St Mary’s the Virgin South Benfleet

Sunday 31st July 2022

So what’s happening in today’s readings?

The second reading and the Gospel today are giving us a stark warning, one that we should all take heed of.

Especially for myself.

And that is thinking of our earthly lives as more valuable, and more important than our spiritual lives.

So lets unpack this a little.

Paul’s letter to the Colossians says….” You must look for the things that are in heaven, when Christ is revealed and he is your life you too will be revealed in all glory with him.

Everything that belongs to your earthly life, Fornication, impurity, guilty passion evil desires and especially greed.

These are false Gods. Its saying rid yourself of all these things.

When | read this gospel out to a friend this week she said to me .. isn’t that all the fun stuff?

After a bit of giggling, we started to talk about life experiences, and we noticed that how quickly in life in the pursuit of these things, they never really lead to any kind of true happiness.

Don’t get me wrong it all seems like fun at the time, right? But all of these acts, they are all quite selfish acts aren’t they!

They all seem to be a quick fix to feeling naughty for a bit, a quick high to satisfy our ego’s, cos it makes us feel good about ourselves for a spell of time, and it’s amazing how confused we can become into thinking that is what we should fill our lives with, but the fundamental truth is

It’s all temporary, often lead by a stray hormone or a pheromone poking out somewhere, all led by our bodies and brains clouded into not seeing the bigger picture.

When our bodies don’t work as well as they used to, and they don’t look quite the same as they used to and eventually, we become invisible and nobody tries to chat us up anymore, what’s left? What’s next?

Focusing only on the naughty bits and only on the body could potentially leave you open for much disappointment… all these are flippant acts that lead nowhere.

Because when that body fades, we would have hoped to fill our lives with something more, something that will never fade or rot, something that doesn’t gather stretch marks and cellulite, something that doesn’t take you on a night out and never ring you.

Its something so much more fulfilling… building a relationship, a true and beautiful loving relationship like when we meet the love of our lives… all real and beautiful love is god breathed… AND Jesus… wants to be the love of your lives too… Love the lord offers will never leave us wanting, our lord is only interested in what’s inside your soul.

Every saint has a past every sinner has a future.

He wants us to know him and know the place where we will go when we leave our earthly bodies behind, somewhere we will spend the rest of our days compared to the minuscule amount of time we are given to experience this gift of life down here.

So what are the things of heaven and of the spirit. I hope you’ll not mind me indulging in a little fantasy for a moment…

I’m imagining… I’m in heaven If I’m lucky enough to get past St Peter and that book of sins… probably somethings happened to my earthly body and I have died, and the lord greets me, my body doesn’t hurt anymore, there’s no more struggling or pain for me, and I see Jesus and I run and hold onto him in the sweetest and most ecstatic embrace full of relief.

The first thing I would Say to Jesus… is… thank you, for all of my life, all the experiences, all the love, and fun… all of this I know came from you and thank you for being with me every step of the way, even Through the parts that hurt… Thank you for giving me my family they mean the world to me…

Then I greet my lovely nanny, and my grandad, and all the people I’ve missed ecstatic to see them all again… imagine that first embrace after so long… I can imagine Ill be thinking, why did I place so much emphasis on that body of mine? all the time I spent on the silly stuff.

I could have invested much more time getting to know the lord, in a relationship that’s true, so when I get to heaven… if I’m lucky enough… I hope he’ll know me by name and greet me in that loving embrace.

Lets face it abusing our bodies and using others aren’t the foundations for a preparation for heaven.

Our foundations are in the Gospels, look read and inwardly digest and we can get to know Christ in a truly intermit way.

So linking this to the Gospel today we hear Jesus’s parable of a man building barns to store his grain, then God says to him…. FOOL! This very night demands will be made of your soul, and what of this hoard of yours? What is to become of it?

So this really spoke to me because my favourite pass time since my husband retired to gather in my head all the things he hasn’t fixed in our house… my list is huge, from the pile of rubble in the back garden with stinging nettles taller than me, to the broken taps in the kitchen, or the garden spade we have to keep in the lounge now since the shed roof fell through.

Oh I have lots of moans… like why we don’t go out anywhere but the cinema? Why don’t we dance in the kitchen anymore, why doesn’t he buy me flowers anymore? my list is endless, and also just as pointless as the man storing his grain in big barns in Jesus’s parable

It does no good, have you ever heard the phrase… you can’t take it with you! When people talk about money, or there are no pockets in shrouds!

Like I said earlier I’d like to hope that when I encounter Jesus I won’t be thinking about the mastic in my bathroom.

I will delight that I have known Christ in my life time, this is my foundation, I will arrive in heaven with love for my family in my heart, hopefully having tried to have been a good and caring soul toward the people I encountered loving my neighbors and learning to love my enemy and pray for them, forgiving and loving like Christ does for us.

Knowing Christ and the things of heaven is our greatest treasure and our most important foundation its never too late to realise what’s important in life, hopefully this lesson I can learn for myself and maybe there’s some of you who
feel the same.

I’m going to make it my goal to know the lord as much as I can.

Catherine Ranson