The danger of possessions and wealth

Text: Luke 12:13-21

Like every good preacher, Jesus had a few themes to which he repeatedly returned. I think this was not on account of a lack of original thoughts (which could possibly be a hindrance to us lesser preachers) or a need to hammer home a particular point regardless of the context (which is definitely a shortcoming of some of us lesser preachers) but because the message Jesus came to give us is both absolutely essential to receiving abundant life in God and at the same time is absolutely, mind-blowingly challenging and difficult to accept.

In this chapter of Luke where Jesus is doing a lot of teaching, mostly to his disciples, the theme is one of Jesus’s biggies: the dangers of possessions and wealth. This is neither a new theme nor an unfamiliar one, but it is most definitely troublesome to those of us who are relatively comfortable financially and who have a lot of stuff, those of us who were raised to be responsible and to seek security for ourselves and our families. Jesus raises this theme often, and it seems to me that the more he says things like “you can’t serve God and Mammon” or “sell everything you own and give the money to the poor” the more we would like to spiritualize those sentiments or find loopholes and otherwise explain them away. We imagine, even, that when Jesus says “where your treasure is, your heart will be also” he means that we should treasure our grandchildren whom we love instead of hearing it as the indictment of the lure of greed, wealth, and possessions that it is.

Jesus never speaks without context, though, and his story about the rich fool who has focused his greedy attention on wealth and possessions is presented by Luke in the form of something like a sandwich. The story of the rich fool is the meat in the middle, but let’s look at what is on either side - the bread part if you will: on one side, Jesus reminds us that God sees and loves the little sparrows and that we are of even more value than they, that God has counted all the hairs on our heads (or the hairs we used to have on our heads). On that side of this Biblical sandwich Jesus teaches that God loves us intimately and completely.

And on the other side is the famous admonition not to worry: Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will wear. Consider the ravens who neither sow nor reap and yet God feeds them; consider the lilies of the field who neither toil nor spin yet even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Let striving and worrying go, for God wants to give you so much more than you could ever give yourself.

But in the middle we have the lesson of the rich fool, where Jesus says the hard part out loud. Our stuff won’t save us. Our money, our clothes, our treasures and possessions, our privileges, our good breeding and impeccable manners, our “orthodox” attitudes, our self-reliance and self-sufficiency and self-made success won’t save us. We cannot save ourselves, and our attempts to do so through accumulation just end up making us isolated and fearful because the stuff we accumulate demands all our time and attention and stokes our fears about somehow not having enough, which in turn causes us to be more and more greedy and selfish and disconnects us from community and relationships and even love.

And so you may be saying to yourself, well, I do have wealth. I do have possessions. I do have privileges, all those things. Am I really supposed to just throw all of that away and be poor? Isn’t Jesus just doing his hyperbole thing - he doesn’t really mean that I should be poor does he? 

But remember the “bread” parts from this sandwich. God loves us and the things we think we need are not the things of abundant life. The hard lesson is embedded between these beautiful truths.

Jesus has another theme that he frequently teaches that I think is also instructive here. There are other stories that Jesus tells that make the point that possessions and money in themselves are not the problem. It is what we do with them that matters. We find this in the epistles too - most of us think the letter to Timothy says “money is the root of all evil,” but actually the letter says that it is love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil, for greed is a temptation that leads to ruin.

So if we make money and possessions our idols, we are not being faithful to God; if we just want to accumulate and keep for ourselves as much as we can, we are both selfish toward our fellow beings and will begin to serve our possessions and our wealth, and they will become our gods. But when we use those things for the wellbeing of others, we are being faithful. When we use our privilege, our money, our possessions, our talents, and yes our hard earned success to benefit not only ourselves or our families but our neighbors, we are doing God’s work. Being faithful to God means giving what we have away, not so that we will be destitute, but so that others will benefit. God is generous to us and will give us the things that are really important (which are not fancy cars and other signs of so-called “prosperity”) so we can let go of our grasping and hoarding and learn to be generous in response to God’s generosity. There’s good instruction about that right there in our prayer book: “Do not neglect to do good and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

This is true for us as individual people of God and also as a church community. Sometimes I say to our vestry that we are not in the business of making money and that our work is to give what we have away, and I know that makes a lot of people cringe. But this the life of faith, to give away what we have for the good of others. I have to learn this lesson over and over, but I try to keep remembering what wise mentor once said - that whenever he grows anxious about money, he gets out his checkbook to give some money away, and he has never ended up in the ditch as a result. And I have benefited from this wisdom that has inspired me to do likewise.

That’s why our gardening group is growing vegetables in our pantry garden - so that we can provide 500 pounds of fresh food to our neighbors. That’s why we are asking you to spend some of your discretionary bucks on diapers even though you don’t have babies at your house - so that we can give them to families in need. That’s why we ask you to contribute from your personal income to the Human Needs fund - so that we who have much can send aid to flood victims who have lost everything.

But lest we spiritualize this, let us remember: just giving away our extras is not sacrificial giving.  Giving away resources needs to be part of our central work and mission. We do not have to make ourselves destitute, but we must remember the threat of potential destruction that accumulating wealth and possessions engenders. Sacrificial giving must be intentional and substantial if it is truly to be a faithful, honest sacrifice.

But the abundant life God wants for us depends upon our learning this lesson: One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. And there is joy in learning to use them for the benefit of others, so that in our giving away what we have, we give glory to God who clothes the lilies and feeds the ravens and has counted with love each sparrow’s feather and every curl or wisp, past and present, on our hard hard human heads. 

And that, my friends, is the basis of all our work: to give glory to God who has given us the world.