“building barns”
[A sermon on wealth]
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A sermon preached at Readings: Hosea
11:1-11, Luke 12:13-21 |
Luke 12:18 “He said ‘I will pull down my barns
and build bigger ones’”
Luke 12:20 “But God said to him, ‘You
fool’
Once upon a time there was a very pious
man.
He was also very wealthy.
.He knelt down by his bed to pray every night and every morning.
At the end of every prayer
he would ask for the right to take his wealth with him when he died.
This went on for more than eighty years,
as the man bombarded the throne of God
with petitions to take his wealth with him.
Well, one day God decided to relent.
"Since you refuse to listen to me,
I will allow you to take a portion of what you have with you.
You may take as much as you can carry in a suitcase."
Well the man was ecstatic
and immediately purchased the largest steamer trunk he could find.
He then set upon the task of determining
what portion of his estate he would place in the trunk.
If he took stocks or bonds,
he reasoned that it might be impossible to redeem them.
If he took currency,
it is not clear whether he should bring dollars, pounds, or euros.
Finally he decided to bring gold.
"There is always a market for gold," he thought.
Quickly, he turned most of his wealth into gold bullion
and placed the heavy bricks into his trunk.
Then he put the trunk next to his bed, and waited to die.
After the rich man died, he set off for
Heaven,
dragging his huge case behind him.
Finally he reached the gates of heaven.
St. Peter said,
"Sorry, people who enter these gates must come
empty-handed."
"I have special permission," the man insisted.
St. Peter looked in the record book and was amazed.
"I've never seen this allowed before. Do you mind if I look in your
trunk?"
"Not at all," the man said,
as he proudly opened the large container
that had been packed with gleaming bricks of gold bullion.
St. Peter carefully examined the contents
of the trunk
and then looked at the rich man.
"Paving stones," he said shaking his head.
"Why on earth did you decide to bring paving stones?"
[Quoted in sermon by
Chris Frank, 9 Aug 1998]
Well
(in case you’ve missed the reference)
according to Revelation 21.21 the streets of heaven are indeed paved with gold
–
I am not sure we need to take that too literally– but I do know this –
that earthly wealth looks quite different from heaven’s perspective –
and also, whether you are on earth or in heaven,
gold and wealth should be under your feet –
of no value or concern whatsoever
except in as far as it enables you and others to walk in the way of the Lord
In
our Gospel story today,
Jesus is confronted by a man
for whom his personal wealth, his inheritance, is everything.
And Jesus says to him – You are a fool –
You’re like a guy who amasses a bigger and bigger fortune,
who builds bigger and bigger barns –
but really has nothing.
Don’t you know you’ll die one day (maybe sooner than you think)
and then you’ll suddenly see things from Heaven’s perspective –
and then you’ll look down on your barns
and realize you mis-directed your whole life.
Note
that Jesus does not say that wealth is inherently evil –
there are plenty of people in the Bible who own possessions,
some of them many possessions –
they are not criticised for what they have, but for how they use it.
It is not money itself but the love of money which is the root of all evil.
Maybe
Maybe you recall the advert about the man
who misses his Yaris car so much whilst he is abroad
on holiday
that he sends a “Wish you were here” postcard
addressed to his Yaris car parked outside his
house?
And you see the postman studying the address on the postcard
and finally slipping it under the windscreen wiper of the car.
It
is one thing to have a car, it is another thing to
fall in love with it.
It
is one thing to have money and material possessions,
it is quite another to worship them, to make them the centre of your life.
Martin Luther King once told the story about a lady
who had a car accident in Atlanta.
The woman’s husband received a phone call
to tell him that the accident had taken place on the expressway.
When he got the call, the first thing the man said was
"How much damage did it do to my Cadillac?"
He never even thought to ask how his wife was doing.
Martin
Luther King comments:
“Now that man was a fool,
because he had allowed an automobile to become more significant than a person.
He wasn’t a fool because he had a Cadillac,
he was a fool because he worshiped his Cadillac.
He allowed his automobile to become more important than God. “
[Martin
Luther King A
Knock at Midnight 1967]
Jesus
calls the man with the barns a fool
because he has got his priorities his allegiance all wrong.
This week our Young People in our Holiday Club
have been deep into Greek Culture and the Olympic Games.
And the Athens Olympics are now less than 2 weeks
away.
Well today is 1st August,
and I have been thinking about another Olympic Games
which opened on this very day, 1
August, 1936 .
Those Olympics were held in Nazi Berlin.
It was Adolph Hitler who stood to receive the
salutes of the athletes
as they paraded past during the opening ceremony.
Much of the news coverage of the day centred around the sort of salute given –
all athletes turned their heads towards the Fuehrer.
Some teams gave the Olympic salute (the arm raised to the right of the body)
whilst others (Turkey, Bermuda, Bolivia, Iceland and others)
gave the Nazi
salute (the arm raised in front of the body).
Each team, each athlete, as they came into the
stadium,
had to decide where their allegiance lay
In
some generations those choices seem more stark than in
others –
but we are all faced with deciding where our ultimate allegiance lies.
·
Is it to Caesar or to God?
·
Is it to self-aggrandisement of me and mine
or is it to love and care for all God’s people whoever they are?
·
Is it to wealth, to power,
to all those things which separate
brother from brother –
or is it to love and peace
and all that brings us together as
one family in God’s name?
You
recall that when Jesus tells the story of the barns,
he is responding to a man who comes to him with a question
about his share of an inheritance.
It was common enough for Rabbis to be asked to adjudicate in such matters.
The
man is hoping for a legal formula
to determine the way wealth should be divided between him and his brother-
But Jesus makes it clear that our real inheritance is something quite different
-
I’ve got a piece here by Cecily Taylor called
“Assets”.
It is really for three voices –
so you have to hear three people talking here –
“I have four big lollies”
“Ten were given to me”
“I will show you where blackberries grow, if you’ll
come & see”
“I have twenty fireworks”
“I’ve got sixty three.”
“I know a place where the sunset and moon reflect in
the sea.”
“I can shout the loudest”
“Just listen to me”
“I share a space that is full of quiet with a willow
tree”
“I’ve got the bomb and a country”
“I rule over three”
“I have the birds & the curving sky & all that is free”
[Quoted in Donald Hilton, Liturgy of Life, NCEC
1991]
Rabbi,
says the foolish man,
I want you to identify my share of my inheritance –
But my son, says Jesus,
the whole world is your inheritance
given to you and to your brother and to all people –
you don’t need to fight over it – it is for all to cherish -
share it along with your smiles and your stories and your
prayers
and all the good things God gives you….
So
I leave you with this thought –
Imagine
yourself if you will at Heaven’s gate
(where assuredly one day we will all stand) –
And
look back on your life –
And
try to look at the wealth you amassed through God’s eyes.
As
you look, Your gold, your barns, your bank account –
these seem to have disappeared -
they are of no account whatsoever.
But
your love, your care, your joy your gentleness, your honesty, your integrity -
or is it your greed, your deceit, your evil your hate –
Through
God’s eyes this is the balance sheet you see.
Then
perhaps in your mind’s eye you will need to turn
to the Lord of Heaven & say
“I fear I have invested in altogether the wrong currency”
And
he will say
“So you have my child –
I sometimes thought you would bury yourself beneath these worthless things –
But
better late than never,
let us now teach you the true value of things –
For I am God not man, and I never gave up on you (Hosea 11:8-9)
for
you my child were dead but are now alive again,
you were lost but now you are found (Lk 15:24)”
And
by the way –
why wait till you get to heaven’s gate?
Why not
start enjoying our true inheritance,
sharing around the real treasures of life,
right now?