Sermon Tone Analysis

[Foolishness Continued: Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger (aka: I Like Big Barns…)]

how much do we really need?

Camping on the river for the pastor’s conference…

we might have more in common with the rich man than we think…

how many of you have ever had so much stuff that you had to have a… garage sale… or you took it to goodwill… or you had so much stuff that you had to get a storage unit… and then maybe another one, or a bigger one… or maybe had so much stuff you didn’t know where to put it in the attic or the garage, or the closets bursting at the door hinges...

turns out…

we might have more in common with this “rich” man than we initially thought.

One of the biggest challenges for us to recognize and then realize is when we are actually “rich” - when we don’t really consider we are, especially if we still fall under the usual American standard of living - which is rich.

because the median US income is between 40 and 60K… and the global average is only about 20k. that means for most of us, we’re earning, we’re managing, we’re sorting through twice as much at the world average.

If you made twice as much as you making right now, wouldn’t you feel rich?

No matter how we might perceive our income, most of us are in fact rich.

Because we’ve all taken stuff to donate far more often than we’ve actually worn it all out beyond repair.

so when Jesus starts talking about rich people, we all tend to think he’s talking to someone else, somewhere else, or among some other group of folks.

but we’re all a lot more rich than we realize… so let’s pray before we dive into another parable today.

--

Jesus is interrupted while talking about spiritual matters, of letting go of the concern of those who might even kill our bodies, of being concerned for the kind of defense we might have… and as He’s teaching about the Holy Spirit, from the crowd is pushed a question: a question about financial issues… it’s the inheritance… it’s what is handed down…

How many of you have ever received an inheritance?

There is a sense of a certain rightful claim to it… yet Jesus warns of it.

Of seeing everything that we should have coming to us, that we are getting our fair shake at things, and calls out the real issue that we are struggle with whether we care to admit to ourselves or not much in the same way we don’t see ourselves as rich… it’s the issue of greed.

here’s the thing: our financial issues are in fact spiritual issues.

Spiritual issues become financial issues and vice versa.

How many relationships have been torn apart simply because of how money was handled?

Yet we can train ourselves up, if we can discipline ourselves financially, there is spiritual work going on too - Jesus gets to that with the verse we all know so well: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Our finances reveal our heart.

Our finances reveal our priorities, our passion, and our purpose.

Our finances, what we are called to steward well, to manage well, reveal our priorities, our passion, and our idea of purpose.

Our finances reveal our priorities in that we see who really comes first.

In the parable, it’s the man himself… and he thinks he’s a self-made man too.

Don’t most of us?

We even talk this way: I earned it, I worked for it, I sacrificed for it, it’s mine to manage as I’d make out.

We see this in verse 16 - he thinks to himself, what shall I do, it’s what I have, it’s what i’ll do, i’ll build, i’ll store, i’ll reflect, and i’ll eat, drink, and be merry.

we like to think that once we have ‘enough’ that we’ll then start to live better lives, even more godly lives.

but what usually happens with money is just amplification.

whatever we think we have, what power, what influence, what gifts we have, they get amplified by our finances.

they reveal what’s really down in our hearts, what we really treasure.

What’s deep down in your heart?

Our finances reveal what we’re passionate about too.

In the parable, the man is passionate about being able to live the good life.

The life he wanted.

to have a life of leisure.

This is a great verse to point out the importance of context, both literary and historical: You don’t see many t-shirts or memes out there quoting Jesus just the last half of Luke 12:19 - Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.

-Jesus.

We’d all say that’s a bad reading of the text.

We’d say someone mis-handled the message and it’s quite obvious to be the case.

How many times are we quick to pull a message from the words of God we’re given, and might be pulling the wrong message?

Because this man in the parable was blessed.

The man did not make the harvest happen.

The ground did.

The ground yielded the abundant harvest.

There’s nothing of the work the rich man ever put in.

He was rich already, and then giving more to see how that amplify who he was, who he served, and where his treasure really was…

Even if he saw this great abundance that he harvested as a thumbs up from God, he missed the message.

He didn’t see it as the overflow it was meant to be - the overflow is not about him, but about the others around him.

(grain as grace)

But the rich man is only doing what we tell ourselves is good financial planning.

He’s just putting his wealth in the bank he’s building for himself.

For us it’s just another number in the account.

We don’t have to build bigger barns, we get bank statements to build our budget and buy what we want.

Our finances reveal what we’re about too.

Whether it’s about trying safeguard or secure our idea of what the future is like… trying to get more, store more, house more, keep more in our… keep.

Where is the treasure in the castle? in the keep.

it’s where we keep what’s most important.

the purpose of the keep is to be the most guarded, protected place.

when all the other walls come down, it’s what’s left.

What’s inside the keep is the purpose for all the other walls we build.

The question then becomes: do your possessions possess you?

Or, instead, are they something you manage, you steward, you guide as you move through life?

Or does all the stuff start to solidify, calcify, and stagnate you from growing or going?

A family was putting up a hummingbird feeder with four feeding stations (similar to one that hangs outside our kitchen window).

Almost immediately it became popular with the hummingbirds that lived in the area.

Two, three, or even four birds would feed at one time.

The feeder would be refilled at least once a day.Suddenly the usage decreased to almost nothing.

The feeder needed filling only about once a week.

The reason for the decreased usage soon became apparent.

A male bird had taken over the feeder as his property.

He was now the only hummingbird who used it.

He would feed and then sit in a nearby tree, rising to attack any bird that approached his feeder.

Guard duty occupied his every waking hour.

He was an effective guard.

The only time another bird got to use the feeder was when the self-appointed owner was momentarily gone to chase away an intruder.That hummingbird was teaching a valuable lesson.

By choosing to assume ownership of the feeder, he forfeited his freedom.

He was no longer free to come and go as he wished.

He was tied to the work of guarding his feeder, his STUFF.

He was possessed by his possessions.

we put our names on stuff to claim it as ‘mine’ but none of it ultimately is.

we take none of it with us, and we’re reminded early on in Psalm 24:1

so how much is really ours? that doesn’t sit well in American culture now does it?

what do we tell one another… build bigger barns, build up your keeps, guard them even more, get bigger locks, better guns, faster dogs, and stronger security systems… because we fear the future.

We know God blessed us… and now we’ve got something… so we suddenly think we have the excuse to not be gracious or generous with the grain God’s given us.

But when we keep building our own towers higher… when we cease to be fruitful and multiply, when we stack all our stuff in one place… what is it that we’re really doing?

we’re building our own tower of babel… because we think we can make our own way to God… and God will scatter it.

When we distrust the future, we become greedy for what we think we have… we hoard… we gather everything we can unto ourselves… and while we think we want more, it really only amounts to more to maintain, more to be stressed about, and we think we need to protect what we’ve ‘earned’, yet it was all gift to begin with.

we keep going to buy newer, bigger houses… but then it’s more work, more to maintain, more to clean, and more to fix when lifespans inevitably reach their limit.

how many times do we buy into the lie that we need more?

How often does getting that next shipment from Amazon actually bring satisfaction or fulfillment?

Or we have bought into the lie that we have to continue on the trend of moving up the ladder of financial success, or a bigger house, or more stuff, or the next model, and yet with Jesus we see a very specific trend going the other way, of downward mobility…

I loved that someone once pointed out to me that when we think about when we were the least stressed, the least fearful of the future, and probably had more joy, more downtime, more restfulness even… it was in those seasons when we had a lot less… like a smaller house, less money in the bank, and all the things we are now responsible for… all that stuff starts to weigh on us.

and the reality of this parable is that when we think we’ve finally got the most, when we think we’ve finally got enough in our minds to make it for a long season ahead, the retirement nest egg is complete, more often than not something we didn’t plan for or anticipate happens…

I love the contrast here too: you might have all the riches around, the rich guy in this parable has the opportunity to be generous, to chose to do so… but instead treats it as if it’s all about him… and once he’s gone, and he hasn’t even enjoyed the riches he’s accumulated.

Ironically, once he’s gone, then he’s generous… then everything he amassed goes to others… then, who will get what you prepared for yourself?

at some point we’re all going to be generous, and it might be to strangers… so why not be generous now?