“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly…”

I think these are wise words and if the rich man in Luke’s parable had heard them maybe he wouldn’t have been such an idiot. If you want to know how to NOT live like a disciple of Jesus, then follow the example of the rich man. I draw our attention to what, I believe, is the most important passage in today’s Gospel. “I will say to my soul, Soul you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.’” In this exchange the rich man is congratulating himself for all the things he has accumulated and accomplished, and God basically calls him an idiot. So how does the parable of the rich man jive with what Paul says in his letter to the Colossians?

Well, in both cases the message is, don’t get distracted by earthly things. Don’t get distract by wealth; don’t get distracted by getting your way; don’t get distracted by your desire to win; don’t get distracted by making sure everyone else is happy at the expense of yourself. It is obviously easy for me to say don’t get distracted, but it is important and because it is important, I refer us back to Paul’s letter, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” While I love this passage, I think it misleads us, it perpetuates the false idea that all things of God are somewhere else. God is not up in the sky somewhere; God is not in some mythical kingdom called heaven. God is here, God’s kingdom is here, and we are a part of it. Both Paul and Luke are telling us that we need to not be distracted by human made things, and focus on what it means to live a life after resurrection, because we have already been resurrected through our baptisms and our acceptance of Jesus as the son of God. This whole thing that we do, (waves hands around the church) is not about some distant future, it is about now. It’s about praising God for life itself and for the things that sustain us, this is the point the rich man forgot. He was so focused on congratulating himself and figuring out how to keep all that he had, that he forgot about God’s role in his life. Our faith is about being in relationship with God and one another, it is about treating people with dignity and respect because they are children of God. One of the topics that has dominated the news lately is the humanitarian crisis on our southern border. Hundreds of thousands of people have walked thousands of miles with the hope of finding a better life. They could have tried to cross the border without permission, but most of them did not do that, instead they presented themselves in accordance with both US and international law and asked for asylum. The US immigration authorities have been overwhelmed by the number of people who have asked for asylum and they are doing their best to deal with the situation, hence the camps. Are the camps perfect? Definitely not! Could the US government do better? Absolutely! Are the ICE agents evil? Of course not. Has our nation’s response to this crisis been a Christian response? Probably not, instead our nation’s response has been distracted by earthly and human made distractions such as cost, politics, and nationalism. A Christian response would focus on the commandment to love our neighbors. When we do that, when we focus on the love of neighbor, we are then setting our minds on the things that are above. Political arguments, arguments about the cost of giving every person in the camps a toothbrush and the fear that the US is somehow being invaded are all earthly based things and should be irrelevant to how we treat our brothers, sisters, and siblings from other places. If I were to die tomorrow, what good would my political views, my concern about the cost to taxpayers, and my fear of strangers do anyone? Those questions are exactly what Luke and Paul are getting at in today’s readings. If we want to experience God’s kingdom, then we must resist being like the rich man, we must set aside the distractions, focus on God, and discern the way forward.