Last Sunday's Gospel reading was the parable of The Rich Fool from Luke 12:13-21.

“God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’” (Luke 12:20).

When we came into this world we didn't have any stuff. We started naked, and a little angry about being taken from such a nice, warm place in the womb. Our parents knew beforehand we weren’t going to come with any stuff, so they bought us some stuff and put it in a special room.

As we grew older, we got a lot more stuff and needed dressers, closets, and other places to store our stuff. When we became teenagers, we got jobs and had money so we could get more stuff on our own, and we surely did get lots of stuff. When some of our stuff got too old or too small or broken, we replaced that stuff with more stuff.

As we grew older, we got promotions and better jobs, and boy, could we buy stuff then. We got cars, boats, cabins, and more places to put our stuff. It seemed like we could always find purposes and room for more stuff. We even used banks and bins to store some of the stuff. We had red stuff, green stuff, big stuff, and small stuff. We had stuff in the garage, the attic, the bedrooms, the closets, the basement, the living and dining rooms, and lots of other places. We gave some of our stuff to the kids, and then got more stuff for those empty spaces. Then our kids and even our grandkids starting giving us stuff in return, and they found lots of occasions to celebrate by giving even more stuff. When we retired, the gang at work gave us more stuff to remember them by.

Then, suddenly, one day, much to our surprise, we died and we didn’t need any more stuff. And now, someone else has to get rid of all our stuff.