Does
someone have a pencil or pen? How about some
paper? I want to make a list.
Tell me: What is the good stuff of life? What are the things that make life worth
living? What are the things that make
this life beautiful?
Now
think about this: you are at a garage
sale, or better yet an estate sale. Someone
is selling everything that has been accumulated over a lifetime. People mill about. People pick through the stuff, the stuff that
was once the valued possession of someone else.
People haggle you down from a dollar to gets some item for 50 cents
instead. That stuff that is treated with
mild interest at best, and with contempt at worst, represents what someone
wanted to spend their resources on. Someone
worked hard, was paid for their efforts, and the items at an estate sale are
all that remains. What story would your
estate sale tell about your life? Is there
anything that you could sell at an estate sale that would also go on that list
that we made before?
Have you
seen that new couple in town? His name is John or Joe or something. It seems that he had to leave where he was
from and is now here. He is looking or
has a new job but it hasn’t paid him yet.
He has a wife and I think a little boy.
They seem nice enough, but clearly they are not from here. I wonder if anyone has helped them out
yet.
It’s
gotta be tough when you are a refugee in a foreign country, especially when the
king of your home country wants to kill your son. But that’s the situation they find themselves
in. And now they are here with us, in
Egypt. What was Israel’s problem is now
ours. It would be one thing if Joe had a
job and would provide for himself and his family but he doesn’t. It’s sad that his wife Mary and child have to
suffer. I wonder if anyone has helped
them out yet.
I hear
that the King of their homeland has died and they are able to finally leave our
country and go back to where they came from. I guess they are small town folk
from a little place called Nazareth. They have a little place up by a lake, it a
fishing village on the Sea of Galilee. It’s a good thing they are going back to
where they come from. Usually people
like that don’t amount to much. I mean, their little boy, Jesus: What chance
does he have of doing anything meaningful? They say they are trusting God. I hope God will provide. I wonder if anyone has helped them out while
they were in our midst.
Do you
trust your grain or your God?
Do you
trust your 401k or that foreign baby that is the hope of all human kind?
Do you
trust investments or the invisible God who was made visible in Christ Jesus?
Do you
trust in your union or your Unity with Christ?
That is
the question that Jesus confronts us with in the text today.
(The
Foolish Landowner)
The rich man thought he had security. He produced abundantly and thought that his
first thought when he saw his bounty was not to help those in need. His first thought was that he could stop
working and live off what had been produced.
Unfortunately he died that very same night.
This is not a parable about the wrath of God on us when
we have selfish motivation it is about the state of our soul when we are not aligned
with God’s will. At the end of the parable God asks the foolish one “And the
things you have prepared, whose will they be?” or another way to put it. Okay you have accumulated all this stuff,
when you die it’s all going in the garage sale. People are going to pick through
it and offer have of what it’s worth. Is that what life is all about? Is life about the accumulation of stuff? Or is it about the stuff on that list?
So we ought to be about God’s will
What is God’s
will?
The prophet Mica said that the Lord requires that we “Do
justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.”
Or how about the New Testament? Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah and said
the words in it were fulfilled in him.
Jesus said “The Spirit of
the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the
poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”
Jesus told the parable
about the rich landowner to demonstrate the foolishness of that mindset. The mindset that says you can achieve security
through possessions. It demonstrates
that no matter how much you have you will still come to the end of this mortal
life. And when you come to the end of
this mortal life will you have a barn of grain or will you have a lifetime of
the good things on the list we made.
Jesus told this parable and is a great lesson for us, but Jesus also
told this parable in response to a specific question. A man in the crowd said to him, “teacher,
tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend,
who set me to be a judge or arbitrator 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.”
The man
may have been justified in his claim on his inheritance. The man was not acting improperly to ask a rabbi
to settle a dispute, but Jesus saw past all the surface details of the
situation and saw the root of the problem.
The conversation with the man when from being a private one, to being a
lesson for the whole crowd on greed. That
is when he told the parable of the rich farmer.
We cannot
fool Jesus. He knows our heart. We can tell each other what we want. We can present the best possible versions of
ourselves to each other but Jesus sees the real us. He loves us and died for us to save us. But that is not the end of our spiritual
journey. Jesus intends to sanctify you.
Jesus wants to set you apart, make you holy and use you to do His will.
How is
it with you today? Find an opportunity
today to live out your calling to be set apart and holy. Shift your attention to the grain in your
barn to what God would have you do with it.
Would
you pray with me?
No comments:
Post a Comment