Scripture Scribbles: August 3, 2025

the Gospel

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.”

the scribble

As I pray with this gospel, the Lord nudges me toward the request we hear today from the crowd. I smile because it sounds so familiar to me as a mother:

“Tell my brother to share!”

As my heart moves with a mother’s tenderness and love toward this voice in the crowd, the Lord reminds me that He also hears me with tenderness and love when I ask him for things.

And boy have I been asking for things.

Desperately asking.

Asking my friends and family for intercession.

Praying novenas.

Offering masses.

Asking the saints for intercession.

What I desire has been filling my mind and thoughts.

They are good things, these desires

But they are not the best thing.

They are not Him.

As I write this, I am with my family in a gorgeous medieval village in Spain. There was a market fair last week filled with trinkets and treats. My husband and I treated our daughters to a few things as we wandered through the beautiful streets and listened to the music, played games and held their precious little hands.

My heart was so delighted by the beauty and life all around us and our experience of it together.

Soon, the girls wanted more. Everywhere they looked, things sparkled around them and as I fended off exasperation, they careened toward meltdowns.

As a parent it was easy to see that the sparkling bits and bobs would be forgotten in a couple of days at home. It was easy for me to distinguish these fleeting goods from the true good and true beauty of that night. It was easy to perceive how the temptation to want more threatened the joy of grateful hearts and deep connection.

I knelt to try to explain something like this to my daughters. As I took a deep breath to launch into my speech, the Lord showed me, in a flash, myself in his eyes: the beloved child in the beautiful market requesting many things. 

But “only one thing is needed,” (Luke 10:42) he reminded me. I smiled as he so patiently and tenderly parented me.

Today’s Gospel continues this lesson he has been teaching me. We can fill our minds and lives and prayers, even, with the pursuit of many things that we think will secure our joy, but they all fall short of Him in the end.

The harvests of the fields of our lives may be meager or bountiful (perhaps in wealth, health, children, family dynamics, our professional efforts, whatever it may be that we pursue, work for and value the way the man in the parable does). The bounty is not the problem in and of itself. It is the fixation upon it and the belief that it, in and of itself, will secure our joy.

What matters to God?

What matters to him is our hearts fully participating in his immeasurable love for eternity.

Peace and joy are fruits of the Holy Spirit, of intimacy with the Lord, not of favorable circumstance, stockpiling harvests or of getting what we want.

Do I believe that?

What are the harvests I think will secure my joy?

Do I believe that if none of the good things I hope for come to pass, being His is better?

Do I believe it enough to abandon the details of my life to it?

Do I believe it enough to experience the true freedom of surrender?

Pray with me that our hearts will seek, ponder, meditate upon and burn for Him above all.

Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.

Today’s devotion was written by Lucia Parker DeMarco