Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
Challenging attitudes toward “stuff” is an important theme in Luke/Acts and is front and center in today’s parable.
A prosperous man accumulates more and more and calculates how his plush life will be even more secure. But death befalls this “fool” that same evening, with appalling swiftness.
This is the only parable in which God directly addresses a character: “You fool! Tonight your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20)
Jesus warns, “Woe to you who are rich now, for you have received your consolation” (Luke 6:24).
Biblical wisdom literature warns against wealth as the goal of life. “Do not wear yourself out to be rich; be wise enough to desist. When your eyes gaze upon it wealth is gone; for suddenly it takes wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven” (Proverbs 23:4-5).
The search for wisdom, living in tune with God’s will, ought to be life’s ambition. The Lord “stores up sound wisdom for the upright” (Proverbs 2:7). This is a far better storehouse than limitless silos of grain. Wisdom is equated not with longevity and prosperity, but with a relationship with God that death itself can’t take away.
Unlike other parables, God speaks to the fool directly, revealing the futility of his priorities and revealing the exact timing of his demise. While none of us gets the timing memo, we have all been given the futility memo. In a matter of hours the fool is the richest man in the cemetery.
Today we recall Ignatius of Antioch (d. 110), a disciple of John the Evangelist. Emperor Trajan ordered him thrown to the wild beasts in Rome. Ignatius rejoiced that his death would be his real birth. While en-route to the Eternal City he wrote, “I am writing to all the churches, do not stand in my way. Let me be food for the wild beasts. They are my way to God. I am the wheat of God ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be the pure bread of Christ.”
Would our society label the farmer in the parable a “fool” or label him as “wise?” Would our society honor Ignatius of Antioch with the title “wise” or call him a “fool?”
Jesus, itinerant preacher and master storyteller, would have ended his parables with one question: “How is the Kingdom of God like that?”
How do we respond to that question with regard to the parable we hear today?
We know how Saint Ignatius of Antioch answered it.
Our choice is clear.
Timothy J. Cronin
(Wednesday @7pm we conclude our study of Revelation, the book of martyrs that would have inspired and sustained Ignatius. https://www.youtube.com/user/imedayton/live)