Sermon: Rich toward God

Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel, Eagle Harbor Church, UCC        

August 5, 2007

Luke 12:13-21

              There I stood in my living room surrounded by little boy clothes – size 12-18 months.  We had just received a box of hand-me-downs for Day from a relative, and I took it all out and made piles all over the furniture for the different categories.  T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, pants, and a stack of hooded sweatshirts so high that it toppled over.  I took out the clothes I already have for Day and added that to the rest, to get an accurate picture of how much he now had.  It was almost comical.  Brett returned from work.  I'm thinking of opening a consignment store, I joked.  Together we went through everything, filling boxes for Helpline as we sorted. We packed up several sweat-suits and other various things and then the living room began to look less like a store and more like a living room with some piles.  It reminded me that I should do this with everything.  Take a good look at what I really have – ask myself not what I can get rid of, but what shall I keep?

              Augustine prayed to God, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.”  Many of my possessions make me restless.  It takes a lot of time to organize them, dust them, try to look for them after I've lost them.  The worst – packing them up and moving them.  Some of my possessions are meaningful to me: a few pieces of jewelry and works of art, photo albums.  These possessions remind me of people I love: the earrings my best friend made for me, the art projects that Eva made in daycare, our wedding album.  Beyond these few things, I see a lot of clutter in my house. Can anyone relate?  I really resonate with this parable because I spend a lot of time and energy with my accumulation of stuff.  Time that takes me away from nurturing relationships – with neighbors and with God. 

              In Luke we read of a man in a crowd who wanted more stuff, more security, more money.  He said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to give me my share of the family inheritance.” In an article called “Building Bigger Closets,” Martha P. Sterne wrote, “The worried guy asks for justice. He waits for the answer, and we wait too. We all look at Jesus’ face and slowly get the sinking feeling that Jesus just isn’t very interested. These security issues that are very upsetting to us -- such as fair inheritance -- just do not mean a hill of beans to Jesus. Evidently the kingdom of heaven does not have a small-claims court. Or a probate judge.” Jesus said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?  Don't be greedy; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a story: “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?’”                                                                                                                                                                Have you ever had too many crops?  Have you ever had too many clothes for your closet, too many shoes for the shoe-rack, too many coats for the entry-way hooks? Our society tells us to just get some more containers, simply build a bigger closet, or rent a storage locker. The man in the parable said, I have no place to store my crops!  I know - I'll just build a bigger barn.  We know, don’t we, that barn building is a nuisance.  Its takes a lot of time and energy to find more space to store all of our stuff.  When we scale down and live more simply, we may find that we are freed to invest time in relationships.                                                                                                              When daydreaming about his new barns, the rich man said, I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’  I do not think Jesus was warning against having a good time, or even having wealth.  The problem comes when we are greedy, when we hoard, when our abundance of possessions becomes a roadblock to a full and vital life with Christ.  The writer of the Biblical book Ecclesiastes found that even when he had it all, he felt empty.  Stuff didn’t bring him the true joy he was searching for.  God knows this.  God knows that our lives need to be rich in the Spirit in order for us to be whole.                  In the parable, God said to the rich man, “‘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.”  When our possessions become too important to us, we have trouble seeing what we are to do and be.  It gets harder to love, more difficult to see the urgency of living in God's realm.  The bridge collapse in Minneapolis last week served as another reminder that life is precarious.  Each and every day is so precious, we would do well to focus on what is important to us.  If I find that I have only two weeks to live, my rubber stamp collection may suddenly seem quite stupid.  Brett and I have kept many things over the past ten years of our marriage so that we can use them later.  But when is later?  When will the day come when I will put out the candleholders that I don't like but I received as a wedding gift?   I don't think that it will.  This very night our life is being demanded of us, according to this parable of Jesus.  This very night, not later, we must assess how we live our lives.  This may seem trivial.  Who cares if we have too much stuff?  Evidently God does.  Evidently God wants us to live abundantly, and does not want our love stifled by our stuff.        Craig A. Satterlee points out that it isn't God that is demanding the life of the rich man, but his barns.  Overflowing barns take time and energy to manage.  We would do well to share what is in our barns, to help other people, to help us focus on what is important. Satterlee writes “Jesus' parable and God's pronouncement aren't a judgment but a warning.”   John Navone wrote that the rich man is an example of one who ". . . becomes what he loves; if he loves what perishes, he too shall perish."   God doesn't want our material possessions to squelch our joy.  God doesn't want us to perish.  We don't last on this earth, but love lasts forever; generosity lasts, and grace. What is demanding our lives?  Practically speaking, it's stuff that demands a lot on my life.  I can spend a couple of hours organizing toys and still not be finished.  A day later they'll be scattered again.  I'm tired of hoarding stuff for a later date, only to dispose of them anyway.  I'm not planning to get rid of all of my or my kids' possessions, but I also don't want them to demand so much of me.  I want to put my trust in God, I want to be rich toward God, I want to put my treasure in the love that lasts.

              Have you ever played Skee Ball?  You put in a coin and throw a ball up a ramp into concentric circles that are worth points.  Points yield the coveted tickets.  I see kids playing round after round of Skee Ball, collecting a nice big load of tickets, with eyes set on a toy that is sitting on the top shelf of the prize counter.  Every game gets them closer to that prize, and they love to see their tickets shooting out of the machine and  multiplying in their pockets.  They play all those games and store up all those tickets only to discover that they're not worth all that much, that all they'll get is a little plastic dinosaur that wouldn't even be of a quality to grace a Happy Meal.  I wonder if they go home with an ache in the pit of their stomachs.  I wonder if that's how some people feel at the end of a career that has been rewarding financially but not all that rewarding.  I wonder if we ever feel like a rich fool.                                                                           How do we become rich toward God?  We are to trust, to put our security and faith in God.  We are to realize that we are not in control of our lives, that our stuff will not save us, will not bring us true joy, will not give us a sense of purpose and meaning.  When we are rich toward God, we are freed to share what we have.  We no longer hold onto things with such a tight grasp.  When we are not consumed by our consuming, our arms are empty enough to receive from God.  Our world runs on anxiety, but God’s realm is energized by love.  We can relinquish control of our lives to God, to be free from what burdens us, through trusting the one who loves to give abundant life.  We can choose to let go – of worry, doubt, and all that stands in the way of faith.

              This parable in Luke is very practical on one level – get rid of some stuff so that you can see more clearly your vocation in this life.  It is also asks us to go deep – where are we putting our security, our faith, our time and energy?  What do we keep?  Where is our treasure?  Our security is to be in God, not possessions.  This is a hard teaching.  Our society tells us to store up riches for tomorrow, because we never know if we will lose our job, if we'll get sick, if we'll need to take in a family member or if a natural disaster will strike.  And we should be responsible and store up some savings.  But the line drawn between responsibility and hoarding is a fuzzy one, and it may not be the same for everybody.  It goes deeper, to our heart's intention, to where our treasure is.  You may have possessions that remind you of the greater treasure that you have found in God.  It might be your flower garden, some of your books, a musical instrument or mementos.  It could be anything, if it is treasure that leads us to the greater treasure.  Most of my stuff doesn't lead me to God.  Mostly it is getting away from my stuff that nurtures me into God's arms.  When I am outside, on a retreat, or on a vacation, I feel unencumbered and freed to focus on the Spirit.

              My daughter Eva went through a phase where she kept asking whether things will last.  She had gotten the concept that a glass of milk couldn't sit out for an afternoon and still taste good, and she had seen many toys break, and was frustrated that things didn't last longer.  Will this last forever?  She began asking about this or that toy.  And they don't last.  And they don't even make us feel very good, after a while.  Our abundance of things may make us feel out of control, leading to credit-card debt, even bankruptcy, but not joy. True abundance comes from God, this is where joy is found. We hold onto gifts because they were given in love, or left to us by someone we loved, but they are still only things.  A friend of mine is gearing up for a move and she had used several boxes to pack up her grandmother's China.  We've never even used it, she lamented, but we're moving it again. We spend a lifetime collecting books, dolls, coins, antique furniture and outdated magazines.  They take many years to attain, but at the end of the day, just aren't worth much compared to the richness of a relationship with the Holy.  Do you ever feel  that you have become lighter after donating the clothes you no longer wear, or recycling a stack of paper you no longer need?  You feel a greater sense of purpose, gain a spring in your step, you just feel better.  It is like cleaning grease off your eye-glasses.  Ah, finally, I can see.  Albert Einstein wrote, “Out of clutter, find simplicity.  From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”  Let us be rich toward God.  Trusting, secure, and faithful.  Finally, freed from our restlessness, we rest in God.

The Christian Century.  July 15-22, 1998, page 677.

Craig A. Satterlee. “The Rich Fool.”  The Lutheran, June 2004.

      John Navone, Themes of St. Luke (Rome: Gregorian University Press, n.d.), pp. 108-9.