August 1, 2010
Luke 12:13-21
“True Riches”
Franklin Circle Christian Church
Rev. Allen V. Harris

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August 1, 2010
Luke 12:13-21
“True Riches”
Franklin Circle Christian Church
Rev. Allen V. Harris

A Meditation On Things…

I saw the couple crossing the street. They looked distressed. The husband had just had a slight medical problem that took him to the emergency room, and yet the expressions on their faces beheld a deeper pain, so I asked about it. Yes, a brother had died unexpectedly a few weeks before. But there was more. Yes, their house had been broken into the week before. The brother, just about my age, had died of a sudden heart attack. The house was occupied by the family, including two small children, in the middle of the night, with computers, keys, television, and car taken quietly in the dead of night.

I offered my sympathy and my support, and yet I walked away clutching my self tighter than I had in a long time, my breath shortened by the unexpected and profound story of loss. In the wake of hearing this news, perhaps I would call a loved one to express my affection just one more time. But I didn’t. Perhaps I would write a letter to a family member who I hadn’t seen in years, just in case. But I didn’t. Perhaps I would pull out a scrapbook and meditate on friends and family long gone and rededicate myself to being a better person. I didn’t.

Instead, after hearing of this family’s loss of both a loved one and possessions, I clung closer to my own possessions. I called the city councilman to express my distress and urge further security measures be taken. I went to the store to purchase yet another lock to protect yet another thing in my home. I went by the house to turn on a light and a radio to make the place look more “lived in” while I was away. I clung ever more closely to my things.

“Take care,” Jesus warns the crowd, with me fervently listening in. “Be on guard for all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” My demeanor, and heart, falls. Then, as if the discomfort isn’t enough, Jesus tells a parable, one that both convicts our generation of our complete and unadulterated attachment to our possessions, and one that will free us – me – if we let it.

This story of Jesus, about a good and skilled farmer whose bumper crop – praise be to God! – forced him to build more storage facilities for his surpluses – praise be to God! This account stands in a string of stories in Luke in which Jesus takes us to task for relying upon our riches, our things, to give us meaning, comfort, distraction, and even salvation. He would soon tell of a rich man died and gone to hell who seeks to order around the poor man in heaven to warn his family of their certain fate if they love their money more than God. Then Jesus saddened a rich young ruler by telling him that his path to eternal life is to sell all he has and give the money he made to the poor. Next he happened upon tax-collecting, people-extorting Zaccheaus up in a tree and invited himself over to dinner to experience the little man’s transformation and promises of repaying those wronged quadruplefold! And finally, Jesus used as a sermon illustration for all time to come a poor widow who gave more in the pennies she offered to God at the Temple than all the leftovers the filthy rich could throw at the offering plate. (1)

After learning of the neighboring family’s multiple losses, I could have done something that would have affirmed my understanding that people are more important than things, and that healthy relationships are the best guarantee of a good and fruitful life. But I didn’t. I went immediately to our culture’s default setting and focused on things, objects, and possessions. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.” He didn’t mention have more “stuff,” but somehow I hear it that way.

As a teenager, more than once our youth group at church would do the exercise where you make a list of the five things (and it always was five, for some reason…) the five things in your household you would grab – assuming that all people got out of the house already and that you quite safely and reasonably could obtain these objects – if your house was on fire. Such an assignment, a good one at that, was to encourage young people to think just a little more seriously about what we truly value in life.

I would always say that I’d grab my box of photographs (pictures were made on paper in those days, none of this digital stuff!), my stupid cat, if it hadn’t yet figured out how to get out of the house, my John Denver record collection (don’t you dare laugh!), whatever heart-felt journal I happen to be writing in that month, and, if the rules allowed, all 51 of my Hardy Boys books and the Hardy Boys Detective Manual if you could count the entire set as one item!

Truth is, I still play this game. Not seriously, and not out loud, but every now and then when I am feeling most vulnerable, or I have heard of some tragedy, such as the man who learned that the self-storage locker had been mistakenly cleaned out of all its contents – the items he had inherited when a grandmother had died – because the storage company’s owners mistakenly thought that his unit was the one that had been delinquent in payments for a year. It wasn’t he that had failed to pay, and yet he was the one who lost family heirlooms to a garbage truck! In times like that, I begin to clutch myself tighter, and tighter, than I had before, and mentally calculating which items I would madly grab rushing down the stairs and out the door should I smell smoke or hear the fire detector go off in the middle of the night.

Reading today’s text, I felt shamed. I’m a barn-builder if there ever was one. I love my things, and while I am not extravagant by any stretch of the imagination, I think it is fair to say that I am possessed by my possessions as much as the next person. But even in that condemnation, I am drawn back to the story of Jesus about the farmer. The farmer is never named as a bad man, nor is there any implication that he is doing something out of the ordinary by building more storage for his surplus crops. In fact, we might rightly assume that he is being a good steward of that which God has given him.

The story takes a twist, however, when the farmer talks to himself (and the story is notable in that there is a clear focus on self, and no reference to any other human being in the parable!) The farmer says, “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.” It is this sense of self-sufficiency, this sense of the comfort and ultimate assurance that possessions seem to provide, that triggers God’s denunciation, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

This is much like the infamous misreading of the biblical admonition as “Money is the root of all evil.” In fact, Paul’s instruction to Timothy emphasizes it is the love of money, the dependence upon, the veneration of money, and the illusion of self-sufficiency money and things provided, not money itself, which led to evil. In fact, the sixth chapter of 1 Timothy provides a wonderful commentary on today’s Gospel lesson.
Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.

It is true, rich and poor and middle-income folks alike can either love money for all the wrong reasons or use money for the tool for which it is, wisely and well. And yet, scripture and experience remind us again and again that the greater the gift, the greater the temptation and therefore, the greater the responsibility to maintain the gift in faithful ways.

Yes, I will continue to be concerned about security, even the security of my own humble possessions. We will continue to work with neighborhood partners, such as Ohio City Near West Development Corporation, District 2 Police, and Councilman Joe Cimperman to ensure both human life and property is respected and protected. My hope is that I – and we – always see our things as the tools we must use wisely for the betterment of our community. But as people of faith, we must carry with us the added responsibility to always be aware upon what are we ultimately dependent, upon who are we ultimately reliant. Furthermore, if we hear the gospel message honestly, we must measure our sense of security to the standard of justice for the least of these who are entrusted to us by God. For our faith will never be measured in dollars and cents, or things, but in the lives we touched, transformed – and even protected – in the name of the God who created us all. That’s ultimate riches!

Amen.


(1) An excellent sermon which makes this very point is "A Gospel for Hard Times," John Killinger, 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 2007 found at:
http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/killinger_5302.htm
 

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2010 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096