Family Communion for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity: celebrant the Revd Tola Badejo,

First reading: Colossians 3. 1-12
Gospel: Luke 12. 13-21

During the month of August there is no Junior Church and all of our Sunday services are 'Family Communion'.

In different ways, both of today's readings contrast 'the things that are above' with 'the things that are on earth'. Paul's examples of bad behaviour in Colossians are mostly indefensible in any circumstances; they are generally things that anyone, of any religion or none, would agree to be wrong even if they turned a blind eye to their own transgressions. The 'rich fool' parable is rather more complex, because an excellent harvest is a good thing and there is nothing to suggest that the rich man has done well as a result of cheating his neighbours or any other underhand practice. The problem is not his wealth in itself but his uncritical and self-centred sense of entitlement: he neither thanks God for his good fortune nor considers how he might use it for the wider good, and he makes the all-too-easy mistake of assuming that material prosperity guarantees happiness and security.

The 'rich fool' doesn't seem a very promising subject for an artist, but Rembrandt produced a memorable painting in response to the parable. The extreme contrast of light and shadow communicates the man's obsession with the coins in front of him and his indifference to everything beyond; his piled books and ledgers seem to enclose and even to threaten him, as though they are holding him in a prison of his own making.