More Toward and Away

Luke 12:13-21

Someone 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.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 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 many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘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.”

I would very much like this parable to be about what happens when someone has way too much money.   I would like it even more if this parable was about how God smites the ultra rich for being selfish, greedy, and arrogant.  I would like it the very-most-bestest though, if this parable gave us all God’s blessing to launch the rich into space strapped to the top of their own personal rockets.  BUT… this parable is not about the rich.  Not about the greedy.  Not about the arrogant and not about the selfish.

The lessons today… both the one from Ecclesiastes and the parable from Luke… are here to simply contrast the directions we can choose to live our lives and remind us once again that living our lives in one direction leads to an abundant life filled with peace and joy, while living our lives in the other direction leads to despair and a soul sucking demand on our existence.  

Both lessons certainly use tremendous wealth as the foil.  The teacher in the first lesson is, after all, the King.  The kids who came to Jesus had an inheritance worth arguing about, and the guy in the parable had two, already full-to-the-rafters barns, AND could afford to pull them down to build bigger ones!  All of those are just as clear indications of tremendous wealth back then, as a personal space program is for today.  

But as tempting as it might be to launch the uber-rich into space… and it is!  The real message here is that when we choose to live our lives TOWARD the other… toward our neighbors, toward our community, and toward those who the world labels as least, the lost and the last in society…  When we live TOWARD the other, putting their needs before ours… this lesson and this parable, and honestly a giant chunk of Scripture, all make it clear that when we walk our lives in THAT direction we experience the fullness of life.  In that direction we will find ourselves truly alive.  Along that path is abundant life. 

If, on the other hand we are living our lives obsessed with the person in the mirror, or with our own accomplishments, wealth, power, prestige or image… then we are inevitably also living our lives AWAY from the other… away our neighbors, away from our community, and away from those who the world labels as least and lost and last in society.  When we live AWAY from the other, putting our needs before theirs… this lesson and this parable, and that same giant chunk of the Bible make it clear… that direction leads us into despair and drains the life we’ve been given right out of us.  

It’s the DIRECTION… not the dollars.  The first lesson catches the king in that realization.  It really isn't his money, work, or power that are his problems… It’s his vanity… his privilege… his self indulgent worry that keep him from living in the present and toward his neighbor.  His worry leaves him paralyzed and unable to move toward his neighbor and that leaves him sliding ever deeper into despair.  

Likewise in the parable, it isn’t the bumper crops that are the problem.  Rather it is his backwards notion that life is all about having the biggest barns.  But we see that worship of the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I only moves him farther and father AWAY from his neighbors, and walking this life in THAT direction drains the life from us, until that very night in the parable, the very last of his life is gone.

Real life, of course, is never as cut and dry as a parable or Biblical Wisdom.  Neither the Teacher, Jesus, nor the One who created us is expecting perfection.  Instead, all are trying to help us to live more often abundantly than in despair.  They are pulling for us to get the very most out of the life we've been given.  They are not out to get us!  That's why in Christ there is limitless grace and never ending love for us as we walk step by step through life.  

How do you do that?  Well, I've found there is no one single, universal practice that works for everyone but there are a few things I see people doing right around here that seem to work for more people than they don't.  Gathering here is one.  In person.  With others who are also walking the Way.  Going to coffee hour, believe it or not, and sharing with someone how the week went and asking them genuinely how they are doing.  Taking the flowers from worship to someone on your way home seems to work for those who do that, and anyone can do that.  And the one local practice that I've found that is actually the closest thing to a single-universal-works-for-everyone-practice... Sitting for a day in the tent on the Appalachian Trail.    

There is no best practice.  There's only a best direction.  So whatever you try, take time at the end of the day and honestly reflect and just notice the direction it moved you that day.  Was it toward the other or did it move you away.  Then just let that day go and in the morning try to do more of the TOWARD stuff.  That's it.  That is honestly the entire take home message for these lessons from today, and honestly from a whole giant chuck of Scripture as well.  Amen.