Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 3, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
 This body
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,
Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.
King Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes near the end of his life, and he has had enough.
What profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart
with which he has labored under the sun?
All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation and
even at night his mind is not at rest.
Solomon’s forefather Moses felt much the same, writing in Psalm 90:
You turn man back to dust,
saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
 are as yesterday, now that it is past,
 or as a watch of the night.
You make an end of them in their sleep;
 the next morning they are like the changing grass,
Which at dawn springs up anew,
but by evening wilts and fades.
No question about it. One way or another, on the battlefield or in our bed, each of us will die. Suddenly or in the agony of a long illness, our body betrays our spirit, or seems to, unless we understand ourselves as part of a great rhythm that begins with birth, moves through life and continues through death, into new life. This natural resurrection occurs in every form of carbon-based creation, and our bodies are not an exception.
So Clarence Heller recognizes that gratitude rather than surprise serves us well as we age:
This Body
This body, this one particular body
has served me well,
playing plenty, learning lessons, building a life.
Straining and stretching to become more,
to expand capabilities, express passion,
rock my babies, and give birth to so much.
Both abused and cared for, thank you
for your understanding and forgiveness.
And now, in these later years,
you are teaching me the wisdom of slowing down,
living life in moments, not years,
and the beauty of the final transition into fulfillment,Â
into letting go completely. – Clarence Heller
Being of a certain age, I know “letting go completely” might not be far off. Not today, perhaps, or tomorrow … I found a set of suggestions for writing your own obituary somewhere, which I kept but so far I have ignored. I would like to be part of the Sandel group buried at Mt. Pulaski Cemetery, but so far I haven’t found a way to talk to those in charge. I would like to live forever, or at least I’d rather not die. Not sure why, I’ve always liked change. And besides, I want to get to Jesus’ banquet, and claim my place as one of the poor and lame …
When you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
(Ecclesiastes 1, Psalm 90, Colossians 3, Matthew 5, Luke 12
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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