July 31, 2022
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
Leviticus 25:1-4, 18-24; Luke 12:16-20[1]
As the days passed,
when I was feeling lonely, I would eat a brownie and think about my good
fortune – having so many good brownies to eat.
I didn’t eat one every day, and so they would sit in the fridge, safely
tucked away, slowly getting stale and dried out. After a couple of weeks, the remaining
brownies were pretty hard, and they no longer tasted very good. I had to throw away the last few stale
brownies. I was still lonely, and now I
had no more brownies.
I don’t think of
myself as a rich man. My wife and I manage to pay our bills each month, keep
food on the table, keep our kids active, and get regular check-ups. But our parents
helped us buy or home and cars, the kids are the only ones with new clothes,
and we have more debt than savings. The thing is, we have a storage unit, and
it is just jammed with stuff. There’s an old TV, the kids’ old toys, some of my old toys, boxes of books, boxes of
old clothes, and furniture we don’t have room for in the house.
I’m running out of
places to put all this stuff. What should I do? Sell it and give the money to
the poor, right? Or at least donate it to Goodwill or a rummage sale. But I
really like some of that stuff, and it might be useful someday. Maybe if I just
build a bigger basement, or get another storage unit.
People hold on to a
lot of things, not just objects that fit (or not) in the storage room. We hold
on to regrets and mistakes from our past. We hold on to the idea that life can
be pain-free, and happiness is only one more purchase away. We hold on to
stereotypes, “facts” that have been proven false, and even people who try to
control us with negativity. We are prisoners of this stuff, and it keeps us
from entering the kingdom of God.
An abundance of
possessions can do funny things to us.
We can become infected with greed.
We can become angry – paranoid that someone will take what is ours. We hoard up our good things and push people
away so that they won't take our things away from us. We push people
away, and pull our stuff closer to
us.
The man in the
parable has been blessed with an abundant harvest. It was amazing! The harvest was so good that all of his barns
could not contain it. Where could he
store all of his things? He decided to
tear down his barns and build larger ones that could store all of his abundant
harvest of grain, and all of his good things.
He was satisfied with himself – at least until God came calling. God points out his foolishness. He has pushed away the people around him, and
pulled his stuff closer. The man tries
to tell himself “Relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
But the words are hollow sounding, and in his heart, he does not feel
merry; rather, he feels nervous, empty, lonely.
Greed leads us to
the belief that the good things in this world are limited. No more brownies are coming in the mail; I
need to store them so that I can prolong the comfort they give. I might need those old books stashed away in
a box in my basement. The fields won't
produce enough grain next year; I need to store up what I have for myself.
Now God enters into
the parable with a warning. “You
fool! The blessing of the harvest wasn’t
for you alone – the blessing of the harvest belongs to the community.” The abundant harvest is really a special
blessing. In the book of Leviticus, we read
how the land will produce abundantly during the sixth year in preparation for
the seventh year of Sabbath for the land.
“I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that [the land]
will yield a crop for three years” says the Lord. (Leviticus 25:21).
A New Testament
Professor named Bernard Brandon Scott wrote a book entitled Hear Then the Parable.[2] In his study of this parable, Scott suggests
that the rich man perceives the good things he possesses as limited. Scott tells us, “If one person hoards wealth,
there will be none left to go around. If
there is a surplus today, there must be a shortage tomorrow.” By saving up his harvest to provide for his
own comfort, the rich man “offends against the community’s possibilities,
wastes God’s gifts, and ensures the impoverishment of others.” The land has brought forth an abundant
harvest, but it is not for the rich man to keep for himself. The harvest is meant to provide for the needs
of the community while the land is fallow during the Sabbath year. The man in the parable, by hoarding the
harvest for himself, turns his back on his neighbors. He pushes away the people of the community
and pulls his stuff closer.
The man in the
parable has made a crucial misunderstanding.
He thinks that the blessings of God are limited. There are only so many blessings to go
around; better store them up! He does
not understand the nature of God.
The blessings of God
are not limited! Luke tells us that when
Jesus was faced with a large, hungry crowd in a deserted place, with only five
loaves and two fish, “he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and
gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled” (Luke 9:16-17). God’s blessing was enough to provide food for
more than five thousand people!
The blessings of God
are not limited, and they are given to us so that we might share them with
others. When we share our goods with
others, what does that feel like?
At couple of years
ago, we used some of our discretionary funds – a gift from the Lions Club – to pay
for a truck to come to Union from the Food Depository. People from our church gathered over at the
Lutheran Church to distribute boxes of food to people in need, many of whom had
lost jobs due to COVID. We worked
together, had fun, saw the smiles on the faces of those we helped, and it felt
great!
As we make our
pledges each year to the church, as we support the MORE food pantry, Turning
Point, PADS, and the Heifer Project, we are sharing the abundance with which
God has blessed us all. When we give out
of our abundance to our church, to our neighbors, to our community, there is a feeling
of joy, of celebration. Had I shared
those brownies that came in my care package, I might have made some new
friends, and been able to celebrate the blessing of the brownies. If I manage to donate some of my stored stuff
this year, I know that there will be people who need what I have to give. When the crops come with abundance, the
harvest celebration begins.
The blessings of God
are not limited. When we share what we
have, when we share out of the abundance of our things, we draw people together
in celebration. When we share our stuff,
we pull people together.
God gives blessings
in abundance, without limits. God gives
us life itself, and not only that. In
Jesus Christ, the stone of human limitations was rolled away so that we might
all share in the abundance of eternal life.
Life without limits; enough life to share with everyone, enough for a
celebration of the abundant blessing that God has given to us.
My friend Chris
Marlin-Warfield, a minister in Iowa, wrote a book entitled Radical Charity.
In it he says that the church is “a
little piece of the kingdom of God here in a broken world; a place and a
community where people can see what the world could be like.” We have an amazing opportunity, “to be,
however imperfectly, the world as God wants it to be. And that world is one
that is full of agape, of caritas, of love, of charity.”[3]
We are not called to
tear down our barns and build larger ones to store all of our wealth for ourselves.
We are called share the abundance of God’s blessing. We are called to give food to the hungry, to
shelter the homeless, to clothe the naked.
We are called to share the good news that God’s blessings are not
limited. We are greatly blessed, so let
us be a great blessing. Amen.
[1]
The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2]
Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables
of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 137.
[3]
Christopher Marlin-Warfield, Radical Charity: How Generosity Can Save the
World (And the Church) (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019), 171. Available
from: https://wipfandstock.com/radical-charity.html
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