Nothing new under the sun . . . people still enjoy being around success, money, gifts, and receiving public recognition. What strikes us, by contrast, in this reading is the bond between friends and riches.

It’s easy to have lots of friends when you shower them with presents, goodies, trips, privileges and advantages of all sorts! Easy to be surrounded with ‟bought” friendship. But honestly, what kind of friendship is this? If the number of your friends depends on what you give them, then the rich would get more and the poor would lose them.

The Pharisees were experts in interpreting and in keeping the Jewish laws. But although they were good at keeping rules and regulations, their hearts were far from God.

It is possible to be outwardly religious while your heart is self-centred and hardened to the things that matter to God. History bore witness to their hard heartedness. They killed or persecuted the prophets who brought God’s message. And now that God’s own Son had come, they prevented people from receiving his truth, and they themselves refused to listen to the truth.

Oh, how quickly we let worries define us and take charge of our lives! Even as I write, savvy online advertisers raise the alarm about the state of my wrinkles, relationships and waistline. I am encouraged to fixate on food and be consumed with my career.

Worry gravitates towards the trivial, distorting our priorities. Rather than examining the state of our souls before God, we concern ourselves with how we look to other people.

Consumed with clutching my own personal ticket to paradise, I wonder how often I let the saving words of God slip through my fingers. I am all too often like the man who presents his legal battle with a family member, requesting a verdict in his favour. Here Jesus exhorts his followers to abandon a life of worry.

The parable Jesus gives in response addresses the underlying reason for many of our complaints in life.

In our anxious moments, we clothe ourselves with worry and spread a feast of fear before us. Our thoughts circle and chase us just as we run to secure them. When we are most desperate to feel in control of our lives we are most prone to set a trap for ourselves.

In times of wandering God urged the Israelites to record, remember and recite the works of his hand to strengthen their faith.

If this life is the final offer, then my quest should be to experience it all and not hold back. I should take from others anything I find useful, and taste all that tempts my palate. If this world is a house where there is no master, no one can stop me from laying claim to the position.

Sadly not a single one of us has the grace required of a true master. When we take on the role we are more likely to mistreat others, be reckless with the land and slide into gluttony of all sorts.

In my experience it is only when I am in a state of desperation, like a deer panting for water, that I am able to break through the ceiling of confinement and the restraint that I impose on myself which prevents me going deep with God. The paradox is that I resist the very things God uses to bring me to this point of desperation so I can go deep with him.

As survivalists of the highest order we work to insulate ourselves from all uncertainty be it relational, financial, personal security or healthy wellbeing.