Sermon for September 2010
“Someone in the crowd said to him, "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)
The Bible talks a lot about money and possessions and how these things affect our relationships with God and others. There is no doubt that we need money and certain possessions just for our survival. The question is how big a role does money and the acquisition of possessions play in your life? What do these things mean to you and your family? What effect do they have on your relationship with others? Money and possessions represent many things to us. They can be as basic as the food, water, clothing and shelter that we need for security and survival to the little extras that bring us independence and enjoyment.
Money and possessions can also bring us power, prestige and increased self-esteem. The acquisition or need of these things can also cause anxiety and worry. Money and possessions are subjects we need to talk about because of the role that they play in of our lives. How we feel about our money and possessions and what we do with them, our stewardship, affects our relationship with God and with each other. The Bible and Jesus have a lot to say about money. Today’s Gospel lesson gives us one of those stories. Today’s passage from Luke 12 tells us how Jesus was preaching and teaching to the crowd.
As he was talking to them a man in the crowd called out to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Jesus turned to him and replied, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” Then Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Throughout the Gospels, Jesus stresses the importance of putting our love for God and each other, first and foremost in our life. We are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus tells us that is to be our primary concern. Everything else comes secondary to this.
Jesus gathered the crowd around him and told them a parable about a very wealthy farmer. This farmer had a bumper crop, more crops coming in than he ever expected. He would have wealth, power and pleasure for the rest of his life.
In fact he had far more than he would ever need or use in his lifetime. The farmer decided to tear down his existing barns and build bigger barns to hold the mega-crops that had been harvested. He saw himself as a shrewd businessman. This man could have given seminars to Donald Trump and Bill Gates. If this were you how would you handle this sudden windfall of good fortune? The man in Jesus’ story was faced with choices to make about how he would deal with his abundant and unexpected wealth. He could share his overwhelmingly abundant harvest with the workers who helped him to bring in this bumper crop.
He could share his crops with the hungry and needy. His barns still would have been filled to capacity and he still would have had more than enough for himself. But his interests really didn’t extend beyond himself. His speech was filled with “I” and “my”. His own wants came first. He was so narcissistic that he believed that no one else has had any input in his success, not even God. He had no need for anyone else, not God, family, friends, or community. He reveled in his prosperity because his dream for the future was to indulge in every whim and desire that he could imagine. He envisioned a life where he could eat, drink and be merry. He had no thoughts of anyone but himself.
The Hebrew Scriptures gives us the story of another man who built new barns to hold Egypt’s abundant harvests. The book of Genesis tells us the story of Joseph during his time in Egypt. Only Joseph wasn't plotting for his own profit and he wasn't motivated by greed. He built the barns so that people would have enough to eat during the years of famine. Those people even included the brothers in his own family who had tried to kill him.
On the other hand, there are those who spend their lives acquiring money and possessions but no matter how much they have, it is never enough. In our world this can be individual greed or it can also take the form of companies whose lust for profit overcomes ethics, common decency and concern for their employees or the rest of the world. Some abandon their factories to take their businesses elsewhere where the labor is substantially cheaper. Is it important that sometimes it destroys the lives of their workers in the process? After all, cheap labor equals more shareholder profit and larger bonuses for the CEO’s. But at what price? There is nothing Godly about eliminating someone’s livelihood in order to increase corporate profit. Or to cut corners in order to save a few bucks when the end result is the loss of human and non-human life such as we are seeing along the Gulf Coast. More than shareholders profits must be taken into consideration when making decisions that impact the lives of others. The bottom line is not money. It is God.
We live in a world where there is enormous wealth living side by side with great poverty. That is true even in our own country. I recently quoted the Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi, in another sermon and perhaps it is a quote that bears repeating. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.”
So what is wrong with the farmer wanting a secure future and a life of ease for himself? At first glance he just seems to just be looking out for his future. And after all it is his property. Shouldn’t he be allowed to do what he wants with his wealth? The simple answer is absolutely! There is nothing wrong with making investments or looking out for our future or our family’s future. In fact it is the responsible thing to do. People should be allowed to make a profit and their own decisions about the direction that they want their life to go. I certainly don’t want someone dictating to me how and where I should spend my money or who I should share it with. The problem arises when the acquisition of money and possessions becomes our prime motivator in life. It is a problem when greed and lust after money and possessions becomes more important than our love for God or our concern for each other and the rest of God’s creation. And it can be a fine line.
God does not coerce or force us to make right, merciful, and just choices. Ultimately the choices will be ours to make. But we all know that we don’t always make the good choices. Sometimes what we want is not what is best for us or for our relationship with God or our relationship with others. Our wants and greed can easily outweigh what our real needs are. The choices that we make frequently impact others. Our decisions about what is good for us should not damage someone else, in our own country or throughout God’s world. The right to swing our arms ends with someone else’s nose.
The words of Jesus, indeed of the whole Bible, consistently oppose the accumulation of wealth at the expense of others. Throughout the Bible, social, political and economic justice for all of God’s people is at the forefront of God’s concerns. The prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures constantly reminded the people of Israel that their lack of justice for the poor and oppressed was greatly displeasing to God. The Gospels present Jesus as one who lived among the poor. He was a wandering preacher who owned no property and carried little, if any, cash. Jesus was born to a poor family and spent his life among the poor, the oppressed, the homeless, the sinners and outcasts of his society. How we love and care for each other is the primary concern of Jesus.
If we are people who truly want to follow Jesus then our mission and ministry as a church must be to truly show God’s love and care to others. We must learn to seek justice for all God’s people and the creation that God so dearly loves. We cannot afford to look the other way. What has true lasting value in life and where is our treasure? It is not our money or our material possessions. Eventually they all turn to dust. The lasting value comes from our relationships that we have with God, each other and the rest of God’s creation. Each of us is precious to God.
The prime business of our life is to be faithful to God, to grow closer to God and to show our love for God in the way we conduct our life. In today’s parable, Jesus strives to make clear the word of God that will bring us eternal satisfaction and happiness. It is the word of God that was also spoken to us through the prophet Micah. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) Amen.