What Is Demanding Your Life?

Preacher: Met. John Gregory

Readings: Luke 12:13–21 | Colossians 3:1–11 | Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12–14; 2:18–23

What is demanding your life today?

That was the question the Gospel left us with this week. In our lectionary, we read from the Good News Translation: “This very night you will have to give up your life.” But in other translations, it strikes even harder: “This very night, your life is being demanded of you.”

That line stopped me. It’s not just a warning about death. It’s a mirror. A wake-up call. A word of holy disruption. What is demanding your life, your attention, your energy, your joy, this very day? What is draining you? What is holding you hostage?

I’m not talking about sickness, stress, or grief, though those are real. I mean the slow drain. The quiet erosion. The feeling that something essential is slipping out of you. Like something inside is drying up. Or you’re just going through the motions. That deep-down disorientation where your soul stands still but the world keeps moving at full speed.

Sometimes that looks like waking up with dread. Or collapsing into bed with nothing left. Maybe your calendar owns you. Or your bank account. Or the version of yourself you think everyone else expects. Maybe it’s the pressure to always be okay. Or the weight of a future you can’t predict.

I know the feeling. I’ve been out of work since May. I’ve applied for over 500 jobs. Less than 10 interviews. It’s brutal. And it messes with your sense of worth. Especially in a world that tells you your value is tied to what you earn or produce. Even when you know that isn’t the Gospel, it still finds a way to take root.

But that ache, the one we try to hide? Scripture doesn’t ignore it. The writer of Ecclesiastes calls it vanity. A spiritual exhaustion that sets in even when you’ve done everything right. It’s not failure. It’s clarity. It’s realizing that the thing you chased didn’t deliver what you hoped.

That’s the parable this week. A man’s land produces so much he tears down his barns to build bigger ones. He plans for the future. Secures himself. And then God says, “You fool. This very night, your life is being demanded of you.”

Jesus doesn’t say the man is evil or unjust. Just empty. Isolated. Disconnected. He speaks only to himself. He uses the words “I” and “my” eleven times. No neighbor. No God. Just storage. He built barns, but he had no house. No peace.

And that’s the tragedy. Not what he did wrong, but what he never got around to doing at all.

So let me ask again: what is demanding your life?

Maybe it’s your need to be right. Or your fear of being left behind. Maybe it’s a dream that no longer fits who you are. Maybe it’s the lie you believed about your worth. Maybe it’s the grief you buried because there wasn’t time to grieve. Maybe it’s the resentment you’ve let grow roots.

There are things that take your life long before you die. Not in a single blow, but in slow erosion.

And if you’ve felt that erosion, hear this. That ache is not weakness. It’s holy awareness.

Paul says in the epistle, “Set your mind on things above, not on things below.” Not to escape the world, but to remember who you are and what gives you life. The world will always ask for more. More stuff. More success. More image.

But Christ says, “Enough.”

Let go. Stop building barns. Start building tables.

Because your soul is not a storage unit. It is a vessel. A vessel made to pour out love. To be filled with grace. To make room for joy.

You want to reclaim your life? Be generous. With your love. With your story. With your grief. With your gifts. Let them pour out.

Because life does not consist in what you store up. It consists in what you give away. Not to earn anything, but to become who you already are in Christ.

So when Jesus says, “Your life is being demanded of you,” it is not a threat. It is an invitation. To live. For real.

Right now. In Christ. With each other. For the world.

Amen.