Planet of Fools

Martin Luther King preached once on the passage of the rich fool.  He told this story. 

“The other day in Atlanta, the wife of a man had an automobile accident. He received a call that the accident had taken place on the expressway. The first question he asked when he received the call: "How much damage did it do to my Cadillac?" He never asked how his wife was doing. Now that man was a fool, because he had allowed an automobile to become more significant than a person. He wasn’t a fool because he had a Cadillac, he was a fool because he worshiped his Cadillac….

“Somehow in life,”  King continued, “we must know that we must seek first the kingdom of God, and then all of those other things—clothes, houses, cars—will be added unto us. But the problem is all too many people fail to put first things first...”

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Sometimes I am a fool

I know that surprises some of you, but its true

Because sometimes

I don’t put first things first

Which of course raises the question,

“What should be first?”

Jesus was unequivocal

The Sacred should be first

In all its forms

We should build “richness towards God”

In other words we should invest in all things Sacred

The planet for example!

God’s first self incarnation

It is Sacred.  We should invest in it

Not rape it, plunder it, abuse it, for the sake of short-term profit

But devote ourselves to the nurture and enjoyment

of the self-expression of God

The Sacred as Sacred

We should invest in that reality in which we

“live and move and have our being” (Acts17)

We should wander, regularly

Into the depths of who we are, and find the Sacred Presence

That IS there

We should become awake to that presence

Nurture it

And allow it to transform us, from the inside out

The Sacred as other people

Oh, yes, God is everywhere

In everyone

In that smiling child in affluent America

In that child crying for its mother on our border

In that young urban professional

In that rural farmer, or rancher

In that young person, old person

Short person, tall person

Slight person, stout person

White person, black or brown person

It is pretty simple really

Being rich towards God is putting God first, and then people

Those beings in whom God dwells

And then?

Well then, as Jesus and Martin so aptly put it

True riches will come

Then meaning will come

Then joy will come

Then love will come

Being rich toward God

All of life will become a treasure

But if we don’t put first things first?

If we seek power first?

Or wealth first?

We see how that plays out every day,

In the greed, and injustice, and inequity…

In the fear, and cruelty that surrounds us.

If we don’t put first things first,

We are fools