Luke 12:13-21
Ordinary 18 Year C
August 4, 2013
Dr. Robert Wm Lowry
First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches
At first glance this parable
seems to be a pretty strong indictment of wealth and money and the faith we put
into it. Jesus was fond of parables on
money and there is no escaping that he was particularly critical of the
wealthy.
Proclaiming Jesus’s
discontentment with wealth can be a bitter pill to swallow and frankly very
thin ice for a preacher to get out on with a room full of Presbyterians! Let’s face it, we may not all be Bill Gates
or Warren Buffett, but compared to some of our neighbors near and far, our
silos are pretty damn full.
Texts like these
make us squirm a little and more so than with others probably leave you sitting
there wondering what I am going to say about it. I spent a while wondering that myself!
The obvious
metaphor in the parable to make it accessible to a modern audience is
grain=money. Jesus is teaching a parable
about the perils of storing up wealth in whatever form. Perhaps the grain silo is a 401k or an
IRA. Like so much of Jesus’s teachings,
they are annoyingly applicable to our lives despite their arcane imagery.
As I was studying
this passage, I became aware of myself arguing back at the text a little bit.
Yes, I know we
are not supposed to hoard our money and possessions, but give us a break. We’ve been through a lot. We are still climbing out of the biggest
financial mess since the Great Depression!
We are bound to be a little anxious.
Surely tucking a little away for the sake of peace of mind cannot be
that bad a thing.
Then, as my list
of reasons why money and wealth are not bad things continued to grow in my
defense against the text, it dawned on me…maybe this text is not about money
per se but greed.
Now, that’ll
preach, I thought.
Preaching on
greed these days is like pushing on an open door.
Big banks foreclosing
on homes and farms;
Corporations with
record profits and record low wages;
CEOs running
their companies into the ground and getting shown the door with multi-million
dollar pink slips.
Even just
following the metaphor from the parable is rich soil for railing on greed.
Big agriculture
stockpiling grain to keep world prices up.
OPEC manipulating
the price of oil.
30,000 sq foot
mansions in West Palm Beach.
Greed will
preach.
Greed is easy.
Greed paints a
target on THEM and lets me stand back, take aim, and start lobbing preaching
bombs at them.
Greed?
Now, that’ll
preach.
The problem is
that this text is not really just about greed per se.
Yes, the farmer
in the story is guilty of being greedy and yes, God is displeased with his
greed, but that is not the whole of Jesus’ indictment here. This parable is not an indictment of one man
nor is it simply a warning about the very real dangers of greed.
In this parable,
Jesus is trying to open our eyes to a fundamental truth about human life then
and now; we are being lied to.
We are being lied
to.
In this parable about
a farmer and an over flowing silo of grain, Jesus is saying to us, “You are
being lied to. Don’t believe it.”
The lie Jesus
indicts in this parable, the lie he warns the disciples, the gathered crowd and
us about is the persistent myth of scarcity which dominates our world and
shapes our vision of it.
Beyond money or
greed, at the heart of this parable, is Jesus’s indictment of the lie of
scarcity.
The myth-the lie-
of scarcity- the fear that there is not and will not be enough to meet the
needs of the world- is a lie as old as time.
It is a lie,
because everything God has done in the world proclaims against it.
It is a lie,
because everything it is proclaims against the Word of God.
From the very
beginning, God’s work and Word is an unfolding chorus of abundance. Genesis 1 is a litany of abundance. By the end of the story’s sixth day, the
whole of creation is caught up in a whirlwind of abundance. Plants, trees, birds in the sky, fish in the
sea and everything in between is swept up in a carnival of fruitfulness to the
point that God finally says, I need a break!
From the very
beginning, God’s work in the world has been defined by abundance.
But it doesn’t
take long for the lie to be heard.
The lie of
scarcity, screaming out to be heard, begins to interject into the chorus of God’s
work. It takes a while, but by chapter
47, the lie gains some ground.[i] Pharaoh, dreaming that there will be a famine
in the land, sets out to control the supply of food. Thinking that there will not be enough for
everyone, that scarcity rather than abundance will rule, he becomes determined
to make sure that he has more than enough.
He builds bigger silos like the farmer in the parable and he starts to
fill.
He buys the lie
and lives into the fear that attends it.
Martin Niemoller,
one of the few German pastors who actively stood up to Hitler, was part of a
delegation from the Evangelical Lutheran Church that met with Hitler in
1933. Niemoller stood in the back of the
room and said nothing. Returning home,
his wife asked him what he learned. Niemoller
replied, “I learned that Herr Hitler is a terribly frightened man.”
Like Pharaoh, Hitler was convinced that there
was not enough so he acted brutally to ensure that he did not lose his place;
that he would not be caught with his silos empty.
If the stories of
Pharaoh and Hitler teach us anything, it is that those who live into the lie;
those who buy into the myth of scarcity may purchase for themselves security in
the moment, but they do not rule the unfolding of God’s tomorrow. That belongs to the abundance of God.
Even in
captivity, the people of Israel grow and multiply- they are fruitful. As Aaron and Moses lead them through the
desert they are fed not once, not twice, but as many times as their needs
require by manna from heaven.
Even in the wake
of Hitler’s abomination, the Jews of the world endure still today.
If there is a
lesson to be taken from those moments when the lie of scarcity has ruled the
day, it is that it rules only for the day; it does not endure; in fact, it
cannot endure. God’s unfolding abundance
always, always, always shines through to God’s promised tomorrow.
So the fundamental
question faced by the church and each of us who are claimed by Christ as part
of the body of Christ is this; what do we believe?
Scarcity, the
message of the world.
Or
Abundance, the
message of the Word of God.
World or
Word?
In which of these
two will we place our trust?
If you are like
me, the answer is both. We read our
bibles with one eye on the Dow Jones. We
make our pledge to the church always mindful of how the 401K or IRA is doing. We hear God’s promise of abundance and we try
to put our faith in God’s promised tomorrow, but just in case we tuck a little
something away in the silo for safe keeping; for a rainy day.
We believe, but
we hedge and it is pretty easy to rationalize it for ourselves.
After all, we aren’t
Pharaoh or Hitler! We are not these
cartoonish images of the power and control hungry who stomp all over God’s Word
for the sake of themselves. Sure, we
tuck a little away for tomorrow, but we still try to be generous.
And I think that
is a fair point both theologically and biblically.
Jesus is not
arguing in this parable against retirement accounts or rainy day funds or even
wise investment strategy. There is
nothing unholy about saving wisely to ensure that your family is provided for
or the church investing wisely to ensure that its ministries will endure. The trouble with believing in the lie of
scarcity is not that we take some care for tomorrow but that we become so
obsessed with tomorrow that we forget today; we become so controlled by
providing for a perceived need down the road, we lose track of the needs right
around us.
Whether it is
money, time, power or anything else, the thing itself is not necessarily the
problem. The problem is when we cannot see past
the thing and that obsession leads us out of relationship with one another and
with God. That is when we find ourselves in trouble; when we let the anxious lie
of the world rather than the promise of the Word guide our every move and
define our every relationship.
A few years ago I
got a call from a friend asking for a favor.
At the time I was a struggling graduate student and my friend occupied
what you might call a position of far greater power and prestige in the world. What, I wondered, could I possibly have to
offer?
It turned out
that his son and daughter-in-law had a baby and they were preparing for
pre-school. It is important to note,
that this baby was maybe 6 months old at this point. The friend was asking if I would make a call
to a Presbyterian Church in another city to help secure a spot for the child in
the pre-school. It was explained to me
that the pre-school was essential in order for the child to get into the right
kindergarten which was essential to get into the right grade school which was
essential to get into the right middle school which was essential to get into
the right prep school which would ensure a spot at Harvard and a life of
health, wealth and security. Right there
in front of them was tangible evidence of the abundance of God- the fruitfulness
of creation- but they could not see past the fear of a potential college
rejection letter 18 years down the road.
How often do we
do that in our lives; become so obsessed with the anxieties of tomorrow that we
miss the evidence of abundance right before our eyes? We get
in such a hurry that not only do we not stop to smell the roses, we don’t even
notice that they are there!
Yet, the
abundance of God is all around us every minute of every day; God’s promise
unfolding throughout creation.
When you woke up
this morning and opened your eyes, did you have to set the sun in the sky or
was the light already there? [ii]
When you drew
your first breath in the world, did you have to fill the room with oxygen or
was the air already there?
When you came to
be baptized, did you have to fill he font yourself or was the water already
there ready and waiting for you?
When God sent the
son into the world to save the world, did the world have to ask first? Did we have to ask for the true bread from
heaven; the spiritual manna that is Christ Jesus?
The evidence of
abundance is all around us and we need to open our eyes and our hearts to see
it. And when we see the abundance of God;
when we delight
in the abundance of God;
when we
look beyond the lie of the world and reveal that beneath the
proclamations of gloom and doom;
beyond
the myth of scarcity and shortage;
away
from the persistent anxiety over tomorrow;
when
we tear back the curtain where the lie of the world is hiding, we find…nothing.
Nothing.
When we peel back
the layers of the lie, we find that there is nothing there. The world’s lie of scarcity is built on
nothing.
Perhaps then,
staring into the abyss of the myth of the world, our eyes will be open and our
lives made glad in the abundance of God.
We may find it impossible to let go our silos full of stuff, but
thankfully with God nothing is impossible.
And, friends, those who put their faith in the abundance of God are with
God and may God use them-use us-to show the abundance of God in every part of the
world.
Amen and Amen.
[i] This
reference to Pharaoh and to Hitler and the underlying linkage between the two
comes from lecture notes from a class with Walter Brueggemann at Columbia
Seminary. I do not recall the article,
however I believe it was published in the Christian Century in the 1990’s. I apologize for not having the proper
citation, but want to give Dr. Brueggemann full credit for this helpful insight.
[ii] Dr. Ron
Peters used this image at the opening worship service of the PC(USA) 2014 Big
Tent event in Louisville. His sermon
was an interpretation of Acts 2, but the image seemed to work here as
well. Thanks to Dr. Peters for an
inspiring sermon.
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