Sermons

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More or Less
May 29, 2005
Sermon Series on the Gospel of Luke
Pastors Dan Baumgartner & Steve Lympus
Luke 12:13-21

Pastor Dan:

In the last six years, I’ve preached on plenty of passages that have raised controversial topics: the environment, war, the right to life, sexuality. Some of them, that last one in particular, sexuality (and homosexuality), really get our hearts pumping.

We have strong, strong feelings. We search the scriptures, we wrestle, we argue over things we’re passionate about. But interestingly, as important as these topics are, none of them seemed to capture Jesus’ attention like the topic of our desire for “things.” Greed and materialism. He dealt with this over and over.

I think his listeners were often offended at what he had to say about it. That’s okay…sometimes we need to be shaken up a little in order to hear.

This morning as we continue reading in the gospel of Luke, we read one of Jesus’ parables, the short stories he used for teaching.

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him

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

But he said to him

Friend, who has set me to be a judge or abitrator over you?

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.

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 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. [NRSV]

Jesus…is speaking to a crowd. It appears that within that crowd there were all kinds of people. Educated and uneducated, powerful and average, Pharisees and villagers. Jesus is speaking to an extremely mixed crowd, which is another way of saying that Jesus is speaking to us. I suspect that this morning you’re going to have hard time avoiding his words. We sure did.

In the passage just before this one, Jesus gave a number of warnings. Several times he warned his listeners with the same words “Be on guard!,” or “Watch out!” He was warning them watch out for the external threats that might befall them. But here is is saying “Watch out!” for the internal. Watch out…for yourself.

Specifically, Jesus says “watch out” for the greed that grabs ahold of a person. For the desire to acquire things. Most of us, if we hear the word “greed,” immediately think “I’m not really a greedy person.”

One way of defining greed is that it has to do with the acquisition of things without considering what you actually need…or what others need.

A more personal way of putting it is that when it comes to things:

• We want more than we have now.
• We want more than our neighbors.
• We want more than we need.

Pastor Steve:

Dan, you may have just offended every person in this room.

That’s okay.

Pastor Steve: It’s so interesting (and funny) that before Jesus tells this parable, this really random question comes from the crowd. Jesus had just been talking about persecution, about the dangers his disciples might face by following him, about being willing to die for what you believe in. These are life and death issues…and this guy wants to talk about legal issues with his brother?

Bringing a legal case to a Jewish rabbi- a teacher like Jesus– was not an uncommon thing to do. We don’t know all the details, but most likely their father has died and left his sons a plot of land. This brother is eager to sub-divide the property, so he asks Jesus to arbitrate and force the other brother to comply with his plan.

But this guy in the crowd doesn’t really want to hear Jesus’ opinion. Clearly this angry brother has already made up his mind about what should be done: he’s decided, and he just wants Jesus to rubber-stamp his decision.

Coming to God to rubber-stamp decisions we’ve already made…we do this sometimes, don’t we?

Jesus refuses to be the divider, he refuses to judge between the brothers, and instead he says a word of judgment over them:

Watch out for greed! There is a whole lot more to Life than getting stuff you want.

Jesus knows that there is much more at stake here than the brothers’ inheritance. Even if Jesus were to take a side in this argument, the real problem would not be solved: the real problem here is a broken relationship between these brothers. And Jesus knows, that relationship is more precious than wealth.

The brother speaking out from the crowd can’t see through his own greed, it’s blinding him: isn’t it funny how greed can make us blind to what we have, and make us focus more on what we don’t have?... Isn’t it funny how greed can make us try so hard to be right, that we become blind to the relationships falling apart right before our eyes?

Pastor Dan:

Steve, you may have just offended everyone who has ever put money or other things ahead of relationships.

That’s okay.

Pastor Dan: You know, there’s a flip side to that coin. Sometimes we do value the relationships, but use things as a strange way of valuing them.

Many generations of people in our country have grown up with a mantra that says

I want my children to have it better than I did.

What they mean usually involves

I want my kids to have more things, to have nicer things, to have it easier…than I had it.

Maybe in earlier American generations this made a lot of sense, when people were scraping a living off the land with manual labor…though I have to wonder if there wasn’t something really good there that we have lost…

And certainly there are lots of folks today in America whose desire for their kids to have more things, or an easier time…is a reflection of the real struggle that their life has been.

But I venture to say that for most of us sitting in this room this morning, beneficiaries of one of the highest standards of living the world has ever seen…the idea that our kids ought to have more than we did…is downright ludicrous. It’s fed by Costco and Toys-R-Us and all the places where you have to buy 12 of something when you only need 2.

For most of us…why on earth would our kids need more stuff than we have? We’re drowning in things…but we’re dying in other ways. We’re building bigger barns, and missing out on things that are really important.

Maybe we could turn this around. Maybe our mantra could be “I want my kids to have more than I had…” but instead of “stuff” we could apply it to other things:

• I want my child to have a parent who really works at helping them navigate an increasingly complex world.
• I want my child to know…adults who have sacrificed a standard of living to invest in ministry.
• I want my kids to understand the value of working hard for something…

Wouldn’t that be more important than our kids having us build them bigger barns?

Pastor Steve:

Dan, you may have just offended every parent who just wants their kids to have things better than they had it.

That’s okay.

Pastor Steve: The thing that strikes me about the rich man in this parable is that it’s all about him. Look at the pronouns:

What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? …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…

I, I, my, my, MINE.

How quickly he has taken what God has provided him (through creation) and makes these thing his own. For the rich man, it’s all about me, and no one else.

He is utterly alone: he’s talking alone, consoling himself alone, planning & building alone, he’s even celebrating his accomplishments alone. Maybe the rich man did have some relationships in the past; Jesus’ parable doesn’t really tell us.

What we do know is that the man is so rich, and so alone: he’s really living in poverty, relational poverty – his only relationships are with the things he owns, but now it seems more like his possessions are owning him. And he makes his decisions alone, in secret counsel with only himself. Hidden decisions can be so dangerous.

I was thinking this past week about this parable in relation to small groups. I’m in a men’s small group, and we give each other all sorts of permission to ask honest, difficult questions about our jobs, our career decisions, our friendships, even our temptations…but when I thought about it, I haven’t found myself talking very much about the stuff I’m accumulating…the debt I’m accumulating, my spending habits, how much I’m investing or giving…whether I’m tithing or not.

Ask my about anything – but don’t ask me about the stuff I spend my money on. What if we brought our car-buying decisions, our home-buying decisions, our second-home-buying decisions, before our small groups?

The Book of Acts talks about how the early church was a community that held things in common, how people shared all that they owned with their community…I don’t think that those values were just for the early church.

In today’s Church, we really want to be authentic people in community, transparent with the decisions we make, as long as those decisions don’t involve our checkbooks – financial decisions are by and large secret decisions; we make those decisions alone, like the rich man.

And secret decisions are so dangerous…it’s why we need others around us when we make important decisions, including money-decisions.

Pastor Dan:

Steve, you may have just offended every person here whose credit card receipts are off limits to everyone else.

That’s okay.

Pastor Dan: Of course, wanting and accumulating and using more things does more than just isolate us from people. It isolates us from God, and that’s all over this parable. In a variety of ways, we end up putting things…before God. Which is exactly what scripture calls idolatry…putting any-thing before God.

We get in trouble when we live like our possessions are ours…instead of on loan from God.

We get in trouble when we live like our life is ours…instead of a loan from God.

When we choose to follow Christ, we acknowledge that even life itself is not ours…we belong to God. The language in this parable is the language of lending. We have what we have as a loan. And who knows when the loan is to be called back in? Who knows when our life will end?

A popular, well-intentioned philosophy that I’ve talked with many strong Christians about sounds like this:

I’m going to buckle down, put my nose to the grindstone and absolutely work my tail off until I’m 55. Then I’ll retire early, and donate all my time to ministry.

Sounds nice. Except that often the “nose to the grindstone” translates into missing a great deal of life:

• Missing relationship opportunities
• missing being with people
• missing birthday parties and baseball games
• reaching out to the people right around you, in the moment, ordinary routine stuff

You might miss all those things…only to find that despite the size your barn, you’ve only got a few hours to live…and you’ll need to account for what you’ve been given.

“Fool,” says this offensive parable. “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

Pastor Steve:

Dan you may have just offended anyone planning their 401k, or building a bigger barn.

That’s okay.

Pastor Steve: Let’s take a step back from this parable for a minute. This rich man did nothing wrong, nothing illegal. He made prudent and profitable decisions, didn’t mistreat employees or exploit anyone…God just blessed his land.

The rich man was just doing what good, responsible people do…you take care of your investments, provide for your future, your family, plan for retirement, and try to pass something on to your children. This guy really didn’t do anything wrong…did he?

The thing is, in our culture especially, this problem with greed and possessions is big, really big. None of us can get away from it. Most of us, as Americans, are in the very top percentages of the world’s income brackets. You’ve probably heard a lot of statistics that show this, but let me put it this way:

If we all in the Sanctuary today (250) represented the world’s population, 50% of the world’s wealth would be owned by 15 people – 2 pews! And everyone in those 2 pews would be Americans. About three-quarters (200) of us would be living in sub-standard housing. And only 2 or 3 of us would have college educations.

What’s even more troubling to me than the fact that I’m in those 2 pews is that Christians in America could do something about this:

The funds needed to meet basic human needs for the people who don’t have food/water/shelter/ immunizations for one year is about $80 billion (I know the solution gets a lot more complicated than throwing money at it).

But, as far as money-needs go, if all the church members in the US increased their giving to 10% of their income (Biblical tithe), that would be about $86 billion. There’d be money left over! And that’s just if American Christians gave 10%.

I sit in one of those 2 pews who control half the world’s wealth, and who could give a whole lot more. And I’m not talking to my small group about the stuff I buy, or how much I give.

Pastor Dan:

Steve, you may have just offended most Christians in the U.S.

That’s okay.

Pastor Dan: Jesus is asking, “Where will your life be spent?”

If it’s for other people, and towards God…if our things belong to God, and our life is his…we can’t be in the bigger barn building business. Everything in this culture will tell us to go there, and Jesus says
“Go another road.”

• For the sake of the world.
• For the sake of people who have nothing.
• For the sake of freeing ourselves.
• For the sake of honoring God.

Quit building bigger barns.

This is an overwhelming topic. What would it look like to live differently? To loosen the grip that things have on us, and to in fact live generously?

Pastor Steve: One thing I know, is that it’s really hard for us Americans to change our habits. It is not easy! I heard this story of a guy who wanted to reduce his accumulation of possessions, so he decided to take one thing out of his family’s house each day to give away/throw away/recycle…he thought: “easy enough.”

You know what happened? He couldn’t keep up. There was way more stuff coming into his house each day than was going out. So it’s not very easy to change.

What would it really look like to let go of things and live generously? We’ve got a couple of pictures for you.

Pastor Dan: These pictures are pretty different from each other.

Here’s one picture:

In 1987 a real estate agent in East Oakland, CA named Oral Lee Brown became personally aware that thousands of kids growing up in Oakland were growing up with little family, no hope and no education. She marched into her neighborhood school and told the principal that she would make an agreement with a class of first-graders. If they would stay in school, she would get them through college.

Oral Lee Brown was a single mom with two kids, making a very average living selling real estate. She committed herself to these 23 first-graders, and it cost her.

• She had to live much more simply.
• She had to go without things.
• “There were days I just ate beans,” she said.

A few of the kids didn’t make it. Others haven’t finished college. But every year she put as much as she could into a trust fund for the children. Along the way she became like a mom to some, went to 20 different high school graduations and is now busy going to college graduations.

Here’s a different picture of living generously.

I had two friends who got married years ago, and had no money – their parents didn’t have any money to give either. But all their friends (who also didn’t have much money) gathered around them and gave them a lavish wedding: people brought food, lent suits and dresses, made decorations. It ended up being a wedding rich in generosity and relationship.

Pastor Steve: Dan and I talked all week about this parable – I hope this parable is as challenging to you as it is for us. You know what the easy thing to do with it would be?

To think about it, even agree with Jesus, maybe even feel a little guilty, and then move on. Status quo, life goes on, unchanged.

Pastor Dan: We don’t do this very often, I don’t do it often in sermons. But we want to specifically challenge you this morning, to think of one place where you could give, this week . Where you could give in a way that actually costs you something: time, money, whatever.

Most of us, if we’re honest, give mainly out of abundance. If someone came to you and said “Would you write a check for this project or this cause,” many of us could do it, but it wouldn’t really cost us much of anything. Make an entry in the checkbook, move on.

So we encourage you to choose something that you’ll feel.

That costs you something, this week , so that it will remind you that your things…and your life…are on loan from God. And we’re going to take about a minute right now to just sit before God and see if He would bring something to mind for you.

Pastor Steve: You know, I’ve been sitting with this parable all week, and I’m going to leave today feeling a little bit uneasy. I’d rather have a parable that doesn’t hit so close to my own home.

Pastor Dan: Me too. But that’s okay.

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