The vanity of all material possessions rests on their futility. The ways in which they appear are often times fascinating which hide their transitoriness. Material possessions identify us as either rich or poor, privileged or less privileged, fortunate or less fortunate. These categories are based on simple human calculations and enterprise. It is believed so often that only the industrious and the hardworking attain the best of things in life. It makes us to judge others who have not been able to make it in life as being lazy and not blessed. We most often look down on them. But this is a wrong estimation of things. The scripture readings take a different outlook on this issue. For the author of the Book of Wisdom, earthly possessions are vanities. It is a vanity that rests upon vanity itself and which reduces all human struggles to acquire them as vanity of vanities. The emphasis is, so to say, disturbing. If everything is reduced to meaninglessness then, what is of meaning?
Rather than give praise to the rewards of human struggle and suffering, Qoholeth seems to show no regard to the input of man. If because man must inevitably face mortality, does it then follow that he should not struggle to make life better for himself while he lives? The identification of all acquisitions as vanity, and the anxiety of the heart many men and women pass through in order to better their situations cannot be reduced to a puzzle of transitoriness if not that the wisdom of man is put to question on what matters best, what comes first in life and what is the ideal possession. The response Jesus gives to the man in the crowd who asked for his assistance in recovering his own part of the inheritance gives us the meaning we seek.
The anxiety of this man could be understood. First, he had placed his hope on this wealth he was to share with his brother. Better life for him, depended on that and Jesus as a just judge and teacher can make a good arbitrator, so he thinks. On the other hand, it was customary among the Jews to bring domestic cases like this to their rabbis. However, for Jesus there was more to the request than the simple eyes could see. He saw the faith and hope which is placed on possessions, and the greed thereof as a menace to life. So, it afforded him the opportunity to caution his listeners against greed and possessions. Because of that he gives us the parable of the Rich Fool.
This parable tells us something of the man. It also tells us something of what Jesus wants to say: One’s life does not consist of possessions. This is the mistake of the complainant and the sin of the greedy brother. This is the crux of the matter. Our life is beyond our possessions and whatever we can carry along with our lives to the world beyond is what really matters in the long run. Incidentally, this does not consist of material possessions which are at the heart of many distractions. This rich fool was condemned not because he stole his wealth or he was an insincere business man. He had really worked hard to deserve his riches. Is he then being flawed for his devotion to hard work? That is also not the case. The point of contention here is that he thinks that he has made his own world and all that matters is himself and his own world. He failed to look “beyond himself” and “beyond his world”. He was consumed on what life would be like after piling up all the treasures for himself. He had one purpose; to indulge himself in a life of hedonism. Though, we may say that one deserves some respite and fun after working so hard yet, one does not need to think only of himself and his possessions as the ultimate things that matter in life. The self is the root of all greed. One may be so engrossed with the self that he forgets that the life he intends to color with all the possessions he acquires does not ultimately belong to him. It is given to him and he who had given him that life may decide to make a demand of that life without consultation. The rich fool thought less of giving back. He was ready to conserve his excess and enjoy from it than sharing with the needy as something that matters to God. He thought of life as dependent on possessions which is the mistake many of us make instead of seeing life as dependent on God. All his intentions for hard work were to better himself and not his world. With such an egocentric mind-set, he lost sight of the ideal possession which is distinct from the possession of material things. The possession of material things cannot secure our lives and because of this, it cannot be trusted.
The possessions stored up for oneself is futile at the person’s demise. This is precisely the wisdom of Qoholeth in identifying all things as vanity. Vanity here means futility, transitory and meaninglessness. The death of each one of us questions the meaning of the struggle we have had and which may have denied us of the best Christian ideals. Since these possessions are eventually left to those who may not have suffered for it and they may not value the pains the owner passed through to acquire them, Qoholeth sees them as vanities. The Lynnewood Hall mansion built at 8million dollars in 1900 today lies as a shadow of itself as an abandoned property in Philadelphia. We are also aware of the story of Wadsworth mansion in Middleton, Connecticut that was recently salvaged with tax payers’ money. Thus, the worth, the labor and all the nights of anxiety of the once hardworking man turn to mean nothing. Therefore, what should be the best approach to possessions is to see in them only as a means to acquire the ideal possession which consists “in what matters to God”. This is the intention of Christ.
What matters to God is already within our consciousness. Paul identifies them as in what is above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. We can achieve this when we put to death according to Saint Paul all impurities and passions, all greed and evil desire and all misplacement of values. In the new image of the new self, earthly possessions will not be the one thing that qualifies us and identifies us; it is rather Christ in us that qualifies us and gives us the true identity of who we are and should be. Christ in us is the ideal possession which we should seek above all else.
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