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The Eighth Sunday After Pentecost, 08/04/2019
Sermon on Luke 12:13-21 Proper 13, by Richard Johnson
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 toward God.” Luke 12:13-21 [NRSV]
Maybe you’ve heard this little proverb before: “It is not enough for the gardener to love the flowers; she must also hate the weeds.” I like that very much, because it is a reminder that all of us have some things in our lives that need uprooting. Of course we have lots of reminders of that truth. We confess our sins each Lord’s Day—and, I hope, every other day as well—and we know we are always in need of the baptismal grace Christ has given us. But sometimes we let that reality swim around in the ocean of theory, and never get very concrete about it. Luther taught that it is not necessary or even possible for Christians to enumerate all their sins, and yet I think we sometimes use that as an excuse for not enumerating any of them! Thinking of them as weeds in a garden helps me, at least, remember that I need to work on rooting some things out.
This morning’s lessons all address, in one way or another, one of the most destructive sins of all: greed. It is a very popular sins, and yet often incognito. St. Frances de Sales once said that during his life as a priest he had heard many thousands of confessions, but he had never heard even one person confess to greed. I don’t suppose you and I confess it much either.
Yet it is a very modern sin, and one that plagues our society, and one that plagues nearly every one of us. What I’d like to do is to talk about why greed is so dangerous, and then say a few words about how we might go about pulling this weed from our garden.
The Bible’s antagonism toward greed
The Biblical antagonism toward greed begins with the Ten Commandments, where, in the Lutheran numbering, the last two commandments speak against coveting. Some commentators have observed that the first several commandments describe actions—stealing, killing, committing adultery—but when we get to these last two, we are dealing with attitudes. Of course Jesus moves us further in that direction when he speaks of the law itself as an inner attitude. But the point is that this commandment becomes especially difficult for us to follow because coveting, or greed, is primarily internal. It is dangerous because it is often hidden deep inside us. And while we can try to control what we do, it is much harder to control how we feel, or to stifle our inner desires.
Greed is a dangerous sin because in our secular society, the desire to possess is often not regarded as evil. In the parable Jesus tells in our gospel lesson today, if you cut out the punch line, the man looks like a wise, prudent, careful planner. He’s thinking about the future, planning financial security for himself and his family. And yet Jesus calls him a fool. Sometimes the values of our society and the values of Jesus seem more or less complementary; but in some cases—and this is a dramatic one—Jesus’ teaching seems to contradict our earthly values.
Greed, coveting, is dangerous because it is insatiable. One would think that we could desire a possession, acquire it, and be done with the desire. But we know it doesn’t work that way. We desire something, and then when we have it, we want more or better or newer. The appetite never seems to be satisfied.
Greed sharply limits our perspective. We can’t see beyond ourselves. It was said of a self-centered young lady, “Edith lived in a little world, bounded on the north, south, east and west by Edith.” The man in the parable has a similar problem: “What will Ido, Ihave nowhere to store mycrops. Iwill do this: Iwill pull down mybarns and build larger ones, and there Iwill store all mygrain and my goods.” I, I, I, my, my, my . . . and that is how it is with coveting. It turns our attention so entirely upon ourselves that we can hardly notice anything beyond the world bounded by our own needs.
We can’t see beyond ourselves
Luther takes this approach in the Large Catechism, where he says that coveting is the root and source of our failure to care for our neighbor. We focus too much on what we need, and we fail to think about the needs of others. We cannot see beyond ourselves.
And not only are we unable to see beyond ourselves, we are also prevented from seeing the meaning of our own lives. The rich man made great plans, and then he died. The reality is that we don’t go on forever, and the ultimate meaning of our life has nothing to do with our stuff. A wise man was once conversing with a young and ambitious boy, and he asked him his plans. “Well, I’m going to finish my education.” Then what? “I will go into business.” Then what? “I plan to make a fortune.” Then what? “Well, one day I’ll retire and live on my money.” And then what? “Well, I suppose one day I will die.” And then what?A stabbing question, but one that faces each of us. And yet that question never occurs to us when we center our lives around what we have and what we hope to get. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks the question this way: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that all this toil for earthly goods is just vanity, and a great evil. Or, to put it another way, isn’t there more to life than making money and having things? When we are infected with this sin called greed, we don’t seem to think so.
Of course the most basic reason greed is so dangerous is found in St. Paul’s almost off-hand remark that greed is idolatry. When we covet, when we are filled with the desire to possess, we put the creature in place of the Creator. We put things first, and not God. When seen from that perspective, greed becomes not just an annoying weed that crops up in the garden, but something so overwhelmingly and invasively evil that it cannot coexist with righteousness.
How do we stop?
So how do we stop? How do we get rid of this sin that is so pervasive and so dangerous? Let me suggest three things:
The first is pretty obvious, though we often overlook it. I earlier quoted Frances de Sales who claimed never to have heard anyone confess to greed. So the first step is to do just that: to confess. It is to admit to God, and to ourselves, that we are just too interested in earthly possessions, that we are sorry for that preoccupation, and that we need God’s forgiveness and God’s help in overcoming it. Simple enough, yet difficult because it means admitting that this is a problem for us. But if greed, coveting, is indeed a sin, then we sinners need to confess it.
My second suggestion is to try to be more disciplined in the use of our resources. We’re learning to do that in some areas of our lives. We’re careful not to waste water, or energy; we’re conscientious about recycling. I realized just how far we’ve come in this area when we were traveling in Turkey a few years ago. Because of the heat, and because you can’t drink what comes out of the tap, we bought bottle after bottle of water. But it was almost impossible to find any place to recycle those plastic bottles; usually they just had to go in the trash—and that felt very uncomfortable. We’ve learned to be disciplined about recycling.
And so we perhaps need to cultivate discipline about possessions, about money. This is not primarily for the sake of fiscal responsibility, though that is one benefit. But financial discipline is even more important for our spiritual health. A man went to visit a saint, a person widely known as a perceptive spiritual guide. He came away disappointed. “I went to learn about spiritual things,” he said, “but the saint kept asking about my checkbook.” Well, our checkbook says a heck of a lot about our spiritual life. It reveals what is really important to us. Discipline in that area is every bit as much a spiritual concern as discipline in prayer or worship or Bible study.
The third suggestion follows closely on the heels of that one. To overcome greed, one important strategy is to give—as Ignatius of Loyola put it, “to give and not to count the cost.” It is to see your possessions, your money, your time, your life itself as belonging to God, to be used for his purposes. It is to give, not expecting anything in return, but simply out of thanksgiving to the God whose giving knows no ending. “To give, and give, and give again what God hath given thee; to spend thyself nor count the cost; to serve right gloriously the God who gave all worlds that are, and all that are to be.”
And so, sisters and brothers, take these words to heart: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” “What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun?” “All is vanity, and a chasing after the wind.” “Put to death, therefore . . . greed, which is idolatry. . . This is the way you also once followed . . . but now you must get rid of such things.” It is not enough to love the flowers; we must also hate the weeds.