November 4, 2007
“The Folly of More and More”
Rev. Jim Woo
Luke 12:13-21
A
while back. the Associated Press carried a story about a woman who tried to
hold up a bank. Her weapon? She said it was a device that controlled a
bomb in her car parked in front of the bank. Waving a remote control device, the woman
demanded money from three tellers at a branch bank in
One
of the tellers realized that the thing she was holding was not a remote control
for a bomb but rather a garage door opener.
When the other tellers realized what it was, they forced her on the
floor and sat on her until the police arrived.
The police chief was asked what tipped the tellers to realize that the
device was a garage door opener. The
chief said it was when they saw “Sears” on the remote control. The woman was arrested for unarmed robbery.
There’s
a kind of tragic humor here. The story
didn’t reveal why the woman attempted the robbery. Was it out of desperation? Maybe she was a single mother, destitute, and
struggling to care for her family. Maybe
it was to support a drug habit. Or maybe
out of pure greed which might be the saddest of all reasons. We live in a society that places so much
emphasis on materialism. There’s a
downside to our gluttonous appetite for things.
That’s what the story told by Jesus in this afternoon’s (morning’s)
reading from the Bible is all about.
It’s a warning to all of us who put our trust in material things. It’s also a good message with which to begin
our congregation’s stewardship emphasis for 2008.
The
story deals with a wealthy farmer. Jesus
makes a point of telling us that this farmer was both very rich and had lots of
land. This particular farmer did nothing
wrong. He didn’t cheat or steal. His problem was that he had an incredibly
huge harvest and he had no place to store it.
Now, Jesus isn’t condemning wealth at this point. It’s not possessions that are wrong, but our
love of them that’s questionable.
This
farmer’s harvest is so overwhelming that he decides that his only solution is
to tear down his old barns to build newer and bigger ones. It’s at this point that God calls this man a
fool. That’s a very deliberate choice of
words. Whenever we see the word “fool”
in the Bible its meaning is quite clear, although somewhat different from our
use of the word. A fool in the Bible is
a person who believes in God but fails to see the place of God in the ordinary
events of life. Or to put another way, a
fool is a person who believes in God yet lives as though God doesn’t
exist. The problem posed by this parable
is not the man’s wealth, but rather his failure to make a connection between
his good fortune and God’s graciousness or his responsibility to that
graciousness.
In
telling the story, Jesus said, “And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do,
for I have no place to store my crops?’
Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build
larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have
ample goods laid up for may years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” How easy it is for us to carry on a
conversation with ourselves, or worse yet, to take credit for all the blessings
we have. Some of us have great muscle
strain because we work so hard to pat ourselves on the back.
Now,
I know this story. Do you? Sometimes our conversations give us
away. Here’s a student who says, “Well,
after all, I’m number three in the whole class.
I think I’ll take the summer off before going back to college and just
have a good time. Self, you’ve earned
it. Eat, drink, be merry.” Or “Yes, we’re very proud of our two
children. One is in law school and the
other just finished medical school.
Self, we’re A-plus parents, therefore we can eat, drink, and be
merry.” Or “I’ve got a great retirement. I have more than enough income. I’ve redecorated my home and gone on three
cruises this year. I have a new car and
boat, my marriage is solid, and the kids are just great. Self, you’ve done very well, so just kick
back and eat, drink, and be merry.”
It’s
all pretty much a monologue as we congratulate ourselves for our great
accomplishments in our education, our vocation, our home, recreation, health,
and lives. The point of this parable
deals with the question of what are we to do when our harvest is so
bountiful? In other words, how do I
manage my blessings?
You’ll
note the story ends rather abruptly with God saying, “‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded
of you. And the things you have
prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is
with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
This
move from a self-satisfied, contented, self-congratulatory monologue to a dark,
intrusive, realistic address by God is dismal but real. Sooner or later we’re hit with the reality of
God’s involvement in all of life.
Actually, in the Greek it says, “Fool, this very night they shall demand
your life.” The “they” appears to be the
things or possessions. There’s a great
irony in this story of the man who thought he had so many things, only to
discover too late that the things had him.
Now,
what made these parables told by Jesus so powerful is that they engaged the
listener, and this is still true today.
This isn’t just a story about some mythological farmer. It’s a story about you and me. It’s our story about those moments when we’re
the fool because we treat our lives as if they were our own possessions and see
no connection between the gracious Provider and our responsibility to share
what we have with others. The question
is: Are we the fool? Let’s take a look
at three characteristics and see if we are.
First,
a fool is someone who equates possessions with success and security. This isn’t a
story about wealth as much as it is about the misuse of wealth. The real
tragedy of the farmer is that he equated a full barn with a full life. A century ago, Leo Tolstoy published a little
volume called Twenty-Three Tales. It contained a story entitled, “How Much Land
Does a Man Need.” It was a story of a
man who was promised all the land he could walk around from sunrise to sunset
on a given day. He had to leave markers
on the corners and be back at the starting point before the sun set in the sky.
At
sunup, he was off like a leaping gazelle, with long strides and quick step. Finally, though, he staggers across the
starting point as the sun goes down, and then dies in exhaustion. The man had answered the question: How much
land does a person need? Six feet by
four feet by six feet. Jesus’ parable is
a dreadful warning of the “sin of security.”
The farmer was a success at farming, but a failure at living. He confused gathering, keeping, hoarding and
storing as a kind of security.
Second,
a fool is someone who relies too much on himself or herself. Six times in
three verses, the farmer uses the word “I.”
“What should I do?” “I have no
place to store my crops.” “I will do
this.” “I will pull down my barns and
build larger ones . . .” “. . . there I will store all my grain and
my goods . . .” “. . . I will say to my
soul . . .”
Have
you noticed that it’s fairly common these days to see people talking to
themselves? Cell phones not
withstanding, a look in the rear view mirror while waiting for the signal light
to change enables us to see the person sitting behind us carrying on an
animated conversation. We continue to
look in the mirror to see who they’re talking to, but see no one else in the
car. We smile until we realize the
person in front of us had been watching us in their rear view mirror as we were
talking to ourselves.
I’m
sure there are logical reasons why we talk to ourselves. Maybe we’re closer to the edge than we
realize. I can tell you, though, from a
biblical point of view, a person talking to himself or herself is not some kind
of psychological phenomenon. When the
Bible makes reference to people talking to themselves it’s a sign that they’ve
lost contact with God. They’ve become so
wrapped up in themselves that there’s literally no room for anyone else. Like the little rhyme: “I gave myself a party
and invited three—I, myself, and me.”
In
the aftermath of World War II, a husband and wife attended a memorial service
for the son of friends of theirs. The
son had been killed in the line of duty and his family was dedicating a window
in their church to his memory. The
window cost over $50,000. “What a
beautiful thing to do in honor of their son,” the wife said to her
husband. Suddenly she turned to him with
an pale look on her face and said, “What are we going to give?”
“What
are you talking about?” her husband asked.
“We don’t need to give anything.
Our son came back alive and safe.”
“That’s
exactly what I mean,” she said. “Our
friends lost their son and they’re giving $50,000. We got our son back, and we’re not giving
anything.”
The
folly of more and more would be eliminated if we realize that it’s God who
provides the harvest.
Finally,
a fool is someone who is indifferent to God. The psalmist
writes, “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” A fool is not someone who openly denies God. It’s worse than that. A fool is a person who is indifferent to God,
one who lives as if there is no God.
What made the farmer a fool was that he actually thought all his
resources were his to do with as he wished, instead of seeing how he could use
his resources to enhance God’s world.
Early
in the last century a man gave $100,000 to build a college in
Twice
he refused to see respresentatives from the college, but he finally agreed to
receive them. At their insistence, he
was flown to
For
those for whom God is real the answer to the dilemma of a plentiful harvest is
not building bigger and better barns, of acquiring more and more, but rather
seeing that all of life is a gift from God to be shared with others. We remember this stewardship emphasis as we
prepare to receive Holy Communion this afternoon (morning). We remember, especially, that our Lord gave
his life away that we might have life abundantly and eternal. Let us pray:
Our gracious and loving God, make us
conscious of the needs of others and teach us to live within our needs, rather
than within our means. Instill in us
Christ-like habits of the heart that allow us to act generously to the needs of
the world. Just as we love because you
first loved us, so we give because you first gave to us. Let the gifts we share bring hope to the
hopeless, food to the hungry, opportunity to the disenfranchised, homes to the
homeless and enrichment to all we serve as the