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11. Sunday after pentecost, 08/04/2013
Sermon on Luke 12:13-21, by Pari Bailey
Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.' But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?' And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.' Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, "What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?" Then he said, "I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry." But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.' (NRSV)
There's a joke told about the old comedian Jack Benny, who was known to be very stingy. It seems Mr. Benny was mugged at gunpoint one day, and the robber said, "Hey, pal-your money or your life." Benny just stood there. "Hey! Didn't you hear me? I said, your money or your life!" Benny then responded, "Don't rush me! I'm thinking!"
We chuckle. It's easy to poke fun at someone else's failings because we're not like them. Nor are we like either man in the Gospel lesson, being so crass as to air a family fight over an inheritance, or building bigger barns in which to put excessive surplus. We might even be tempted to dismiss these lessons. After all, we're not rich. It's not about us. But we sure want our fair share, and we are often addicted to that little word: "enough." Gotta have "enough."
In the world we live in, officers of huge companies and banks mishandle their corporations' finances and still make a bundle of cash. Shady business practices, outright dishonesty, bad loans, bailouts galore: the news is filled with stories of want and greed, whether criminal or not. Every other story on the news is about the stock market, the recession, housing bust or boom.
And then there's just plain old consumerism. Marketing firms know that they can manipulate how we think and feel about money, cars, other products and things. Ads aiming to build brand loyalty, even in the youngest children, are commonplace. Commercials get kids (and us) to say "I want that! No, I need that! That will make me happy and fulfilled, successful and secure!"
About a decade ago, scholars coined the term "affluenza" for this particular disease of desire, accumulation and unquestioned pursuit of material wealth that afflicts us in this country. It's not so much that we need bigger barns--we need bigger closets and drawers and garages!
Money is a big part of our lives, whether we have little or much. It's a necessity, and a blessing from God. But the Lutheran church has not done right by you or our children, I think, in often pretending that an over-reliance on, or addiction to, material things is a secular problem, or that our attitudes toward money and wealth are somehow divorced from our theology.
Somebody told me a few years back that we had to be really careful in the church talking about money because that's private. Well, Jesus talked about money all the time, and greed, and wealth, and possessions, and stuff. You look in the Gospels-he was constantly talking about wealth. He didn't worry about being offensive or trespassing on people's private business. Jesus thought that money had a lot to do with following him, and a lot to do with living righteously before God as new creations. Paul even talks about greed as idolatry, a violation of commandment number one! But it's still a subject that most Christians prefer to keep private, separate from their faith and religion.
That, as Ecclesiastes says, is a vanity and a chasing after wind. All of our lives have to do with God, since he is the one that created us and gave us everything we have. In Jesus' parable, it's the rich man's land that produced abundantly: land made by God, who also sent the sun and rain to water the crops. In the parable, the rich man speaks three sentences. He is the subject of every single one. He even speaks to himself. No one, and nothing else, can intrude on his soliloquy of "I, I, I, me, my."
Oh, Jesus knows how we are. It's why he tells the story. We try desperately to fill the holes inside of us with stuff-new clothes, new cars, new computers, other stuff. The more we have, the more we want. And the more we want, the more afraid we are of losing what we have.
We're always worried about having "enough." No, no-we're not rich, we just want our fair share. We're concerned about losing what we have, or not getting what is due us. Like the rich man in Jesus' parable, we keep and guard what wealth and money and property we have, so that we can feel secure. We are "rich in things, but poor in soul."
And that's the problem--you and I have a God-sized hole in us. And yet we try to cram it full of other stuff, in order satisfy our desires, assuage our insecurities, keep at bay our fears. We let possessions, work, money, status become our little gods, and we start trusting them more than we trust the one true God. Think about it, if you want to take issue with my word, "trust." What causes you to panic more: losing your job, your farm, your income, or losing God? What do you spend the most time on in a given week: thinking about work, worrying about bills, or seeking whether you're trusting and pleasing God? That's what it means to "trust" wealth-you spend most of your time on it, you think about it constantly. You don't mean for it to take over, but it does.
Ecclesiastes says it best: "For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest." When was the last time you couldn't get to sleep for worrying?
Once, in confirmation class a few years back, I talked about a program that went on at a nearby church. One Sunday a year was designated 90/10 Sunday. People were challenged to give 90% of their income for that week, and live on 10%. One of my students said, "That's crazy. What if something should happen, then you wouldn't have enough!"
Well, what if something should happen? "You fool," God says, "this very night your life is being demanded of you."
You might still be saying: this isn't me. I'm not rich. I barely have enough to pay the bills and feed my kids. I can't afford anything! But don't you see-even the preoccupation with the absence of wealth gets us in trouble. Most of us spend more time working and earning money, or worrying about our bills, than we do praying to God to help us seek the things that are above.
Hear this clearly: Jesus isn't against wealthy people, just like he is not against people working hard to make a living. Lots and lots of wealthy people hear the good news of Jesus Christ and use their talents and fortunes to further the kingdom of God and serve the least of these. And certainly, Jesus doesn't expect us to live on air. Jesus isn't out of touch with our daily needs. It's not that Jesus didn't care about the man who demanded that his brother to divide the inheritance. It's not money that's the root of all evil-it's love of money that's the problem. What Jesus is saying is not that wealth or working hard is bad-it's that our priorities are messed up.
Our more evangelical brethren sometimes pose the rhetorical question, "If you die tonight, where will you go? Heaven or hell?" While there's no way to scare people out of hell or threaten them into heaven, the question does have merit: If you die tonight, are you well-prepared in the things that matter? I don't mean life insurance or a funeral pre-plan. Is your family well provided for in matters of faith? Have you taught your kids and grandkids, by example, that kindness and generosity are your family values? Do your kids know that the best things in life aren't things at all? Has your family learned the joy that comes from pitching in and serving neighbors in need? Have you passed on a legacy not of huge barns and treasures stored up on earth, but sharing what you have--even if it isn't much?
At your wake, will your children talk about you being thankful to God for all that he had given you, and how much you valued God's blessings? When you pass on your land and property, will you pass on with it the conviction that it isn't really yours, it's God's and your family just watches over it for him as good stewards? Will the sentence of your life be "This is mine" or will it be "This is yours, God." And "Let me help you, neighbor." And "Here, this is for you, friend."
In Christ Jesus, we belong to each other. There is no generosity that is beyond us because there is no ledger that can record our ransom. Jesus has bought us with his heart's blood.
So we seek first the things that are above, where Christ is. We are new people through Jesus. The old self and its habits have no power here, as we are molded and renewed in the image of our Creator. Princes and princesses in the house of the High King, who could be wealthier? Inheritors of eternal life, will we lack for daily bread and all we need from day to day? Fed from the very hand of God, should we worship the gifts and not the Giver as idolaters? Never! Instead, as our true life is hidden with Christ, we discover that the holes of desire and want and need in our spirits are exactly God-shaped, and filled with him, we are satisfied beyond measure for Christ is all, in all!