Jesus told them this parable: "The
ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought
to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and
build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll
say to myself, "You have plenty of grain laid up for many years.
Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."
"But God said to him, 'You
fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who
will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
"This is how it will be with
whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God."
- Luke 12:16-21
For centuries, a haunting question has
been on the lips of Christian evangelists: "If you died
tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?" This
repeated phrase helped to fuel the 19th century revival movements,
and spurred missionary efforts around the world. It is a question
that has drawn unknown thousands into self-examination and a deeper
relationship with God. For so many, for so long, it demanded an
immediate, personal response to the implications of the gospel
message.
For many of us today, however, this
question seems so irrelevant as to be ridiculous. Far from being a
phrase that cuts to the very heart of our spiritual struggles, it has
been reduced to a superficial relic of bygone years. It has become a
cliché, and an ugly one at that. For most of my friends, this phrase
could never be uttered except in jest.
There are good reasons for this. The
mainstream Evangelical vision of the afterlife has done serious
damage to the spiritual lives of many. How many of us were told as
children that our eternal safety depended entirely on whether we said
a particular prayer? How many of us were terrified that perhaps we
had not said the prayer right, and that we were destined for
everlasting torment, separated from God and everyone we loved?
I know I was. To me, "If you died
tonight..." still sounds more like a threat than an invitation.
It feels like romance with a gun to the head.
Coerced faith bears no resemblance to
the love of God. Jesus does not threaten. His majesty is in his
willingness to take our suffering upon himself rather than inflict
it. Jesus did
not come to condemn us to hell; he
came to liberate us from it.
Yet, Jesus does not shy away from hard
truth. He is very clear with us that our choices have real
consequences - and nothing highlights consequences as clearly as
death. In Jesus' parable about a rich man, death is the great
revealer. The wealthy man thought he had all the time in the world,
and that he could live just for himself. He imagined his life was
infinite, storing up great riches to keep himself comfortable. He
thought he could become self-sufficient.
Death blows away all of this nonsense.
Every one of us could face death at any moment. No matter how much
money we have in the bank, or how great our positions or positions of
influence, we are all beggars every time we take a breath. The
greatest treasure we have is the present moment, and the greatest
gift we have to give is our choice of how to live it.
In Jesus' parable, the real question is
not about some other-worldly "heaven"; it is about right
relationship, and justice. The rich man thought that he could live
for himself, caring only about his own needs. He neglected the poor
and others who needed his help, choosing instead to store up huge
amounts of wealth for the future. By focusing on his own comfort and
pleasure, he lived a meaningless and unjust life.
All of this was revealed at the moment
of his death. The rich man had lived in denial for so long, thinking
he would live forever. But death uncovered the truth: He had spent
his life chasing
after wind.
How often are we like this rich man? Do
we fully embrace the inevitable reality of our own death? What does
refusing to acknowledge death cost us? What if we heard the
disturbing question again: "If you died tonight, do you know
where you would spend eternity?"
Perhaps a better question might be, "If
you died today, would the life you have lived be worthy of eternity?"
When the moment of death comes, will we look back with joy on all the
lives we have touched? Will we survey our life and see that we were
faithful, or will we find that we wasted our precious time on
selfishness and fear? Will we have led lives that were worth dying
for?
1 comment:
In light of the old saw about looking for the right questions rather than the right answers: The question here is not "Where do I spend eternity?" but rather "What do I do with the abundance given me?"?
Post a Comment