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Sermon: Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (C) - 1st August 2010
St Aidan’s Anglican Church West Epping 8:30
Readings: Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
No other gospel talks about wealth as much as Luke’s gospel. Its true that the other gospels mention wealth, the poor and the use of money. But in Luke’s gospel there is a greater emphasis. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus teaching is more pointed than in the other gospels.
But Jesus taught 2000 years ago. He didn’t know the economy we know. He wasn’t under the financial pressures we experience. Can we really apply what he said way back then to the lives we live today. I think we can. But let’s explore the options. To begin we can notice several things.
First, Jesus never said money was inherently evil or that the rich must be evil people. Money is not bad. Jesus’ warning is that we must beware the influence money can have over us. How will wealth affect us? That influence can be worked out in a variety of ways, some good and some bad.
Second we should note that in Jesus day most people were poor. Most people did not own land and so they couldn’t grow their own food. Most people were day labourers for land owners and were paid at a daily rate. They lived a hand to mouth existence. If they fell sick or if there was a famine then they starved, or they survived by begging. So being poor left most people on the edge of existence. Starving to death was not uncommon.
On the other hand, there were the rich. There were very few of them. They owned all the land, they produced all the food and they sold it at good prices. They made a lot of money. And during the famines they could always buy food for themselves at the grain markets. So whenever Jesus tells a story about a rich man, he means a very rich man. But when he tells these parables he is usually speaking to the very poor.
But there is one further thing we need to remember. The essence of Jesus teaching is regarding our duty to God and our duty to our neighbour. We should love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. So when Jesus teaches on wealth it is in contrast to those two key responsibilities.
But how do we apply Jesus’ teaching to ourselves who live in such a different world? We find we are living in very prosperous times. In spite of the global down turn Australia is doing very well. Australians have never been so prosperous. We want to live a good life and we have never had the resources we have now to do that. We have good education. We have one of the best health services in the world in spite of the many media criticisms. And again, in spite of the rest of the world we are very close to full employment. We are in a very good situation.
So it is ironic that with everything going for us, it is still no guarantee of happiness. We may be a rich society but there is still a high level of alcoholism. That is our biggest drug problem. New South Wales has a huge gambling problem and our rate of suicide is going up and not down. Depression is becoming an epidemic in our community. We may be wealthy but that is no guarantee of happiness. We are always being told that wealth will bring us happiness. We are told that most often by those selling gambling products. They are not just selling gambling. They are trying to sell us happiness.
Common sense tells us that wealth won’t guarantee happiness yet we like to believe the myth. This is why the Parable of the Sower is so important. In that parable Jesus talks of the deceitfulness of wealth. Wealth is not bad in itself, but is has its dangers. It can look like the solution to a problem when it isn’t, It can look like it will bring us happiness. But it is no guarantee.
Along with the deceitfulness of wealth Jesus also mentions the desire for other things. This is what Harvey Norman and David Jones trade on. Have you ever wondered why goods are displayed as they are these days? Why is it that the shops are so big? Why is it you can walk amongst the products and touch and feel them. The sellers are trying to break down buyer resistance. They are working on your desire for other things and hopefully you will succumb.
Have you ever dashed into Coles because you needed something. But while you were in the store you picked up a few other things as well. These stores are designed to increase your spending. When I worked in the parish of Mosman, I visited homes that had panoramic views of Sydney Harbour. Now these were good people. Nothing wrong with them. But when I went into those homes it greatly increased my desire to have what they had.
But as we come to this parable of the rich fool notice where Jesus begins. He says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” There used to be a bumper sticker that read, “He who dies with the most toys – wins.” and that is just plain wrong. A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
This may be why there are organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Being the richest man in the world was just not enough for Bill. He needed something more than his acquisition of wealth. Their motto is “All lives have equal value.” But behind that is the idea that real value is found in people’s lives and not in things and the accumulation of possessions.
But the parable begins simply enough. There was a rich man. And not surprisingly for Jesus day, this rich man was a landowner. That was the usual path to riches. But this rich man is special. The land this rich man owns is particularly fertile. It consistently produces good crops. So we are told he is rich and that the supply of his wealth will go on and on. So we come to the crucial question. The man asks himself what should he do? What are his options?
To begin with he should have considered his duty towards God and his duty to his neighbour. But those two obligations apparently are not even on his agenda. There is only one thing he can think of and that is to build larger storage barns for his wealth and then to console himself with his wealth “Eat, drink and be merry.”
But wealth is no guarantee for tomorrow. All we have is today and today is the day of opportunity. We never know what tomorrow brings. Now we are in a unique position. We have resources the ancient world never knew. We have a certain amount of wealth and there is noting wrong with showing wisdom in our stewardship of those resources. We also live in a very expensive world and it won’t get any cheaper. No doubt what wealth we have we earned honestly.
So there is nothing wrong with wise stewardship of our resources. Rather, the question is, what will we do with our wealth, and what consideration to we make for God and for our neighbour. Jesus warns us that all we have is today. There is no guarantees for tomorrow. With what we have how will we find contentment. I’ve always been impressed with Paul’s words in Philippians 4:11-13 where he writes,
for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Paul had seen all sides of life yet whatever his circumstances he had learnt the secret of contentment.
The other obvious comparison we could make is with Jesus himself. Being in the very nature, God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. Jesus as the Son of God had everything. But he chose the path of service, an option that was never considered by the rich man. Ultimately, the rich man never understood the value of true riches. He was never rich towards God.
Consistently in Jesus teaching we see the real danger of wealth is its ability to blind us to the path to true riches, true happiness and true meaning in life. It takes great wisdom to understand the irony, that the one who wants to be great must become the servant of all, in fact, to re-enact what Jesus has done. True discipleship is the path of serving one another. And in serving one another we become rich towards God.