SPEAKER_00: Reading from the gospel according to Luke.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter twelve, verses thirteen through twenty-one.
SPEAKER_00: Someone in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.
SPEAKER_00: But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
SPEAKER_00: And he told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What shall I do?
SPEAKER_00: For I have nowhere to store my crops.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I will do this, I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
SPEAKER_00: And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.
SPEAKER_00: Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.
SPEAKER_00: But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?
SPEAKER_00: So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
SPEAKER_00: The Gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Each week, when we acclaim the reading of the Gospel, we sing or say, Praise be to you, O Christ.
SPEAKER_01: A nice statement of acclamation and affirmation of what we have heard in the Word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes, perhaps, part of us wonders if there's maybe just a little bit of a mental question mark we put at the end of that acclamation, especially if the gospel has challenged us or unsettled us.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps on an occasion like today, when the Lord Jesus says some words that surely strike a tender nerve where we might wonder and say, really?
SPEAKER_01: After all, in this account, Jesus talks about money.
SPEAKER_01: And money is near the top of the list of things that people don't want to hear about in church.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you know, the common complaint is, all the church wants is money.
SPEAKER_01: But I suppose that might be a little reflection of our own heart as well, because isn't it the case that if we examine our own desires, we find from an early age that all we really want is some money or more money.
SPEAKER_01: And isn't this parable from Jesus, the parable of the rich fool, nothing but a picture of what we've often called an American dream, or perhaps an image of the retirement that we are all aspiring to have, where we can lay up enough goods for ourselves where we can do just as he did, where he says he's going to relax, eat, drink, and be merry.
SPEAKER_01: Are we not also like the character Kevia from the famous musical Fiddler on the Roof, who, when discussing wealth, said, May the Lord smite me with it, and may I never recover.
SPEAKER_01: So indeed, a gospel like this one today from Luke chapter 12 is one that may be tough to hear.
SPEAKER_01: After all, Jesus says the one who's pursuing money the way this man was is a fool.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have to grapple with the fact that money can make us into fools.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll need to figure out how and why that is, and what path Jesus presents to us as an alternative to this way of folly.
SPEAKER_01: So how does God, or how does money, make us into fools?
SPEAKER_01: Well, you can look at one of the key details of the parable that maybe is easy to overlook, but it's one that we should focus some significant attention to.
SPEAKER_01: Remember this: that Jesus begins the parable by saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully.
SPEAKER_01: The land produced.
SPEAKER_01: You see, there's this common theme that appears again and again throughout the scriptures, going all the way back to the account of creation, where the idea is that it is God's power to make the land produce.
SPEAKER_01: He said in the beginning, let the earth sprout forth, and it was the word of the Lord that caused this production, this abundance to arise from the earth itself.
SPEAKER_01: And so the idea is throughout the scriptures that when we have some kind of abundance, it's not so much that we have done something to make it happen, but that it is the Lord's underlying power and providence that causes all things to produce so that you and I can enjoy the plenty that we so clearly do in our time and place.
SPEAKER_01: It's that creative and sustaining power of God that provides everything that we have.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in this case, in the parable, the man in the parable had not, in fact, produced anything of his own.
SPEAKER_01: It was his land that produced, and that by the creative and sustaining power of God.
SPEAKER_01: Just as, in fact, you and I have not truly produced anything that we could call truly ours, a creation from nothing of our own.
SPEAKER_01: And so the man in the parable right away is fundamentally missing something about where his wealth had come from.
SPEAKER_01: He had harnessed, yes, God's great providence and the production of this world he has made, but he had not done this himself.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way that you and I have perhaps harnessed or cultivated or drawn from the great resources that God has surrounded us with, but at the same time have not produced anything of our own.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, this rich fool in the parable had been ignoring or was ignorant of the relationship between what he had received and the fact that it was a gift of God in the first place.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus calls him a fool in the parable.
SPEAKER_01: And this reveals this fact that when the scripture talks about someone who's a fool versus someone who's a w who's wise, this is not always or exclusively a matter of intelligence.
SPEAKER_01: This rich man in the parable, we could probably assume, was an intelligent man, able to run a business, a farm, an operation, and so to amass the kind of wealth that he had amassed.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not that he is lacking of intelligence, but the scripture instead talks about folly often as someone who is either rejecting or ignorant of God's order of things in the world or does not recognize or accept the reality of the world as God has made it.
SPEAKER_01: And in this parable, Jesus reveals for us that money is a particular challenge and temptation that can easily make us into fools because it has a particular way of quickly making us miss that relationship between God's creative and sustaining power and our own strength and effort and achievement.
SPEAKER_01: And that most seductive promise at the root of it all is the idea of having this great abundance, but without the dependence that we so clearly have on God and his providence and the people and the creation that he has placed us within.
SPEAKER_01: For an example of this, consider the two main ways that people will move a household.
SPEAKER_01: One way to move, if you're moving, is to get some friends together, and they're gonna come over to your house and they're gonna maybe help you pack, or at the very least, they're gonna help you lift and carry all those things that you own from inside your home out to the truck or whatever it might be, and they're gonna be those those laborers who help you.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're gonna move your boxes, move your stuff, maybe that impossibly heavy sofa bed that you've been hanging on to for so long.
SPEAKER_01: But whatever it is, they're gonna come over and help you.
SPEAKER_01: Now you know part of this deal usually includes that you're gonna buy some pizza and maybe provide a six-pack of beer as well.
SPEAKER_01: But you know as well as anyone that your friends and family are not there to move because they're interested in pizza and beer.
SPEAKER_01: They are there because to you, you are they you are a person, you are a friend, you are family, and they are the same to you.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, they know as well as anyone that if all they want is pizza and beer, they can go to Sugar River Pizza, where they will give you pizza and beer and not ask you first to move a piano.
SPEAKER_01: It has nothing to do with that exchange, but instead everything to do with that relationship as persons.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you also know that this is mutual, that there may come a time when you are going to be called on to come and carry a piano or a heavy sofa bed or do something as an act of kindness to them because to you, they are also a person, someone with a name and a face and a story and a relationship to you.
SPEAKER_01: That's one way where this mutual dependence plays out.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, the other way, and the far more convenient way to move, is to hire professionals to do it.
SPEAKER_01: And in this case, it works out quite well.
SPEAKER_01: If you provide the adequate sum of money, then the movers will come over, they will maybe even pack your things, they will lift and carry everything, they'll go through all the same amount of labor and hardship and sweat, but they won't be they'll be like strangers to you.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it might be weird if you said, Hey, do you want to hang out sometime now that you've moved my belongings?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, this is a kind of modern magic.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to wave a wand to make this happen, but if you are able to wave a sufficient amount of money to someone, you can make all of your belongings move from one place to another.
SPEAKER_01: But through it all, there's no relationship and there's nothing enduring.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, sometimes this is a feature of the whole transaction that in the end, the people who came, they did the job and they went on their way.
SPEAKER_01: That is a kind of abundance, yes.
SPEAKER_01: Lots getting done and quickly, and perhaps really well, but there's no dependence that arises between you and the movers.
SPEAKER_01: It might be the only time you ever see them in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this contrast, I think, is at the heart of what Jesus is getting at in this parable.
SPEAKER_01: That this is the allure of wealth for us, that there can be this great abundance without the corresponding dependence, that we would belong to one another or belong to the people around us.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, this is the great contrast in why Jesus zeroes in on money as one of the things that kind of dissolves that dependence.
SPEAKER_01: You see, God's vision for the world is that we would be united to one another in relationship as persons, as a community, as family, as people.
SPEAKER_01: And in that instance, it's meant to be that the things we have, the resources God has perhaps blessed us with, are meant to be put into service of those persons, and not the other way around, but money can flip that around to where now people become put into service for things, whether goods or commodities or luxuries.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is saying that this gets it backwards.
SPEAKER_01: This is at odds with the way God has ordered the world, with the way God has created the world, and the way God wants the world to be.
SPEAKER_01: And that makes the main thrust of Jesus' parable a lot more than just conventional wisdom or advice that says, you know, you can't take it with you in the end, so you might as well find some other goods in life besides the wealth and the prosperity that you might otherwise be able to achieve.
SPEAKER_01: And that certainly is good advice.
SPEAKER_01: We hear it all the time, and I wouldn't say that it's bad advice, but of course, you know that advice itself does not usually make people follow it.
SPEAKER_01: And there's probably something going on that's a lot deeper than that advice would touch on.
SPEAKER_01: After all, it does seem that when we're caught up in the current of our world, the principle that we understand in our world is this that you and I should store up and lay up as much as we can as quickly as possible, because underneath it all is a kind of fear of scarcity that says, you know, probably there's not going to be enough money, or there won't be enough time, or there won't be enough opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: And if we can lay this up for ourselves, this will be good.
SPEAKER_01: And this creates then a kind of every man for himself mentality where each of us might be scratching and clawing some way to make our way through this world.
SPEAKER_01: And this is, of course, a kind of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: It may be abundance, but lacking.
SPEAKER_01: There will be a great poverty in that mutual dependence that connects us to one another and in a mysterious way connects us to the very heart and mind of God.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, Jesus is telling us that the world God has made and will one day restore to its perfection runs on a different kind of principle.
SPEAKER_01: Not one that is governed by scarcity, but one that says there is actually great abundance in God and from God and through God.
SPEAKER_01: And that the best thing to do if you want to be aligned to the very heart of all things is not to hoard or to build up the barns to close them in, but in the language of the parable, to do the reverse, to empty out the barns, to give and to serve and to bless one another with all of the good gifts that God has provided to you in your life.
SPEAKER_01: It means to perhaps take less than you need, or perhaps to even give more than you're able, all in the service of the persons, the people, the family, the friends, the neighbors that God has surrounded you with in this world, and that God has, if we're being honest, blessed you also with abundance from.
SPEAKER_01: And that this is the way of the world, to give, to unload and open those barns and those storehouses so that all may partake and enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, you and I would have really good reason to kind of roll our eyes at this as mere idealism under normal circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: But the difference is that the person saying this is none other than Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus Christ represents a perspective and a person who can say this with authority and is one we cannot simply roll our eyes at to sort of sweep this all away.
SPEAKER_01: You see, God's own Son, Jesus, is wealthy and powerful and has great gifts in categories that we don't even have words for.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one to whom all things belong, by whom all things were made.
SPEAKER_01: These are big ideas, but one we should ones that we should grapple with because this same person, Jesus, came to this world to empty himself for the sake of you and me, who have, by our own sin, often been ones who hoard or who seek that abundance without dependence.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, God did not give us what we wanted, he did not curse us with wealth and smite us with it and let us never recover from it.
SPEAKER_01: On the contrary, he gave us what we needed, which was righteousness and forgiveness by the blood of his son Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And from this righteousness and forgiveness flows a new life and a new heart that is able to follow true wisdom, that follows God in his way and looks out into the world and sees it for the gift that God has made it to be.
SPEAKER_01: And in so doing, we have been connected with and we have been blessed with the very status and wealth of the Son of God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that is his is yours.
SPEAKER_01: And remember, he has riches and goodness in categories that we don't have words for, so that you and I can be conformed to his image.
SPEAKER_01: And because we've been conformed to his image, we know what makes wisdom wisdom and what makes folly folly.
SPEAKER_01: And because you've been joined to him, everything that is his is yours, including the abundant goodness of looking at this world and seeing it for the gift that it is.
SPEAKER_01: So that means when you and I leave here today, we don't have to leave thinking, well, I've got two choices.
SPEAKER_01: Either I'm gonna just keep going the way things are going, or I suppose I need to sell everything I own if I'm going to have anything remotely close to the kind of righteousness that Jesus is talking about.
SPEAKER_01: No, there are instead ways that aren't just that kind of perfectionism that says, unless I can do it all, I'm not gonna do anything.
SPEAKER_01: So let me encourage you to think of perhaps three ways that you can adjust your thinking and your seeing and your doing as you leave here today, taking this parable from Jesus to heart.
SPEAKER_01: First, please notice as the week goes on where perhaps money is making you seek abundance, but without that corresponding dependence.
SPEAKER_01: Examine your heart and your motives and see if there are not things where you love what you have or what you're able to do or accomplish precisely because it makes you independent from others, or perhaps because it buffers you from having to deal too much with the difficulty or the challenges of other people in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Take honest stock of that, and if you start to see that happening, remember that what God is aiming you at with his word today and what he's created you to be is someone who connects with those other people and is not totally isolated from them in your abundance.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing to do would be to consider just how remarkable it is that God does so much through an ordinary Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: That whether great or small, all of us have this role to play where God has given us something that was not ours or of our own creation and has given it to us as a gift that we can circulate to others.
SPEAKER_01: And whether that's giving of your time and money to support God's work here, or whether it's giving of your time and money to bless those around you in your neighborhood or your community, among your friends or your family, that through all those small to great acts, God is doing something that is often invisible to us.
SPEAKER_01: But when you take the sum total of all of God's people serving and loving one another in this wisdom that God talks about, truly remarkable good happens as well.
SPEAKER_01: And the third thing is to perhaps cultivate an awareness or some way to connect the things that you and I have all the way back to the one who's given them.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe take something in conversation with someone you know, or as you're driving, think it through and think what is something I have and what has led to me having it?
SPEAKER_01: What people has God put in my life that made this possible?
SPEAKER_01: What gifts has he given me that have made this possible?
SPEAKER_01: And how has the abundance of the creation he's given made all of this possible?
SPEAKER_01: And through it you begin to trace through your blessings from God all the way back to the one who's given them.
SPEAKER_01: And this can be a powerful practice of gratitude towards God that at the same time reduces our own sinful sense of self-accomplishment and makes us realize that all the abundance we have has flown from flowed from dependence on our God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Jesus talked a great deal about money, but it wasn't just about the money itself.
SPEAKER_01: It's because he knew that behind it is a heart and a mind and a person, a person whom Jesus has loved and redeemed and restored, and a person who can have a life full of wisdom when we recognize how we relate to one another and to our God.
SPEAKER_01: And because Christ has brought you into his kingdom and brought you to this knowledge and wisdom, it means that you are no fool and you can leave here today living as someone who is rich toward God.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.