Set Free from Possessions
Pentecost + 11, August 4, 2013
Christ Lutheran, Jackson, WI
Jesus said,“One's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Now if we stop and think about these words, most of us would agree that Jesus is right. Yet, to look around us, you'd never know it. Our lives are filled with possessions. I don't know about you, but I know that I've got stuff squirreled away in my basement, my garage, closets, under the bed. And that's after we moved twice in the past year or so (first to Wisconsin, and then when we were able to buy a house after we got here) – and we got rid of a lot of stuff, yet we still struggle with clutter and too many things lying around. (We do have 2 small kids at home, but it's not all their fault!)
And I know I'm not alone. My parents are moving out of their home of nearly 40 years – moving into my grandmother's house, and dealing with deciding what to keep and what to give away and what to just throw out after all those years. And visit an antique shop, a thrift store, a garage sale – all filled with things that someone once upon a time thought they needed to own, now on sale so that you can buy it and take it home and someday have to figure out what to do with it yourself. It's kind of an endless cycle.
“Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” Jesus said to the crowd listening that day. And then he told them a parable. It's a story about a rich man. He seems to be a good enough guy. He has a lot of land, and the weather has been good to him that year. The sun shone and the rains rained at the right times, the seed was fertile, and so his property produces “abundantly”. So abundantly that it's like no crop he's ever seen – or else he would have had enough room in his barns.
Now in the biblical world view, in the biblical narrative, what the people listening to Jesus talk would have understood about this story is that this abundant harvest is a sign of God's blessing, a sign that God is smiling down on the rich man. But there's even more than that going on here that maybe isn't so apparent to us. People in the ancient world believed that there was a finite amount of stuff in this world, that if one year produced a lot, there would come another year when crops would fail and people would be in need. Remember the story of Joseph, of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame? Pharaoh had a dream - and Joseph interpreted it – that there would be 7 years of incredible harvests, followed by 7 years of famine. God provided abundantly enough so that, as long as it was managed well, there would be enough for everyone through the hard years. And this is also true of the idea of the sabbath day or the sabbatical year – that when a time of no production is coming, God provides a way for more to be gathered in advance, to help them through the 7th day or the 7th year of rest. So when the people hear Jesus say that the land produced abundantly, they're thinking that time of hardship is coming. And they also expect that an abundant blessing is meant to be shared abundantly. In other words, just because this rich man has a bumper crop, it's not just for him. It's not just so he can retire young and live off his stored up harvest. No, the rich man has been blessed so that he might be a blessing to the people around him, people who live on the edge, hand-to-mouth, people who are just making ends meet as it is, who really won't be able to manage if hard times hit. But all the rich man can think about in this story is himself. His own security. His own future. Listen to his inner monologue, “And he thought to himself, what should I do?... 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.”
I, I, I. It's all about him. He has no sense of responsibility to his neighbors and the wider community, no recognition that all that he has comes from God, no thought that perhaps he might want to ask God what God wants him to do with this abundant harvest. The trouble doesn't lie in him having such a bumper crop or in planning to take care of his future. Where he goes wrong is when he turns only to himself, that he is the only one whose needs he considers, the only one he even consults about his options.
We can get caught up in this trap too. Our culture encourages us to look out for number one. And there's a strong segment out there that voices loud resentment over the idea of a government that taxes hard-earned money in order to provide services for those in need, whether it's food stamps or welfare or health coverage or student loan interest. We want to keep our hard-earned wages for ourselves, to prepare for our future, to provide for our needs, so that we can be sure that we will have enough. We don't always look beyond our front door to see those in need all around us, neighbors or strangers, children or adults. Churches can be this way too – so focused on keeping the lights on and the doors open that we can't even begin to imagine the many ways God has blesses us or see the abundance God has poured out on us – blessing us so that we might be a blessing!
But this is what Jesus calls his listeners to, both then and now... to look around us and see what we can do now to be part of God's coming kingdom, rather than just looking 1 or 5 or 10 years down the road and worrying what may lie ahead. This parable isn't about the evil of wealth. Jesus isn't trying to make us feel guilty about our possessions. But it is about perspective. It's about learning to to see what we have, however much or little that may be, as God's gifts that we are to care for. It's about using our possessions in ways that do God's work, rather than being possessed by them. It's about setting us free to live in God's now, to trust the God who promises to provide our daily bread, instead of anxiously worrying about how we can take care of tomorrow and the next day and the next. Jesus says elsewhere (John 10) that he came that we may have life, and have it abundantly, but abundant life cannot be found in our possessions. It's found in our relationships; in loving God and loving our neighbors. It's found in giving our lives away so that we may find true life. It's about the time and energy and money we spend to help others. Think about that: the times you or your congregation or someone else you know has sacrificed something of themselves for someone else – to care for an aging relative, or cook a meal for new parents or bereaved families, run a race to raise money for medical research, or put on a benefit dinner to help a family who lost everything they had in a fire. People who volunteer to visit hospitals or give to food pantries or go live in a foreign land so that they might make a difference in the world. Parents and grandparents and caring adults who invest in the lives of children, churches who open their doors so AA or Scout troops or other community groups have a place to meet. This is where we find joy. This is where we find meaning. This is where we experience God's abundance – when we let God's blessings flow through us to become blessings to others. This is what abundant life consists of. May we learn to treasure the richness of God!
Amen.
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