at our western sense of need.

Check out a local estate sale and see a lifetime of collections, clothing, furniture, and just plain stuff that's left behind, offered at a bargain to be collected by others and then left again. Meanwhile all around us others cry out for basic treasures such as clean water, food, clothes, shelter, and health care. If you haven’t watched the news lately Google the after-effects of hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, catastrophic floods, and deadly wild fires just to see how one can measure the loss of possessions against the loss of life. And don’t avert your eyes and ears to the cries of those, already desperate, suddenly caught indefinitely in horrifyingly cruel conditions most of us cannot even imagine – babies and children separated from parents, spouses separated from each other – in dreadfully dangerous war-torn areas and along the borders of our "civilized country" as we in this land like to think of ourselves.
The grandest home is not permanent storage, nor is it even the grave – think about Egyptian tombs! No matter how privileged or how honored in this mortal life, no one will live forever and no thing will go along. How are you prepared this very day for the next? And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? THIS life is meant to be less about downsizing than upsizing - start storing up spiritual treasures by turning toward God. Be filled with kindness, selflessness, benevolence, love. In taking on a new self, as Paul tells us, we are no longer Greek and Jew, white and black, brown and yellow, citizen and immigrant, one political party and another. Christ is all and in all. Life is short and no amount of stuff will make it last longer; what we do with what we have is what matters. Whoever is wise will ponder these things...Set your minds on things that are above... How are you storing your treasure?

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ O Christ who is all and in all, free us from all earthbound self-indulgent vanities and incline our minds to things above. Help us to discard our old practice and be renewed according to the image of our Creator.

O Christ in God

RESPONSE: You are the richness of our Life

~ O Christ who is all and in all, awaken the souls of all who govern by merit or by force, in the nations of this world and locally, to remember that even the greatly honored cannot live forever. Guide them to store up their treasure in good and sincere service, to benefit all Your children in this life, and themselves in the next. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

O Christ in God