Today’s Gospel is on a theme that Jesus often addressed,
the stewardship theme of our relationship to wealth and possessions,
and it may not be easy to listen to.
Nevertheless, it will be life-giving.
Now, to give you an idea of the warped sense of humor I have,
at one time in another congregation I told a parishioner
(when I was in a particularly wicked mood)
that this parable of the rich man
is a story about what will happen to you
if you don’t keep your pledge current!
Well, here is a story about financial security
and its relationship to Jesus,
with whom nothing is secure for very long
if we are seriously open to his Spirit at work within us.
…financial security and its relationship to Jesus…
Let us note the collect for today. We prayed:
“Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church…
because it cannot continue in safety, in security, without your help…”
We open the door to Jesus, and this becomes an invitation into the heart
and before we know it, it is taken as carte blanche
for some major spiritual renovations by the Holy Spirit.
In the case of the story Jesus tells,
this would be particularly challenging for Pharisees,
or for any of the good “church-going” folks of that day.
You see, the current theology, the popular belief system of that day
was that prosperity was an indicator
that you had been blessed by God,
that you were doing a good job in being a righteous person.
We could make a comparison with the Protestant work ethic,
(you’ve heard of the Protestant work ethic?)
and we can see that belief reflected even today,
where one might find a preacher promising that those who follow Jesus
could expect to come into “abundant living” as a sign of God’s blessing.
This is the theology that says
that God blesses those who do what is good and right,
and economic prosperity and a long life
are therefore signs of being blest by God.
This is a trap, a subtle perverse twist of logic
to justify our continuous acquisition of material wealth,
until we accumulate for ourselves way beyond basic life necessities.
So Jesus warns about greed; he tells the crowd:
“Be on your guard against all kinds of greed;
for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
Greed, we can say, is a form of idolatry
in which we have forgotten what our life consists of.
You see, Jesus is operating out of a very different economy
than the one of his culture,
a very different economy than our culture.
His economy is the economy of the Kingdom of God.
If we were to keep on reading in Luke’s Gospel
after this parable of the Rich Man and his barns full of wealth,
we would read these words in the next verse:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life,
what you should eat,
nor about your body, what you shall put on.
For life is more than food,
and the body more than clothing.
Consider the ravens:
they neither sow nor reap,
they have neither storehouse nor barn.
and yet God feeds them.”
This is obviously a different sort of economy.
It is an ecological, organic way of looking at life.
And this fits with how we also talk about the Body of Christ.
There is an organic wholeness and unity to life
in which all belong and no one is separate.
No one and no thing can stand alone from the rest; all are interrelated.
And so we can then begin to see how this person in the parable Jesus tells
is setting himself up for disaster.
He has been successful.
He has so much that he can retire early and live a life of ease.
However that night he is due to have a massive heart attack,
or a stroke, or get hit by the proverbial Mack truck.
Being self-sufficient, self-contained in providing for one’s own needs,
won’t be of any benefit to him then.
He was self-sufficient regarding his own needs,
but separate from everyone else and from their needs.
You see, having the opportunity to do good for the benefit of others,
but not doing it, was considered to be a sin.
This is the sin of omission.
St. Francis of Assisi said that this was stealing from the poor.
I once read this gospel in one church I served
where many of the parishioners were immigrant farm laborers.
When the rich man got the word that he was going to die,
their response was to say that divine justice was being done,
for he was hoarding, a sin in that cultural group
where whenever someone was in need,
the rest banded together to help.
So this person in the parable is standing convicted before God,
not for being successful,
but for neglecting the opportunity he had for helping others in need.
Now get this. This is the important point.
His life was forfeit,
because he had cut himself off from community with others
by neglecting the chance he had to be of benefit
to his own human community.
There with his appetite for financial security
which had become idolatry for him,
and which had turned his attention away from connection
with the organic whole of all living beings,
his very life was forfeit.
“So it is,” Jesus was saying, “with those who store up treasures for themselves
but are not rich in God.”
Jesus would shake us loose from our idolatry,
turn us back out of our illusions of ownership and security
to the basic and fundamental reality of our existence
as a part of the whole ecosystem, (like the ravens)
back where we then are challenged with radical trust in God
to provide the essential needs of life, so that we can be rich in God.
Jesus doesn’t make it easy for any of us:
he is challenging us to the extent of radical trust in God
to provide the essential needs of life.
“Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.”
These might be scary thoughts, disquieting,
and they ARE meant to stir up some reflection in us.
We need to ask ourselves: Is this parable a mirror for my own condition?
So Jesus was being hard on that person who wanted him to arbitrate
in the dispute with his brother about the family inheritance.
Jesus was being hard on those in his culture who were prosperous.
Jesus was being hard on everyone
who had divided loyalties between wealth and God.
Jesus is being hard on us, who, in comparison
with most of the rest of the human family on this planet,
are rich beyond measure.
But it’s not because we are particularly wicked or sinful or hard-hearted
that Jesus is saying these hard words to us,
but because of his immense compassion.
He sees through the closed heart,
and looks at us with the agaph Love of God.
His mercy is there in his toughness,
a severe mercy because it is for our sake.
Would that we would let go of our fears,
that we would quit investing our wealth
in what has so many fears associated with it.
Would that we would be aware
and not neglect the opportunities for generosity,
generosity that is life giving for others.
Would that we would let go of our fears
and instead become rich in God.
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