"Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."'

"Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."' Our Gospel lesson for this Sunday records these words being spoken by a rich fool who was confident that the surplus he had received from his fields would last him into the future. While dreaming about building bigger barns to store his excess, "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"?

Prophetic voices from the ancient Church rightly challenge this impoverished worldview. St. John Chrysostom writes that the only barns we need we already have: "the stomachs of the poor." St. Basil the Great taught that "the bread in our cupboard belongs o the hungry man; the coat hanging in unused in belongs to the who needs it; the shoes rotting in our closet belong to the one who has no shoes, and the money we hoard belongs to the poor."

You and I are bombarded daily with advertising that promotes the hopeless worldview of "take life easy; eat, drink and be merry" that places emphasis on experiencing your best life now instead of living life with an eternal perspective focused on "may your kingdom come May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven".

Your servant in CHRIST, 

The Rev. Dean F. Schultz

Christ the Redeemer Church in Springfield, VA