July 31, 2022

Amy Richter

[RCL] Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

Obituaries are about the life, not the death. The death is the occasion, but it’s usually reported in just one sentence, maybe with a detail–a disease, a condition, a struggle, an accident – and an age. We appraise: so young; a long life; so sudden; a shock.

Of course, when we know the person, there’s more emotion as we read the details — the birthplace, activities, schools attended, occupations, associations, and the list of those closest who are bereaved. “She is survived by her loving…” – “Survived.” Obituary-speak that softens the phrase’s meaning, “outlived by,” and hints at our hope that the life of the deceased will be lived out by the memories, commitments, or DNA of those left behind.

Naming survivors so soon after a loved one’s death can sound aspirational, optimistic. Will we survive this loss? The hole in our hearts? The disruption of plans and destruction of hopes? When it’s our loved one, the death is the headline, or at least the pivot point in the plot around which everything else will turn until we maybe someday come to the realization, I actually have survived.

But written about a stranger, a celebrity, or a public figure, an obituary is about the life lived, not the death. Obit writers collect facts, write drafts, and file them away, waiting for the when and the how. When the time comes, as it will, details are updated. Maybe an agent or spokesperson makes a statement. The death releases the facts of the life into view.

We read the obituary of someone we’ve admired, and we feel appreciation, maybe sorrow. For someone unknown to us, but impactful, we may feel like we’re getting an answer to a question we didn’t know we had — oh, that’s who…    In the case of the infamous, we may feel a rekindling of aversion or anger. The most engaging obituaries can entertain or instruct. Some function like a window; others like a mirror.

In today’s Gospel, we read an obituary of sorts. It’s a parable, and it too can function like a window or a mirror. Jesus puts it before us. Do we see through it to some truth? Do we see ourselves? Some of both?

“Mr. Rich Man died last night of unspecified causes. Known as very fortunate, some neighbors even called him blessed because his land produced abundantly. Man made plans to build bigger storage facilities for the wealth produced by his land, but he died before building could commence. He is survived by no one. Perhaps that is why he was sometimes observed talking to himself. No spokesperson could be reached for comment, but God, in a written statement called him a Fool.”

Okay, that’s not quite accurate. In the parable, God doesn’t pronounce about the man. God talks to the man. “You fool,” God says. “Your life isn’t your own, and neither is all that stuff. You poor fool.” The fact of the death releases the details, shows them for all to see. The rich man’s wealth wasn’t his, a fact his death makes clear. Just when he was trying to expand his tight grip on what he thought belonged to him, death loosened it. Permanently.

But the rich man isn’t the first person to have his plans interrupted by death. Why call him a fool?

Not because he’s wealthy. At least, that’s not stated in the parable, and in Jesus’ day, it was the same as in ours: money is a tool. Money funds, builds, clothes, feeds. Money builds hospitals, houses the homeless, teaches the illiterate, supports the arts, feeds the hungry. Jesus depended on the money of others to support him and his disciples. Jesus praised the woman who poured expensive perfume on him, preparing him, he said, for his death. Jesus was buried by a rich man who placed him in his own tomb. In the book of Acts, the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, a mark of Christian community is not communal poverty, but communal wealth, where through people’s sharing with one another, everyone has enough. The fool’s foolishness is not that he is rich….

CONTINUE READING…

From the Episcopal Church website: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermon/obituary-for-a-fool-pentecost-8-c-july-31-2022/


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