Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

the abundance of possessions."

If you’ve spent any time at all watching television,

or reading magazines,

or listening to the radio …

in fact, if you spend any time at all in the "real world,"

Jesus’ statement seems preposterous.

"Life does not consist in

the abundance of possessions."

Sure.

Tell that to Donald Trump.

Or Mark Cuban.

Or … take your pick.

At some level,

most of us believe,

though it pains us to admit it,

that if we only had enough things,

or at least, the right things,

our lives would be truly fulfilled.

It may not be

the best part of us that believes that,

but it’s there.

When you’re surrounded by sophisticated advertising,

it’s hard not to swallow the bait.

To believe that if you only had this electronic gadget,

your family would be much happier;

or if you could only afford that product,

people would find you irresistibly attractive;

or if you only had X number of dollars in the bank,

your struggle for survival would be won,

and you would be secure.

Now in that last one,

we can see shades of the rich man

in the parable Jesus told.

Granted, he’s talking about food in the barn

rather than money in the bank,

but in his culture, that would be

pretty much the same thing.

So what does the landowner do?

He makes a plan:

Tear down the old barns,

which may be perfectly good,

but are just too small,

and build new, bigger ones

to hold all his goods.

And then he will say to himself,

"Wow, look, soul, we’ve got it made.

We have arrived.

Take it easy … eat, drink, be merry.

Let’s party."

Now up to this point in this story,

it all seems to make perfectly good sense.

After all, one should save from a good year

to help tide you over in a bad year.

And, it’s smart to save up for your retirement,

in case there comes a time

when you’re no longer able to earn a living.

I mean, we all do that,

with our IRAs and Social Security and company pensions.

We don’t want to be a burden on future generations,

if we can possibly avoid it.

But what does Jesus say

to all these carefully-laid plans?

"You fool!" is what God says.

"This very night you are going to die,

and what good will all your

crops, barns, and land be then?"

What may have looked like wise stewardship

is treated as complete foolishness.

There are a couple of things we need to notice

about the rich man in the story,

because, really, he is more like us

than it is comfortable to admit.

The first of these will become obvious

as I read you part of the parable again,

with a little different emphasis.

"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.’"

Now, I’m not messing with the story

just to make a point …

in Greek, that’s how it reads.

In this respect, Greek is a little like Spanish,

and French, and some other languages.

How many of you know

at least a little bit of Spanish?

If you want to tell someone that you speak Spanish,

you would say, "Hablo español."

They would know you meant "I speak Spanish"

because the letter o on the verb

means that "I" am the subject of the sentence.

You would not say "Yo hablo español,"

unless for some reason you were emphasizing "I,"

like if you were saying,

"You speak French,

but I speak Spanish."

Anyway, Greek works the same way.

But as Jesus tells this story,

he’s very clever to show what kind of person this is,

by having him use the word "I" in Greek

over and over again,

even though he doesn’t need to.

Similarly, with the possessives:

my barn, my grain, my goods.

Jesus’ choice of words makes it clear

that the landowner is self-centered, and selfish.

Now I wouldn’t say that we’re that bad;

at least, I hope not.

But we do have a tendency to forget sometimes

what belongs to whom.

Ask any elder

what they hear most often in the month of November,

and it’s this:

"Why is the church always asking for my money?"

The problem with recruitment of volunteers in any congregation

often boils down to something like,

"serving on a committee is a waste of my time," or,

"why should I spend my time teaching someone else’s children?"

Granted, we do need to be

good stewards of time and money.

But an important part of that is

realizing that we are the stewards of these things,

not the owners.

That all we have is from God,

and that being "rich toward God,"

as Jesus calls it,

involves a sense of detachment

toward earthly riches.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that we won’t have earthly riches;

it just means that we remember clearly

whose they really are,

and are ready to give them back

at a moment’s notice.

The other interesting thing Jesus puts in the story

comes right after the landowner’s decision

to build new barns and store all his stuff.

Jesus quotes him,

"I will say to my soul,

Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years;

take your ease, eat, drink, be merry."

Now this is a fallacy of logic

that my generation is very good at.

I mean, all generations have bought into it to a certain extent,

but the baby boomers have made it into a fine art.

And that is the belief that,

if you can only acquire enough material goodies,

and take care of your physical self well enough,

all of that will somehow "trickle down"

and be good for your soul as well.

The rich man in the story seems to be saying,

"All this extra grain and these bigger barns

are sure going to help my soul."

That’s plain crazy.

I don’t mean to say there is no connection between body and soul;

clearly, there is,

but it’s not nearly as simple a connection

as we might like it to be.

We need only remember the last years of Howard Hughes

to know that even incredible wealth

cannot insure happiness, or ease, or merriment.

Only being rich toward God

assures us of anything at all.

And it can be difficult and confusing,

because richness toward God

is in many ways a reversal of

our human definitions of wealth.

It is theoretically possible

to be rich in human terms

and rich toward God,

but as Jesus said,

it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

And I’m not just talking about "rich"

on the grand scale of a Howard Hughes

or a Donald Trump.

I’m talking about each of us.

Because, in comparison with most of the world,

even the poorest person here today

is fabulously wealthy,

to say nothing of the rest of us.

But are we rich toward God?

Where, and for whom,

have we laid up treasures?

If, heaven forbid,

our souls were to be required of us this night,

what would we go home and do differently right now?

It’s hard for us to believe,

and even harder for us to live as if we believed it,

that our only security is God.

Not our bank account,

not our comfortable home.

Just God.

One of my favorite poems

was written, I think, for children …

I’ve probably shared it with you before now.

But it describes Jesus

and how he was rich toward God:

My Master was so very poor,

A manger was His cradling place;

So very rich my Master was

Kings came from far to gain His grace.

 

My Master was so very poor

And with the poor He broke the bread;

So very rich my Master was

That multitudes by Him were fed.

 

My Master was so very poor

They nailed Him naked to a cross;

So very rich my Master was

He gave His all and knew no loss.

May we, too, give our all,

and know the joy of receiving everything in return.

Praise God!

Amen.

©2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org