Sunday, August 3, 2025 – Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23, Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21
When I got my dog, Cotton, back in the north Georgia mountains, I developed a particular whistle I would use to call him. It was a way for my familiar “voice” to cut through the other noises of the environment, to reach his ears, and to turn him toward me.
I won’t lie to you and tell you that he always came when I whistled, but most of the time he responded to that call. My second dog, Bobby, also learned the familiar tune, and even a cat I had named Tang responded to it.
Tang was a mostly outdoor cat, even in Chicago, and I’d let him out at nighttime (he used to beat up my older cats). In the morning when I first got up, I’d go to my back door on the third floor and whistle for him, and he’d come running down the alley, across the yard, and up the stairs into the house. He knew my voice, and he knew my call meant love.
And food.
The ones we love know our voice. And if they are listening, they’ll respond.
Today, our scripture readings invite us to pause, take a breath, and consider a very important question: To whose voice are we truly listening? Is it the voice of our small, ego-driven self, always hungry for more possessions and recognition? Or are we listening for the loving and patient voice of God, calling us to something deeper and more lasting?
Let’s imagine the ancient world for a moment. Picture the teacher in Ecclesiastes—wise, maybe a little weary, looking at the world with clear eyes and a heavy heart. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” they sigh. The word translated as “vanity” could also mean emptiness or meaninglessness. Ultimately, he says, everything in this life is meaningless.
It’s easy to hear these words and feel a little gloom settle in. But the teacher isn’t trying to bring us down. Instead, Ecclesiastes is offering us an honest look at the human tendency to chase after things that, in the end, can’t fill us up. The teacher asks, “What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?”
If we look around at our own lives, don’t we sometimes fall into that same pattern? We work hard, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But when our work, our striving, our busyness is only about getting more—more money, more stuff, more status—we can end up tired, lonely, and wondering what it was all for. As Stephen Covey once said, “We can spend our life climbing the corporate ladder only to find that it’s been leaning against the wrong wall!”
The wisdom of Ecclesiastes suggests that even if we manage to build up wealth to leave behind, it doesn’t give us lasting meaning. Even the satisfaction in handing down our gains to the next generation is fleeting, and it’s not the ultimate purpose for which God has created us.
In our Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus tells the story of a rich man. He has done well for himself, his barns are overflowing, and he starts planning to build even bigger barns. He thinks, “I’ll store it all up, and then I’ll finally be able to relax and enjoy life.”
But if we read carefully, we notice something important: this rich man is alone.
He doesn’t talk about family, friends, or sharing his good fortune. He’s isolated, speaking only to himself, and he doesn’t acknowledge the people who helped him prosper—the workers who toiled in his fields, the community around him, or the God who blessed his harvest. Sadly, his focus on possessions and security has shrunk his world to a conversation with himself.
Jesus calls this man a “fool,” not because he was successful or hardworking, but because he mistook the gift of life for the accumulation of things. He lost sight of what’s truly important—relationships, gratitude, sharing, and living generously.
When our hearts become small and self-centered, we build bigger barns on the outside but emptier rooms on the inside.
The writer of Colossians gives us another way. He reminds us that our “real life is hidden with Christ in God.”
What does this mean? It means that our truest, deepest self is not defined by what we own or what we achieve. Our identity isn’t tied to our bank accounts, our job titles, or our possessions. Instead, our real life, the life God dreams for us, is found when we align ourselves with the greater body of Christ—when we love, forgive, serve, and look out for one another. It’s found when we live from that Greater Self that is Christ and not just from our small, egoic self.
Living this way isn’t always flashy. It might not earn us headlines or accolades. But when we decide to listen to God’s voice—when we value kindness, honesty, generosity, and community—our lives become rich in ways that last.
We shift from chasing after the wind to dancing with the Spirit. We don’t just build bigger barns, but deeper relationships and a stronger community.
Vince Brackett, a pastor in Chicago, names the ability to listen for and heed God’s voice as “call-ability.” He writes that,
We need the lament of today’s Ecclesiastes passage as a tunnel to help us escape from a world of advertisements into a world of call-ability. The words of Ecclesiastes’ ‘Teacher’ are despairing and difficult, but they are like Andy Dufresne’s necessary crawl through the prison sewer system to get to freedom in [the movie] ‘The Shawshank Redemption.’
The God on the other side of the tunnel will never lie to us with a sales pitch or a false determinism about wealth or productivity being able to protect us from harm or uncertainty. The God on the other side of the tunnel treats us like adults, acknowledges the openness and uncertainty of the future, and commits to staying present with us as we step into that open, uncertain future.”
The truth is, each of us faces choices every single day in a world that is noisy with competing voices trying to sell us something new. Will we listen to the voices that tell us more is always better?
Or will we tune our hearts to the gentle call of Christ, who invites us to lay aside our anxieties, to trust in God’s provision, and to focus on what truly matters?
Let us remember: God doesn’t measure our success by how much we own, but by how much we love. God is not selling us false promises or guaranteed outcomes; God is inviting us to walk together into an open, uncertain future—with courage, faith, and hope, knowing that we are never alone.
So, as we leave this place today, let’s do our best to listen for that familiar whistle, for God’s voice. May we find our life, our joy, and our purpose not in our possessions, but in the love we share and the community we build together.
