Someone
in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher,
tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”
But
Jesus said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over
you?”
And
Jesus 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.”
Then
Jesus 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 toward
God.”
***
I
struggle with this passage, and ones like it.
I
struggle that I spent a few weeks at my parent’s second home, on Cape Cod. I struggle with the image that it portrays of
Kennedy’s and sailing, and, “summer,” as a verb, and the location itself
arrogantly abbreviated to, the Cape, as if it were the only Cape
in the world.
I
struggle because it’s not who we are, if you were to visit, (and I promise my
parents have an open door policy if you are ever near Boston) you would find a
small house, where simply making lunch sandwiches on the kitchen counter
requires the skill of a Twister game - we are so on top of one another in a
space so small. What you wouldn’t see, is my parents years of frugality, my
memory of parts coming off our old car as friends and I were picked up from an
8th grade dance, you wouldn’t see my mom frequenting thrift stores and my
sister and I wearing second hand clothes, and getting excited for direct handle
downs from two girls at church. You wouldn’t see my mother’s
depression-era-like saving of everything from cool-whip containers for
tupperware, and general penny pinching that spent nothing on herself. She
literally, I believe spends more on what my grandfather, calls, “Mumsys
backyard restaurant, which feeds the birds, squirrels and even unintentionally,
rats,” in their backyard. Equally altruistic, my father will spend half the day
cooking for guests. And though they care for others, including my 92 year old
grandfather, I struggle, because I get to see my parents relax from their busy
lives in San Antonio; my dad reads the baseball scores each morning and my mom
putzs in the garden, and I gain ten pounds on seafood, and sitting on the
beach, and driving guests to various sites.
I
struggle because although we grew up very frugal, there are ways that the
classic images of Cape Cod do ring true. The
fact that we are, “summer people,” whether we want to admit it or not, and that
on occasion we have succumbed to terms like, “the Cape.”
Even more so, I cringe, with privileged guilt, when my parents say, “We didn’t
know where the girls (my sister and I) would end up, so we tried to pick a
place that they also would like after we are gone. I struggle because no matter
how frugal, we, simply as Americans, have an unbelievable inheritance as one of
the wealthiest countries in the world. There are days we don’t think about
running water, and indoor plumbing, or having enough food to eat, and I can’t
help but feel like I have a wealth of barns even though I spent my vacation
time hosting and officiating more than I did relaxing.
I
struggle because I think Jesus tells us to do both, to enjoy, to eat, drink,
and be merry, as well as to give all our possessions to the poor. I struggle
because it seems the host will always have more than the guest, but we need
both, and Jesus asks us to be both. I struggle because in this passage Jesus
seems to preach a happy medium and I don’t know what that looks like in my
parents life, or my own, or yours, or as a church. In this passage one brother
asks for his brother to split their father’s inheritance, and it is hard to
tell whom Jesus is critiquing, the brother who got nothing and wants, or the
brother who got everything and will not share, the guest or the host, or both.
That what Jesus is implying is that to be poor and only think about money is no
different than to be rich and do the same. Jesus says, that neither brother
should worry about possessions about inheritance. That when it comes to wealth
what is rich, is to be rich toward God and loving toward neighbor. The rich
farmer is not wrong for wanting to store his crops in a land of drought and
uncertainty, he is wrong because he doesn’t think of anyone else nor does his
wealth honor God. But how much are we supposed to store, and how much are we
supposed to give, and how can our death count to honoring God?
As
a church with its own inheritance, of memorials gifts and endowments, how much
are we supposed to save for future generations, and how much are we supposed to
use on ministry and mission today? Moreover, how much are we just simply not supposed
to worry about endowments and inheritance and instead focus on being rich with
God right now? We as a church can measure our finances down to the penny but
have we measured the power of our prayers, our ministry of presence, or the
purpose of us here in this moment in our sanctuary? We know how humanly rich we
are but do we spend equal time seeking to be rich toward God?
In
our own lives, how often, how many times a day, do we think about money, about
having or having not? I think of the bills and debts I have to pay, of big
expenses, and I think of my guilt of already having too much, the privilege of
simply being born here in America
and adopted into the family I was. How often, in those times, do we pray,
instead to be rich with God? I don’t. I just make myself stop thinking. But,
maybe those are the times, I can send up a prayer, or text someone who might
need a bright spot in their day. What if the times we thought about wealth were
the times we re-focused on being rich toward God? What would this look like for
you? What would this look like for us as a church community? Does it look like
guest or the host? I think God wants both. I think God wants us to enjoy, to
eat, drink, and be merry with friends, and also to give away what we have. I
think God wants us not to focus on what we have, and to focus instead on God.
But those lines of what is what, are hard, and I struggle.
