Emptied Out to be Filled Up - Luke 12: 13-21

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson from Luke 12.

Jesus said, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

I suspect that for many of us, hearing this parable and then thinking about our clothes and our cars, our garages and our purses, our investments and our retirement accounts, we are in an uncomfortable place. After all, we could see ourselves in the rich farmer’s position without too much trouble. He has a windfall crop and seeing that his barns aren’t big enough, he builds newer, bigger barns so he is able to enjoy life and not work so hard the rest of his life. This is the American dream; it seems this man is practicing worldly wisdom. Don’t over-read the parable. He’s not stealing from anyone – it came out of his fields. Likewise, there’s no reason to assume that he is selfish or that he didn’t follow the law and leave edge-rows for widows and the poor to harvest.

Let me say this: possessions in and of themselves are not intrinsically wicked. In fact, they are gifts God gives to us for the wellbeing of ourselves, our family, and our neighbors. Likewise, it is not a sin to be wealthy or to have nice things, be it technology, or a house, or family, or anything else. The problem is that possessions are fundamentally dangerous because it is so terrifyingly easy for them to become the all-encompassing thing we desire.

I heard a drug addict say the reason heroin is so addictive and deadly is that a little is too much but too much is never enough. The same is true of acquiring possessions. For many people, making a purchase releases a chemical in the brain not all that unlike a drug. It feels good, and we want to duplicate it again. That’s a scientific explanation. As Christians, we know another answer: the sin of covetousness which leads to excess. How many of us don’t have closets so full of clothes that we can hardly fit another thing in amongst all the others? How many pair of shoes are on the floor? How many toys are in the toy box? How many hammers, screwdrivers, and wrenches are scattered among the various toolboxes in the shop? How many [ahem] books line the wall of a pastor’s study?  

I said the sin of coveting leads to excess. To covet is to desire something that’s not yours to the point of being consumed to acquire it. Coveting moves from “I would like a truck,” to “I want a truck,” to “I want his truck.” The danger of coveting is a duality of idolatry. The things we covet become gods in and of themselves; and second, we make ourselves out to be equal with God as if we know better what it is that we need. I want that thing and since God hasn’t given me what I want, I’ll figure out a way to get it myself. It’s a failure of faith and trust: since He’s not providing it, we seek to acquire it ourselves and, not believing He will provide tomorrow’s daily bread tomorrow, we stockpile in fear. 

I suggest that it is more difficult than ever to avoid coveting – especially in the 21^st century North American milieu. After all, our culture and society literally have a whole industry whose job is nothing more than to fill us with a burning desire to acquire ever more stuff. Wherever you turn, from the living room to the highway and all points between, you are bombarded by advertisements to buy, buy, buy. And, buy we do – quickly accelerating from true need to want to desire to greed. And, then if someone else has what I don’t have, or if I can get it before someone else does, or even if I have eight of the same thing already but need - nay, want - number nine, then coveting ensues. It’s no wonder that self-storage units are one of the fastest growing small businesses in our country.

Jesus asks the question: of what does your life consist? The teaching was inspired because someone asked Jesus to intervene and make a brother split the family inheritance. It seems he is more worried about getting what is his than anything else. He is not seeking the Kingdom of God and the gifts Jesus delivers in life, salvation, and the Spirit of God, gifts that last into eternity, but rather he is seeking gifts that last but only a lifetime. That, then, becomes the motive of the foolish farmer: planning for a lifetime.

Jesus tells the parable so the man would see himself as the rich farmer. In the parable, we hear the conversation that the farmer has with himself as he makes his plans. “I will tear 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.”’

There’s a bit of wordplay here. Our translation speaks of his soul. We think of soul as part of us, usually in the context of dying – our soul is at rest with Jesus. A better way to understand this is “life,” as in what is at the center of a person’s being, what drives him, what fills heart. Listen again, replacing soul with life: “I will say to my life, ‘Life, you have ample goods laid up for many years…” That helps clarify the issue. The problem is man always has a very narrow and nearsighted view of what “life” means. This man sees life as nothing more than eating, drinking and being merry. Again, nothing wrong with eating, drinking, or celebrating – all in moderation, of course – but when that’s all that life is, then life is very hollow. The rich man is quoting the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “Eat, drink, and be merry,” and he wants to use that for his life’s philosophy.

Sadly, he forgot the Preacher’s warning: Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. In the parable, God subpoenas the farmer for judgement. Because his heart was only filled with his own, selfish desires for a lifetime, his lifetime is cut short without any life to come that has been won by Christ. Lifeless and Saviorless, the rich fool dies into eternity.

When I began, I said that this parable makes us uncomfortable. Let me ask you: of what does your life consist? Are our hearts, our minds, our eyes, our very lives centered in the coming of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus, or do they wander elsewhere, distracted by the world in which we live? Examine your heart, your mind, your eyes, your lives. Where are your desires? Wherein does your trust lie? We quickly realize that there are many things that get in the way of our life being centered in Jesus Christ. Our Old Adam is quick to follow the world’s temptations, and our hearts, our minds, and our lives are led astray from the cross of Jesus to the covetousness of the world in which we live. If the parable makes you uncomfortable, it’s because you see yourselves in it. While we may try to justify ourselves, our actions, our covetousness – everyone else is doing it! He who isn’t first is last! Gotta look out for number one! Who else is going to care for my family! – but we cannot justify ourselves against God.

God demanded the life of the rich fool because of his sins of coveting and idolatry. Sin requires death. Idolatry and coveting requires death. Our culture says these are no big deal, but sins against man and sins against God are big. They are life-demanding. God demands the life of those who sin against him. So Jesus stood in our place. In His poverty, He stood for our sins about possessions. In His humility, He surrendered for our arrogant pretending to be God, as if we know better. In His death, even His garments were stripped from Him so that He hung, naked, from the cross in shame. It was as if the Father’s voice thundered against, “Tonight, your very life is demanded of you, Jesus, in place of the sins of the world.”  In His death, His vicarious atonement paid the death-penalty that our sins deserve.   

“Tonight, your life is demanded of you.” Your life is no longer yours, either. You died in Christ. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4) You are baptized in Christ. Christ is the center. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ the center of your work, your play, your worship, your wealth, your possessions.

This changes your perspective. You live a new life as a child of God. Land, house, wealth, barns and silos, grain, profits and portfolios, everything is God’s, not yours. They are all on loan from God. They are yours, only in that you are stewards, caretakers, of God’s gifts. That includes your very life.  You’ve been purchased with a price, the life of Jesus, His blood, His death. He became poor that you might be rich in eternal riches. You are God’s treasured possession, enabling you to hold your treasured possessions with the dead hand of faith – offering, sharing, giving.

Repentance implies change, a turning away from sin and towards Christ. If you want to love Jesus more while loving your possessions less, give away more of your money – not all of it, but more of it. And I don’t necessarily mean to St. Paul’s or the building fund or the school or whatever your favorite project here might be. Give elsewhere to those who have so little: Habitat for Humanity, Enid Street Outreach, the Food Bank, Enid Mobile Meals, Lutheran World Relief, Orphan Grain Train. Literally, the list is endless. Then, cull from your closet and garage and storage locker – and I don’t mean just the stuff that went out of fashion during the first Bush and Clinton years. There is plenty there you don’t need, let alone use. Give it away, no strings attached, so that the strings can’t pull back at you. As your hands let go of the stuff, you’ll be amazed how much more room there is for Jesus and His cross.  

Then, filled with Jesus, centered in Jesus, living in Jesus, eat, drink and rejoice, for in Him, nothing is vanity.