Sermon Tone Analysis

Many years ago a major American company had trouble keeping employees working in their assembly plant in Panama.

The workers lived in a generally agrarian, barter economy, but the company paid them in cash.

Since the average employee had more cash after a week’s work than they ever had ever seen, they would periodically quit working, satisfied with what they had made.

What was the solution?

Company executives gave all their employees the equivalent of an Argos catalogue.

No one quit then, because they all wanted the previously undreamed-of things they saw in that book.

What possessed this man, in the crowd, to ask Jesus to tell his brother to share the wealth?

It must have been central to his heart and mind.

Jesus’ response was hardly surprising.

But what He said next was.

Watch out!

Be very careful!

Danger!

Be warned!

What about?

All kinds of greed.

You, Jesus said, have to sort out your covetous hearts.

You, being the plural ‘you’ meaning both his brother and him.

One is holding onto the money and the other covets it.

Oh how easy it is to fall into this trap.

Greed.

One of the so-called deadly sins.

After all “we are in a material, material world!

And I am material man!”

But ever since time memorial money has been the centre of lives.

Not surprising for Jesus says that the pagan world that runs after these things.

It is interesting that Jesus says that we are to warned about all kinds of greed.

What can be meant by this?

Is there not only one kind of greed?

Well, it turns out that there is more than that.

1.There is the desire to gain great possessions through our own work.

2.Then there is the desire to gain great possessions off the backs of others whether by stealing or by inheritance or by the thoroughly modern idea: our rights.

Gone are the days when one must work to earn a living.

We have the right to benefits.

We have a right to a pension.

We have a right to free healthcare.

We have a right to have what other people have.

We have a right to rebel, to strike, to protest.

We have a right to free education.

We have a right to not pay taxes.

We have a right to a comfortable life.

We have the right to stay in our homes provided by the council.

We have the right to live in peace.

We have the right to human rights.

We have a right to have a TV in jail.

We have the right to privacy.

We have the right to not do national service.

We have the right to drugs.

We have the right to do whatever we want.

We have the right to…and there are many a blank to fill in here...

I fear for our future where the rights of people to have is revealing just how selfish we are and also just how privileged we have all become.

Paul said that if you do not work you do not eat.

Sounds like a very a good statement to me.

Yes, we should look after those who are sick, those who are fatherless and those who are, for whatever reason, destitute.

We have moved on so far from how things were in the past where there was no expectation of government to give and give where the main job of government was to keep the peace and enforce the law, charities and churches were to do the rest.

This is actually biblical.

However, we are grateful when government does fulfil social obligations but the rest, my friends, is greed.

I am no apologist for any political party, let me be clear, but my point is to show that those things which we take for granted have their basis in greed.

So much so that if, God forbid, anything should happen to our rights in any of these areas we take to the streets.

We have to be aware of all kinds of greed.

When there were riots in Croydon and people were stealing from Curry’s and other retail outlets, those who were doing such things said that they have the right to have the things other people have.

Our rights trump what is right and what is wrong.

Today the movement of rights will take away the rightful rights of law-abiding citizens especially Christians.

The movement for rights is about greed.

The movement for the LGBT+ movement is about greed for power, not only to be accepted in society but to force society to say that what they do is good; to give them approval.

It is shocking just how fast this movement is spreading across the western nations.

Even nations like Serbia where most people oppose Pride marches where homosexuality is loathed it is being enforced as a right to be as sexually deviant as one can be, to enforce their acceptance into society in direct opposition to God.

All debate is shut down yet we have the right to believe what we believe in law and even under the UN charter.

Greed.

In this case not for possessions but greed to have acceptance that should only be given to those who do good.

And indeed in our story today it seems mild by comparison.

A man gets wealthy through his work, wants to build bigger barns, take it easy, enjoy life.

Who cannot understand such a sentiment?

Well, actually, most of us want this.

We work hard all of life to have an easier retirement.

Of course, for someone like me I have to wait until I am 68 now!

And the goalposts might just move again before then.

But there was a problem with the harvest.

Not how you think.

No, the harvest was plentiful.

It was just that he wasn’t going to enjoy it.

The focus of this man was totally upon this life and had no sense of the next.

His focus was totally upon himself with no thought of God.

Life is short and we don’t know when it will end.

Things happen.

No one wakes up and thinks that today is the day.

Today I will have a car accident that will kill me.

Yet everyday this happens.

Today 151,600 people will breathe their last which means that already today over 72,000 people have died.

One day we will make up that number.

In poorer nations there could be a natural disaster or disease like malaria or lack of food or water.

Here we die of rich-peoples’ diseases whether heart attacks, liver failure, diabetes, and cancer.

The man in this story had no idea this was going to be it.

But it was his last.

Who will get what he stored up for himself?

That’s the point that Jesus was making to this man who wanted the inheritance shared by his brother.

But, what of those things we leave behind?

Those things we consider precious.

Those things that we cannot do without.

Just how willing are we to get rid of our reliance upon possessions and money in the bank?