It’s my birthday today, so happy birthday to me. And thanks to those who have or will wish me well on the day. Now, in most ways this is not a big deal birthday – not a decade milestone or a year to be marked with precious metals or stones. But it is my RMD birthday and my life will never be quite the same.

As some of you know and understand better than I do, RMD stands for Required Minimum Distribution, and it has to do with how the IRS gets at that money you put in a tax-deferred retirement account over the years. Deferred no more. Starting with today’s birthday, I am required to withdraw a certain minimum amount from a little tax-deferred nest egg that’s been happily protected from the taxman all these years. The IRS says I will have to take out at least so much every year for as long as I live, and that the “so much” will be subject to income tax – the tax that was deferred back then. I can put the money in the bank, take a trip, buy a toy, or give it to my favorite mission cause. I have to take it. Absolutely fair even if a bit annoying.

So how much is “so much”?  It has to do with how long the IRS thinks I am going to live.  I know, it is a little more complicated than that when you factor in designated beneficiaries and so forth, but, yes, the IRS thinks it knows how long I am going to live. They publish a table with just such information. Turns out, they say I will live to be 90. And if I live to be 90, they’ll tax me as if I am going to live to be 96. The life-expectancy table runs to age 99 (when they’ll tax me as if I am going to live to be 101). One of their tables goes to age 120. The taxman cometh. Ben Franklin was right about death and taxes.

Of course, actuarily speaking the IRS knows what it is talking about. They pay smart people good money to come up with those tables. Other than the inevitability that I will pay taxes, however, the IRS knows nothing about what will fill my years between this RMD birthday and age 90 or 96 or 99 – or even whether I will make it to 90 or 96 or 99.

The old evangelism question asks “if you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?” I know people who have begun a long and faithful life with Christ after being confronted with that question, so I don’t want to belittle it. Jesus seems to ask a slightly different question, though: “If you died tonight, what would you want to be doing as you died?” In fact, Jesus told a story about a man who was distracted – obsessed – by financial planning the very moment he died.  “You fool,” God says in the story. “You were more concerned about your RMD than the things of the Kingdom.” Or something like that.

I can spend every year until I am 99 thinking about my RMD and the trip or toy or gift I might buy with it. Or I can be thinking about and active in the things of the Kingdom – worship, study, fellowship, service, caring. Loving.

This RMD birthday would be a good time to think about my Required Maximum Distribution.  Jesus said something about taking up my cross.