{"id":8776,"date":"2025-07-29T17:49:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T15:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/predication.net\/?p=8776"},"modified":"2025-07-29T17:49:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T15:49:25","slug":"eighteenth-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-b-lk-1213-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/predication.net\/?p=8776","title":{"rendered":"Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time , Year B Lk 12,13-21"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It would probably be exciting to see what goes through a person’s head when the words of today’s first reading from the book of Ecclesiastes are heard: <\/span>Vanity over vanity, everything is vanity.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>We may remember the golden classic of Czech comedies when Ladislav Smoljak says: \u201e It’s futile, it’s futile, it’s futile!\u201c But that’s not what the passage of the Bible wants to tell us.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the original – in Hebrew – the word \u201ehebel\u201c is used, and that translates to morning haze, the kind of fog that appears above the landscape, before the sun rises and the sun dissolves it very quickly. Perhaps a more accurate translation than \u201cfutility\u201d could read: transience, momentariness. <\/span>Transience over transience, everything is transience.<\/span><\/strong> That doesn’t seem so depressing anymore! We have that experience: Everything here in the world is fleeting. Food spoils quickly. Other things last longer, with some surviving for a long time, and some may even outlive us for ages. But one day they will all pass away. As they often sing in our parish at funerals: \u201eEverything in the world will pass away, only God does not change…\u201c Everything is fleeting here on earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

And Jesus also speaks in this sense in today’s gospel. Jesus does not say that we should not care for possessions, crops, or external things. But he uses the word \u201cgreed\u201d there. We have to take care of the external things too! It belongs to life! But Jesus tells us: Distinguish what is main in your life and what is secondary. You have to take care of the external things. But keep the capacity for the essentials: To be rich before God. You won’t be able to take away any of those external things forever. You leave that here. It stays here and sooner or later it crumbles to dust. But be rich before God!<\/span>
\nThere is something we can take away for eternity. Scouts have a nice rule: At least one good deed a day. That’s what Jesus wants to tell us: Notice what you could do for someone good (for people, for God) and invest in it!<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus uses the word: fool! What is folly? Who is crazy in the sense of Jesus? A fool invests all his physical and mental strength in what he leaves behind, and no longer can think about it and do it, which will go with him forever. Foolishness occurs when external factors absorb a person’s entire or considerable capacity and strength. <\/span>What can I do not to be this fool? Be sure to start with the question: What occupies the capacity of my thinking and my strength the most? Worrying about what? Worrying about what stays here ( about what I have) or worrying about what leaves me forever ( about what I am)? A fool has no use of reason, who manifests. What and how much should I invest? If I were to invest everything, or almost everything, in what remains, it would be foolishness.<\/span><\/p>\n

And you know what’s interesting? Do you know when a person starts investing in external things without much sense? In moments when it is internally empty. When he experiences a vacuum, an inner emptiness, when there is no relationship with people, when there is no relationship with God, man begins to fill that void with things. When one starts wandering around in stores, whether brick-and-mortar or online, what else would one buy? It could be a warning sign: I have a vacuum in me, there is no God, there is no man. If we ever notice this in our lives, we will quickly lean into the investment that remains – about God and our neighbor. Stop focusing on what they offer online. Do good: for God, for man. And you will find out a wonderful thing: That those unreasonable, crazy, fleeting desires for things will leave you alone. That’s experience. Let’s try to discover it in ourselves too\u2026<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

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It would probably be exciting to see what goes through a person’s head when the words of today’s first reading from the book of Ecclesiastes are heard: Vanity over vanity, everything is vanity.\u00a0We may remember the golden classic of Czech … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"yoast_head":"\nEighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time , Year B Lk 12,13-21 - predication.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/predication.net\/?p=8776\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time , Year B Lk 12,13-21 - 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