There IS a Balm in Gilead

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost Year C

September 22, 2013

First Presbyterian Church, Clarksville

And

Harmony Presbyterian Church

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

            Jeremiah is called the Weeping Prophet.

            More than any other of the Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah voices lament over the state of affairs of the people and the nation.

            The Isarelites, once defined by their love for the God who called and blessed them, have drifted into new troubling patterns of life in worship, politics and the values that unite them as a people.

            In a way, Jeremiah’s are timeless words.   Our context may not be the same as the ancient Israelites, but when we look out over the landscape of the world we share, lament seems to be in order.

            Just think about some of our shared realities.

            3.5 million children die worldwide each year from malnutrition.  To put that in some context, 3.5 million per year is seven per minute.   It took me roughly four minutes to read the scripture this morning. 

            30 million men, women and children in Africa, or roughly 3% of the total population, are HIV+ and have no access to medical care.

            In southern China, a woman was recently beaten to death in police custody for handing out Bibles and in Pakistan young women are frequently beaten by their families for perceived violations of honor. 

            One month ago yesterday, 1500 people were killed by their own government in a chemical weapon attack in Syria.

            We look around the world and we see injustice and prejudice and the inhumanity of humankind and we need a prophet to lead us in our weeping.

            Of course, we don’t really have to look too far to see the wages of injustice. 

            Right here at home, in our own backyards, there is evidence of how far from God’s vision for the world we have wandered.

            One in four children right here in Arkansas will go to bed hungry tonight.

            Here in the wealthiest nation the world has ever known, the gap between the top earning worker and the lowest earning worker is greater than anywhere in the world or in human history.

            The moral compass of our nation is more and more defined by the holy writ of party politics than the unwavering command of Jesus to love God and care for our neighbors.

            If Jeremiah was here with us today, no doubt he would weep.  He would lament. 

            Ours is a sorry state of affairs and worthy of lament; the modern day equivalent of the times of Jeremiah. 

            We need a prophet to give voice to our lament and frustration. 

            We need a modern day Jeremiah to cry out with loud voice,

            “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?”

            The image of the balm of Gilead is an interesting choice.  Known throughout the ancient near east for its medicinal qualities, the balm of Gilead was prized for its restorative powers and the ability of its perfume to cover foul and offensive odors. 

            “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?”

            In other words, is there nothing and no one that can cure this disease and cover the stench of injustice and unrighteousness?  Is there no physician who can cure these people?

            It is important to note here who is doing the speaking.  It is clear from both the context of the writing and the language of the prophet that this lament is not Jeremiah’s.  It is God’s.  These are God’s words while looking out over the scorched moral landscape of the people of Israel.

            Apart of me finds great comfort in knowing that this is God’s voice.  It is comforting to hear God speak these words of frustration and lament and sorrow because knowing that God feels it too means something.  It matters.  It reminds me that ours is a God not standing far and disconnected from the world but one who stands so close that even the stench of our sinfulness reaches God.     

            “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician here?”

            A part of me finds it very comforting that God speaks those words.  Another part of me, however, looks at the world’s suffering and wants to shake a fist at God and say, “if you don’t like what you see, fix it!  Quit asking if there is no physician here.  You are the physician!  So, physician, heal thyself!”

            Part of me is comforted by God’s capacity to lament, but part of me is also frustrated by God’s seeming refusal to use God’s capacity to fix what is so lamentable!

            “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?”

            Yes there is a balm and it is you.  Yes there is a physician and it is you!  So, God so get to work!

            Of course, that is not how it worked then and it is not how it works now.  Ours is not a God who waves a magic want and makes it all better. 

            In fact, it would go against the very nature of God to do that; to wave a magic wand and make the whole world ok; to wipe away any trace of injustice or oppression in the world. 

            What Jeremiah gave voice to in lament; what God cries out over in our text today; what we see when we look across the decaying moral landscape of the world, what we see is not a design flaw in creation in need of a fix by the creator.  No, what we see is the tangible, visible, enduring wages of human sinfulness in the midst of creation. 

            The reason God does not simply fix the world is simply that God did not break it in the first place.

            God said, let there be light.  We are the ones who keep choosing darkness.

            God said, let there be abundance of life.  We are the ones who choose consumption and greed.

            If we take the Bible at its word, God’s fundamental desire for humanity is that we flourish and thrive in the midst of God’s creation.  And to achieve that flourishing and thriving, God created the world as a paradise and made it a gift to humanity.

            That we have taken paradise and made it into a living hell for so many of God’s children is at the root of God’s lament.  

            It is clear in the book of Jeremiah and if we are honest with ourselves, it is clear today, that the root causes of injustice and inequality in the world are not inherent in creation but the wages of our individual and corporate sin. 

            Each year enough food is grown worldwide to feed every person on the planet, if we only had the moral courage to get the food where it needs to go.

            There is enough wealth in this nation to ensure that no person goes hungry or without shelter, if we only had the moral courage to get the resources where they need to go.

            There is enough biblical imperative to lead us to treat each and every person with the dignity of a child of God, if we only had the moral courage to stand up to racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and every other human effort to divide God’s children.

            The world that God created as a paradise is as we have allowed it to become.

            And God laments that state of affairs. 

            God weeps over that state of affairs.

            God cries out in anguish, is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?

            Still, as much as our shattering and abuse of the perfect shalom of God’s creation grieves God, God cannot and will not go along with unjust and inhumane practices by waving a magic wand and making everything better.

            God cannot and will not wipe away the tangible wages of our sins in this world because to do so would make God an accessory after the fact to our wanton disregard of the shalom and promise of creation. 

            In truth, I think some of the grieving we hear in God’s voice in this lament over the world is rooted not only in the suffering of God’s people but in the pain God bears in knowing that it doesn’t have to be this way. 

            It doesn’t have to be this way.

            Beneath the words of anguish and despair; behind the voice of the weeping prophet, there is in here a message of hope.

            Yes, our hearts are anguished because God’s heart is anguished.

            Yet, we who read these words of lament on this side of the empty tomb read them through the lens of “Alleluia, he is risen he is risen indeed!”

            We can read these words and participate in God’s anguish and even beg the same questions asked by God,

            “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?”

            But when we ask them, we have the benefit of knowing God’s promised answer in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

            In Christ, the creator of paradise defined by perfect shalom comes into the world bearing that shalom once again. 

            If the root of the lamentable state of affairs in the world is our sin, then what balm do we need but the grace of Jesus Christ?  What physician can heal us beyond the wholeness we find in Christ?

            In Jesus Christ, God snaps the neck of the cycle of destruction and despair that trapped generations.  God, being God, refuses to let lament have the last word and sends Christ into the world to be the healing balm not only for Gilead but the whole of creation. 

            In Jesus Christ is healing balm and in Jesus Christ is the healer’s hand.   Christ is God’s promise to the world that songs of lament will be supplanted by hymns of praise. 

            Even in the midst of a world of sin and beyond the prophet’s songs of lament, God’s one final word for all creation rings out; hope.

            Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?

            Yes and yes.  On nothing less is our hope built.

            Amen and amen. 

Big Shoulders

Jeremiah 32:1-17

19^th Sunday after Pentecost Year C

September 29, 2013

First Presbyterian Church, Clarksville

And

Harmony Presbyterian Church

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

            French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard said, “We live in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning.”  Put another way, there is some degree to which we are living, culturally, in an extended episode of Seinfeld; the television show that proudly declared itself a show about nothing.   

            Part of being a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-the God of history; the God who would come in the person of Jesus Christ- is to see the something in the midst of the nothing. 

            Just consider our story today.  Jeremiah, in jail at the order of Zedekiah the king of Judah, has been prophesying about the pending fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians.  There is no grey area in Jeremiah’s words.  Jerusalem will fall.  The nation will be overrun and all that belongs to the Judeans will belong to the Babylonians.

While Jeremiah is in prison, two things happen.  The first is a vision from God that his cousin would come to visit him and demand that Jeremiah purchase a piece of property out of familial obligation.  He was next in line to buy and his cousin wanted to sell.  Although he is a prisoner, Jeremiah trusts God, purchases the property and in front of witnesses gives it to Baruch with instructions to have a deed drawn up and sealed in a clay jar to preserve it.

            The second thing that happens is even odder than a prisoner with no likely chance for freedom who knows that the land is about to be overrun buying a piece of land.  Jeremiah sees in this less than ideal land deal the hand of God at work. 

            After purchasing the land and instructing Baruch in its use, Jeremiah says, “LORD God, you created heaven and earth by your great power and outstretched arm; nothing is too hard for you!”

            Now, I have to admit.  When I bought my first house and signed the loan papers and realized I owed more money than I ever had in my life, my first thought was not to say a word about God’s awesome power as the creator of heaven and earth!  And unlike Jeremiah, I wasn’t in prison at the time either!

            As someone whose life’s work is rooted in the church, I am tempted to shake my head and scowl with some combination of sadness and contempt at the cultural tendencies that Baudrillard criticizes and Seinfeld embodied.  For those of us who find our home in the church, this historical community built on stories and truths whose age is measured not in decades or centuries but in millennia.   The text for my sermon this morning is from a story more than 2500 years old and is built on theology that extends centuries earlier.  Being part of the church is by definition to be part of something and not nothing.  Still, there is something striking about the difference between Jeremiah’s response to a banal moment and ours. 

            What about this moment was so different?  What about this moment when Jeremiah did something as innocuous as buy land from his cousin was so special- so different- that his response was to give praise and express awe for God? 

            Perhaps a better question is, what is so different about us? 

            14 years ago Jedediah Purdy gave an answer to a version of that question in his wonderful book, For Common Things.  In the book, Purdy argues that modern culture has been seduced by irony and its accompanying avoidance of naïve devotion, belief or hope.  The ironic individual, he says, practices a kind of self-protection against disappointment by simply not believing in much of anything in the first place. 

            The net result is a loss of imagination.  Generally speaking, we have, as a people, lost our sense of imagination for things that are beyond our expectations and experiences.  We have lost the vocabulary of awe that transcends our daily lives. 

            If there is a single spiritual illness underlying the state of our culture, I think that is it. 

            If there is a single spiritual illness underlying the state of the church, I think that is it.

                        A loss of imagination;

                                    a loss of our ability to see something beyond the nothing.

                                                we have been seduced by the ease and perceived comfort of living ironic lives insulated from disappointment by our persistent refusal to dream too big. 

            That is, to varying degrees, the diagnosis for our age, but I have trouble indicting myself or our collective self in the church too much for making this a self-inflicted illness.  Like the person who gets a cold after being out in the rain, there are plenty of reasons why we suffer from this collective malady.

            Our political culture has become trifling, wearisome and parochial; the great human rights movements that sparked the passion of previous generations have become excuses for fundraising more than motivators for social change; appliances and relationships that used to be worth repairing have become disposable and easily replaced. 

            We have spent the last quarter century standing in a chilly cultural rain and it is no wonder we have caught a spiritual cold. 

            The net result of so much of this cultural sickness is the loss our imaginations; we’ve lost our ability or our willingness to risk seeing beyond our own lives and perspectives.

            Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News commentator, has written a book on the life and death of Jesus.  The book has been roundly criticized by reviewers for many reasons, some deserved some not.  It is not terribly accurate and relies on lots of assumptions and not much scholarship, but O’Reilly does not make a claim to be a biblical theologian so it may not be fair to judge his book against the likes of Luke Timothy Johnson or Reza Aslan.

             One critique of O’Reilly’s book is well deserved but not very new.  If you read O’Reilly’s account of the life of Jesus, you find that the Son of God seems, in his theological and political outlook, a lot like, well, Bill O’Reilly.  For the writer of a pseudo-biography of Jesus to write himself into the profile of Christ is not a new thing.  Since the whole notion of writing a biographical account of the historical Jesus became popular in the early 19^th century, the picture of Christ that comes from the words on the page more often than not looks a lot like the one who put the words on the page in the first place.  Over the years Jesus has resembled variously a German academic, Anglican bishop, protestant clergyman and, now, conservative television commentator. 

            There is something about thinking about the divine that so often keeps us from looking beyond the limits of our imaginations; that persuades us that all there is to be in this world is within sight of our own lives so whatever God or Christ or the Spirit may be or do is bound on each side by what our imaginations declare to be the boundaries of the possible.  We imagine a God who is big, but not too big; a Christ who is forgiving, but not too forgiving; a Spirit that inspires, but not too much. 

            We just seem to have lost our appetite and our imagination for a God who is greater than our greatest and wildest dreams.   

            Jeremiah bought a share in the Promised Land that was about to be claimed by Nebuchadnezzar.  Knowing that the land was about to be overrun and that deeds of transfer would likely not carry much weight with ole Nebuchadnezzar, what does Jeremiah do?  Doe he lament in being forced into a deal with his cousin?  Does he shake his fist at the sky and ask God why?  He turns to God and says, “LORD God, you created the heaven and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm; nothing is too hard for you!”

Imagine buying land in a nation that you know is about to be overrun and occupied.   It isn’t as if the Babylonians were going to honor land ownership!  What did he imagine that he had to be thankful about?!  Jeremiah buys a share of something that is about to be taken over by outsiders. 

            In a way, I suppose we do that every time we gather in this place.  When we give our time and our energy and our resources to the church, we buy shares of God’s promise even while the barbarians are at the city gates.   To say that the church is about to be overrun by the Babylonians might be a bit of a stretch, but we do live in uncertain times.  There is a whole cottage industry in publishing books and holding conferences on the inevitable sea change that is happening in the church.  We are in the midst of what has variously been called a new Reformation, a fourth Great Awakening and the emergence of a whole new Christian era.  Whatever it is called, it is certain that we are living in uncertain times in the household of God much like Jeremiah lived in uncertain times in the Promised Land of God. 

            So why did Jeremiah, facing invasion and occupation, respond with words of praise and we, faced with an uncertain future in the church, so often respond with anxiety or, look around at those empty pews, we just walking away?

            What are we missing?  What did Jeremiah see in his moment of uncertainty that we do not see in our own?

            Perhaps a better question is asking, what did Jeremiah see BEYOND that moment? 

            If we read this text clearly, it is really what he sees beyond the moment that inspires Jeremiah rather than what happens in that innocuous moment itself.  He does not praise God because his cousin forced him into this land deal or because Nebuchadnezzar is at the city gates and about to sack Jerusalem, he praises God because he knows that this land in which he now owns a share is God’s and what is truly God’s can never belong to Nebuchadnezzar.  What is truly God’s can never be taken away.  God promised the land to the children of Abraham and God’s promise, ultimately, cannot and will not be broken.

            Jeremiah buys a share in the Promised Land not because he sees promise in the moment but because he sees beyond the nothing of the right now to the something of God’s promised tomorrow.

            This prophet of God lets his imagination take him, like Willy Wonka’s Great Glass Elevator, beyond the boundaries of experience and reason and rationality and excuses to a place of pure imagination; a place in his spirit where the only words he can find are words of praise for God.

            Jeremiah did that sitting in Zedekiah’s jail. 

            He dared to imagine that God was bigger and greater than the present moment.  He dared to dream in what one preacher called the God of the big shoulders- big enough to hold us all. 

            Imagine what we could do right here and right now if we dare to put our imaginations to work.

            What kind of church would we build if we were willing to unleash our imaginations and let them take us beyond the reality of the moment to the limitless possibilities of God’s promise?!

            What kind of world would we build if we were willing to open our hearts and our minds and our lives to a God who can still surprise us with hope, a Christ who can still astonish us with grace and a Spirit that can still overwhelm us with promise?

            It would, I am certain, be like nothing we have ever seen before.

            It would, I am certain, be beyond our wildest imaginations.

            It would, I am ab-so-lute-ly certain, be a bigger, brighter, greater, more wondrous future than any of us dare hope and because we trust our imaginations to God there will be no need for us to wear the armor of our ironic age, because the God of promise never disappoints.

            Like the hymn says,

If you but trust in God to guide you

And place your confidence in Him,

You'll find God always there beside you,

To give you hope and strength within.

For those who trust God's changeless love

Build on the rock that will not move.

            LORD God, you created the heaven and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm; nothing is too hard for you!  Or for us, with you.

            Amen and amen. 

Like a Thief in the Night

Luke 12:32-40
Pentecost 12C
August 11, 2013
First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches

The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

Just three years before he would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Irish poet William Butler Yeats surveyed the carnage of post-war Europe and penned what would be a masterpiece of modernist poetry.  Called the war to end all wars, for many WWI or the Great War looked as if it was the war that would end all humanity.  The aftermath of the war brought with it a deepening sense of despair and hopelessness about the future.  The very foundations of what had once been understood to stand at the heart of stability- empire, church, the traditional class system- were shattered.  

It was in the midst of that season confusion and failure of confidence that Yeats penned his famous words in the poem “The Second Coming.”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed up upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.  

The imagery of the poem is stark, frightening, and unapologetically pessimistic about the state of world affairs.  Perhaps the most incredible thing about the poem and its imagery of a world decaying and rotting from the inside out is the fact that though written over nine decades ago, it could have been written yesterday.  Yeats’s description of his own world is not that different from a reasonable description of our own.  The characters might have changed, but much of our reality is the same.  

Yeats changed the title of the poem several times before it was finally published.  The title he settled on, “The Second Coming,” refers to the promised second coming into the world of Christ.  For generations beginning as early as the days of the gospel writers, the church hung its hopes on the promised return of the Messiah.  No matter how bad things might get, the days of Jesus’s promised return; the days of the kingdom of God are right around the corner.

In post-War Europe, it looked as if Jesus would never return and God had just forgotten about the world.  Echoing the growing doubts of a generation, Yeats pulls no punches in his writing.  The very notion of Christ’s return is turned on its head in the last few lines of the poem where Yeats writes,

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

After 20 centuries of waiting and waiting and waiting, the sentimental vision of the new born baby and the gentle entry into the world has been replaced by the hour for the coming of a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.  

It is difficult not to read this text from Luke through Yeats’s despairing eyes.  

This text demonstrates what I find to two of Jesus’s most annoying habits; declaring that he will return and taking his time about actually doing it. 

Part of why I find it so difficult to treat Yeats too harshly is that I know what it is to be in that place.  To feel as though Jesus has forgotten to return and God has forgotten us all together.  

The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

As many of you know, I was in Louisville, KY a couple of weeks ago for a Presbyterian Church event called “The Big Tent.” Big Tent was started when the church chose to have the General Assembly meet every other year rather than every year.  In off years, all of the major church gatherings; the Theology and Worship Conference, the Peacemaking Conference, the Multi-Cultural Fellowship and half a dozen others meet together in the same place for four days of fellowship, worship and learning.

My experience was wonderful in many ways.  I got to meet new friends in ministry, share stories of two churches I am deeply proud to serve and learn some new ideas from other church leaders.  If I learned anything, it is that the PC(USA) really is a big tent with room for all of God’s children to live, grow and worship God together.

As with all church gatherings, there were some uncomfortable parts.  It became more evident how we, along with our brothers and sisters in the other Mainline Protestant churches, have gotten so used to talking about all the changes in the church; harping on the challenges of the church; each generation pointing to another and laying blame, placing hopes or simply saying run away!  When we gather as a larger church, we spend an awful lot of time looking inside and not a whole lot looking outside.  Now, don’t mistake me.  There is plenty of good mission and ministry happening around the church, but sometimes it feels like the navel gazing has been raised to an art form.  All of our inwardness distracts us from the larger calling of the church to love and serve the world as we love and serve God.  

We lose track of that sometimes.  In the chaos of the moment, it is so easy to lose sight of the long view.

As Yeats says, the falcon cannot hear the falconer.

I suppose it is no wonder though.  Our reality is pretty radically changed from the church many of us knew.

  Many churches were built for 500 worshipers and on a good Sunday you may count 60.

Some were founded because they were geographically isolated, but Mr. Ford and his assembly line helped take care of that.

Budgets continue to shrink just as expenses soar.

More congregations are closing than are opening and the 4 million members of the 1960s has become less than 2 million today.  

It is almost like post-war Europe was not the only thing Jesus forgoes or God forgets.

But Jesus says, “you must be ready because the Lord is coming when you least expect it.”

Part of us thinks the surprise will come if he returns not when.  There has been plenty of reason to doubt in the years since Yeats saw such despair in the world.   There is reason to doubt as we watch the old church we once knew transform around us and, yes, in some ways die.

4 million to 2 million in less than 50 years?

Maybe Yeats was right. 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed up upon the world,

Anarchy rules the day.  Why do we bother?

You are crazy if you think preachers do not ask themselves that question pretty often.  “Why bother?” “Why keep preaching Jesus will return when all evidence to the contrary surrounds us every day?” 

Preacher or parishioner, that is likely not an unfamiliar question and based on the world in which we live, it is not a wholly unreasonable one.  The evidence around us tells us day after day that putting our hope in the coming of Jesus, putting our hope in a Second Coming of messiah is nothing but a dead letter.

So why bother?

The answer to that is pretty simple.

Why bother?

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.  That is all that needs to be said.  Jesus Christ is God’s hope summed up.  He is the promise of God made flesh.  Jesus Christ is the word of God and Jesus promises to return.

There is a reason that everything around us fails to point us to the fulfillment of God’s promise in the return of Jesus Christ; that is not the world’s job.  

The world and all that is in it sing praises to God, but we must not mistake the world, its life or its history for God.

No, the world does not fulfill the promise of Christ because it cannot fill his shoes.  Only Christ can keep the promise to return and make all things whole and new and shalom.

Only Christ can keep the promise.

And it is Christ who made the promise.

Christ, who never promised to return this day or that year but only that He will return.  In fact according to the text, he is returning.  That is what the Greek here means.  The way Jesus makes his promise, the words are in the present progressive tense- when Jesus made his promise to the disciples, the promise was already being kept and it is being kept today.  It is a promise made and unfolding through history.

  The world gives us all kinds of reasons to give up.

To give up on the church.

To give up on our neighbors.

To give up on our world.

The reasons to give up are legion and the reason to stay alert- to be prepared- to wait and work with faithful anticipation is just one.  Because Jesus Christ said so.

That is the only reason we have to believe and the only one we need.  

Christ has promised to be faithful to his promise so we are freed to be faithful to Christ.  

That is the only reason we need to dig in and put our faith and our energy into doing the work of God in this place; to face a changing world and a changing church with an unflinching hope in the God glorify, the Spirit that sustains us and the Christ who is with us even now as he fulfills his promise to return.  

So, be ready.

Jesus will return- he promised us he would.

He didn’t say when and he didn’t say where, but he promised to return.

And whose word can you take if not the word of the Word of God?

Amen.

Smell the Roses

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.

               

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[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.