What is Life Worth? | Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (ELCA) Manchester MO

Pastor:

Pr. John Gerike

Sermon audio:

Sermon: What is life worth?

July 31 and August 1, 2010

Luke 12:13-21

Today we talk about money.

It’s often uncomfortable to talk about money—

--maybe especially in church.

But Jesus didn’t hesitate.

I read this past week

that when people talk about money,

it’s usually because they’d like more of it.

I passed a billboard yesterday for the Powerball lottery—

--$81 million this week

--and I got that feeling.

What could I do with all that money?

When churches talk about money,

it’s usually because they think they need more of it.

But when the Bible talks about money,

it’s usually because somebody has or wants too much of it.

That’s what we hear in our gospel reading today.

Jesus has a crowd gathered around him.

He’s teaching.

And someone in the crowd says to him:

“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

Now,

what is that man saying?

It sounds like he’s saying.

“You know what’s really important?

Stuff.

And I want my fair share of my inheritance—

--my money,

my stuff.

And no matter what else you’re talking about, Jesus,

this is really important.”

That’s what you and I hear again and again.

At the Synod Assembly this past year,

we heard a speaker named Nathan Dungan,

who talks about faith and money.

He said to us

that the latest figures say that

we hear and see over 5000 advertising messages each day.

5000 a day—

--and actually he thinks it’s probably growing

and more than that by now.

And when I watch TV,

or go on the computer,

or drive down Manchester road—

--I can believe that it’s true.

And those advertising messages are saying to you and to me—

--you don’t have enough

--you’re not good enough

--you don’t have what you need

--it’s all about me.

What’s really important?

Is it our stuff?

Just a few verses after our gospel reading ends,

in Luke 12:34,

the Bible says:

“Where your treasure is,

there your heart will be also.”

I have a tendency to turn that around.

I think—where your heart is,

there your treasure will be.

And there’s probably some truth in that.

But that’s not what the Bible says.

Where your treasure is,

that’s where your heart will be.

You know when you have a house

and a car (or 2 or 3),

and all that goes with that.

Your thoughts and energy go there.

They can become most important.

Do you know how much time I spend

buying stuff,

and maintaining stuff,

and fixing stuff,

and cleaning up stuff,

and arranging stuff,

and getting rid of stuff,

and working to be able to afford stuff.

If you’d be an outsider looking in,

observing my life—

--could it be that you would think

that stuff was the most important thing?

And maybe that’s true for you, too?

Well, Jesus basically tells this man asking him to split the inheritance

that’s not his job.

That’s not what he’s here for.

And then comes verse 15.

Would you read that with me, please:

And he said to them,

“Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed;

for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

What’s really important?

If life doesn’t consist in the abundance of possessions,

what does life consist of?

What’s really important?

God wants us to spend our lives

living as we were created to live.

God wants us to spend our time

on things of real value,

real importance.

God wants our joy to be full.

And that comes from being focused on what’s really important.

And so Jesus tells a story—

--a parable.

Toward the end of the parable,

Jesus calls the rich man in the parable a fool.

Listen as I read the parable again.

Listen for why he calls the man a fool.

Starting at verse 16:

Then he told them a parable:

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?”

Then 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.

And I will say to my soul,

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

relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

But God said to him,

“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 towards God.

Okay,

why is he a fool?

What did you hear?

Is it because he is wealthy?

We often wonder,

especially as we listen to Bible readings like this,

is it a sin to be wealthy?

But I don’t think that’s the message here.

It seems that the good crops came as a gift from God.

I don’t believe we earn things like that.

Rain falls on the just and the unjust.

But there’s nothing here that says to me

that the wealth, in and of itself, is the problem.

And it doesn’t seem that he’s done anything illegal or immoral

to gain his wealth

It doesn’t even seem like he’s overly greedy.

He doesn’t plan to keep hoarding and hoarding.

He seems satisfied that he has enough.

He’s ready to relax and enjoy—

--to eat, drink and be merry.

So what is it?

Why is he a fool?

Back to the synod assembly again.

We did a Bible study there

that encouraged us to look at repeated words in the text.

That can be a good clue to what’s going on.

When you look at verses 17, 18, and 19,

do you see any repeated words?

How often do you see I?

I count 6.

My?

Maybe 5

Does that tell you something?

What does life consist of?

Does it consist of focusing just on yourself?

What do you think?

Does God call us to more than that?

Does Jesus teach us to love one another

as he has first loved us?

If we are loving like that,

is all our focus on ourself?

Unfortunately, in day to day life,

that’s how we often life.

But is that what God wants for us.

Is that how we’re created?

I don’t think so.

When we focus beyond ourselves,

caring for others,

sharing God’s love,

is that, perhaps, part of what it means

to be rich towards God.

And did the rich man even recognize God

in the whole story?

Did he say thanks?

Did he see that all he had was a gift?

And maybe there’s another reason

Jesus calls the man a fool.

What does the man trust?

He says to himself:

“You have ample goods laid up for many years…”

He trusts his stuff.

Maybe more than God?

That sounds like me sometimes.

You?

Again and again,

when I talk to people who have been on mission trips,

I hear their wonder

at the generosity of those they meet

who have so little—

--and yet are willing to share.

Have they perhaps learned something

that we struggle to see?

Do they realize that the true giver is God?

And that it doesn’t depend on accumulating possessions,

but trusting in God—

--even when there isn’t a lot?

A social worker named Florence Ferrier

wrote about her time in poverty-stricken Appalachia.

She wrote about the Sheldons:

One fall day I visited the Sheldons

in the ramshackle rented house they lived in

at the edge of the woods.

Despite a painful physical handicap,

Mr. Sheldon had shot and butchered a bear

which strayed into their yard once too often.

The meat had been processed

Into all the big canning jars they could find or swap for.

There would be meat in their diet

even during the worst of the winter.

Mr. Sheldon offered me a jar of bear meat.

I hesitated to accept it,

but he met my unspoken resistance firmly.

“Now you just have to take this.

We want you to have it.

We don’t have much,

that’s a fact:

but we ain’t poor!”

I couldn’t resist asking,

“You say you don’t have much,

but you’re not poor.

What’s the difference?”

His answer proved unforgettable.

He said:

“When you can give something away,

even when you don’t have much,

then you’re not poor.

When you don’t feel easy giving something away,

even if you’ve got more than you need,

then you are poor,

whether you know it or not.”

She writes:

I saw that as a spiritual lesson, too.

Knowing that all we have is provided by God,

it seems ungracious to doubt that our needs will be met

without clinging to every morsel.

And when I feel myself resisting an urge to share what’s mine—

--or when I see people sharing freely from the little they have—

I remember Mr. Sheldon saying:

“When you can give something away,

even when you don’t have much,

then you’re not poor.

When you don’t feel easy giving something away,

even if you’ve got more than you need,

then you are poor,

whether you know it or not.”

Verse 21:

So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves

but are not rich towards God.

As God has given freely to us,

may we be set free to share freely what God has first given.

May we be set free

to focus on what’s really important—

--following Christ,

growing in faith,

sharing God’s love.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen