Lectionary for Aug. 3, 2025
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-12;
Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
In a recent interview with the New York Times, “tech-right” Christian billionaire Peter Thiel famously took a long pause before trying to answer if he thought humanity should continue. This man made his money while studying widely, including under famous theorist René Girard. After accumulating vast wealth and much knowledge, Thiel mostly despairs about how people have lost their way, to the point that he wasn’t immediately clear that humans should exist. The buildup of riches but not caring for future generations is a recurring theme in the Bible—and in this week’s lectionary texts.
In Ecclesiastes, the teacher (Qohelet) decries that everything is as transient as vapor or breath. One of my pet peeves is interpreting havel as “vanity.” The problem for the Israeli king in Jerusalem is not that things don’t matter. His work and study aren’t in vain, but they are fleeting. He won’t be able to keep everything he accumulates. Instead, someone else will inherit what he had built and written.
If, indeed, this is Solomon’s writing, you can see the influence of his Egyptian wife, the daughter of Pharoah (1 Kings 3:1). Upon learning that the Egyptians believed that ownership of goods and wealth could be transferred to the afterlife, Solomon must have been terribly disappointed in the Israelite belief that if there was an afterlife (and that would have been a big “if” in Solomonic times), it would be mostly gloomy and entirely equitable.
Qohelet remarks that storing up wealth is foolishness because the fruit of labor can be passed to a fool (Ecclesiastes 2:19, 21). That is exactly what happened to Solomon when his carefully constructed mini-empire was passed on to his foolish son Rehoboam. The young king promised to extend Solomon’s injustice and abusive policies rather than curtail them (1 Kings 12:1-19). Perhaps if he were truly wise, Solomon would have spent less time writing proverbs and songs (1 Kings 4:32) and more time practicing justice to give his son a righteous inheritance instead of a tradition of greed.
The desire to build up wealth is worshiping the god of self: pride, self-sufficiency and ego.
The psalmist joins Qohelet in acquiring wisdom and proverbs (Psalm 49:3-4). The two also decry that both the wise and foolish die and leave their wealth to another. Again, the pursuit of wisdom is portrayed as good and useful. The rub comes when the wise remember their mortality and lament the fact that they will die, removing their wisdom from the realm of the living and forcing them to give their property as an inheritance.
The author of Colossians responds to the desire to build up both wisdom and wealth. The hearers of the letter were instructed to keep earthly resources in an open, indifferent hand, and instead to concentrate on the things of above, not on earthly things (3:2). Going further, the author insists that the hearers should treat their body as dead to greed, which is, after all, idolatry (5). The desire to build up wealth is worshiping the god of self: pride, self-sufficiency and ego. The author of Colossians insists that instead of greedy worship of self, a person renewed in Christ will no longer tolerate barriers separating people by race, nationality or socioeconomic status (11).
Unsurprisingly, Jesus brings all the teaching on greed and inheritance together. In response to a question about material inheritance, he told a parable. A man’s land produced a massive harvest—more than he could possibly hoard or keep. Instead of giving away or selling his overage, the man came up with an evil plot. He would tear down his storage facilities and build new ones so that he could cease working and live off the wealth his land produced. God told the rich fool that he would die that night and his riches would pass to someone else—the very thing he had tried to prevent by building the larger barns. The man’s greed had prevented him from providing for others. But God frustrated his plans and determined to share the wealth as an inheritance for many.
Solomon may not have liked it, but a near universal truth (Enoch and Elijah notwithstanding) is that we will die and all the things we have built up will pass to others. Using the time we have, how are we being rich to God? That is, how are we using our time and talents to bless our neighbors? And, for those of us who are blessed to have influence in the lives of younger people, how are we modeling a rejection of greed while building up an inheritance of goodness?
