October 16, 2011
Luke 12:15-25
Last week I told you today’s sermon was going to be about worry. As I began preparing the message and dug more into the text, the topic shifted from worry to greed. Yet, greed is a cause of worry, so the two go together. Or maybe my topic is really idolatry; after all we do worry a lot when we place our trust in idols that can’t satisfy. Of maybe it’s about living in the now… You’ll have to decide!
In addition to the man in parable that Jesus told, which we’ll look at in just a minute, I am going to talk today about two other men. One of these men, Steve Jobs, who died a little over a week ago, influenced most of our lives and the other man, Uncle Frank, influenced my life. I’m sure we all had such people in our lives.
Steve Jobs is well known as the founder of Apple Computers, and even those of us who are more wedded to PCs than to Macs may use Apple’s iPods, iPads or iPhones. When he died, people started posting tributes to him all across the internet. Many of these posts recalled his 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford University. Jobs, who only spent a semester in college, addressed one of the most prestigious institutions in America. And one of the things he talked about was death…
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. [1].
There’s a lot about Jobs we don’t know. He protected his private life. Was he religious? I read somewhere that as a young man he explored Buddhism, but so has a lot of us. Did he have a relationship with Jesus Christ? I don’t know nor is it up to me to speculate. However, his words here are full of wisdom and almost sound like something Jesus could have said.
Today, we’re exploring the Parable of the Rich Fool. Interestingly, this story was told right after someone asked Jesus to intervene in a family dispute over ones inheritance. Jesus refused to get involved, and then told this story. Let’s listen now to the Master as I read from the twelfth chapter of Luke, starting with verse fifteen. (Read Luke 12:15-25.
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Whenever I think about a farmer, I envision Uncle Frank. It’s been about a year since he died and I’ve talked about him before in this pulpit. Frank raised tobacco and was good at it. He expanded the number of fields and barns and worked hard during the summer to raise and cure the golden leaf. As he got older and the tobacco market went south, Frank leased out most of his land and retired. Well, kind-of retired. He’d farmed the same land all his life. He grew up on that land and there must have been something in the dirt that was addictive as Frank was not able to let it go.
In his retirement, Frank started raising strawberries. Then he added sweet corn and peas and beans and tomatoes and watermelons and other crops. There were two old barns he used the cure tobacco, out near the highway. He converted them to a produce stand, air conditioning the barns where he stored that which he grew. It was a homey setting, the barns and the tin roof shed between them where produce was displayed. The whole operation was under the shade of pecan trees. If I remember correctly, there were a few rockers sitting around where people could cool off and enjoy a Coca-Cola on hot summer afternoons.
I don’t think anything brought Frank more happiness than the knowledge someone was enjoying the fruits of his labor. The juice from a watermelon or that from a red tomato, cut thick and stuck in between two slices of bread slathered with mayonnaise, running down the chin of a kid made it all worthwhile. The knowledge that some people drove 20 miles out of their way just to purchase some of his sweet corn was satisfying. It seems appropriate that the last time I saw Frank, during Spring Break 2010 when we were visiting kinfolk in North Carolina, he was on top of a John Deere, planting peas.
Frank was not at all like the guy in the story Jesus told. Although I’m sure Frank struggled with greed, as we all do, he was a bighearted man. I believe it was his love for the land and the happiness his produce brought to his costumers and not the money it put into his bank account that kept Frank farming well into his eighth decade. Furthermore, Frank generously supported his church and was known to help out neighbors in need.
We’re not told much about the farmer in our story today. He was successful and blessed with fertile land and good crops. That’s good. We’re to enjoy the gifts from God’s creation! He built barns to store up his excess and that’s not necessarily bad, either. After all, if Joseph hadn’t built barns and silos in Egypt during their seven years of plenty, they’d all starved during their seven years of drought.[2] So what’s the problem here… Why did God call this man a fool?
I have a feeling this man is incredibly lonely. Interestingly, in the parable, he only talks to himself. “I’m going to do this and that,” he says, but he’s the only one around. He takes credit for all that he’s done, forgetting that others may be partly responsible for his blessings. There were the day laborers who prepared the fields, who chopped the weeds, and who helped harvest the crop, all for the chance of having a full belly at the end of the day. I’m sure they received their portion, but the man doesn’t acknowledge he’s dependent on the sweat from their brows... Next, there were the carpenters who sawed the wood and lifted up the beams and built his barns. We can assume they too were paid, but certainly their contributions are overlooked by the man in the story. And then there is the one who sends the rain and the sun and who gives the harvest. [3] The source of his blessings is also ignored, at least until the end of the parable when the man is confronted by the God of Creation and then it’s too late.
Yet, we’re also not told that the man’s death is punishment. I don’t think it was. It seems to have just been his time. Death is something we will all confront. Steve Jobs in that commencement address at Stanford acknowledged this:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent.
The knowledge of our humanity, our mortality, should help us focus on that which is important. But too often, perhaps because we have tried hard to erase death from our minds, we ignore it. The man is not called a fool because he was rich and didn’t share of his blessings, for we don’t know that. For all we know, he may have been very generous. Nor was he called a fool for hoarding the bounty of his fields. After all, if someone doesn’t store up food, we’d all starve during a year or drought or floods, and this was especially at a time when buying produce on the world market wasn’t an option. Instead, the man was called a fool because he was living, not for today, but for tomorrow. Instead of enjoying today, he was making plans to enjoy tomorrow. As we all know, but may not want to admit, tomorrow may not be. This farmer worried about how he could store up his crop so that he could kick back and relax or party-hardy (depending on his mood) sometime in the future. He thought he had everything under control, but he over-reached. He’s still mortal and life is still a gift for the Almighty, not something that he (or we) can control. Yes, we can and should take care of ourselves, but we can’t bank on tomorrow’s sunrise.
I should reiterate again that there is nothing in this passage that suggests this man was immoral or he had prospered from unjust actions or had been dishonest with others which allowed him to gain wealth. That’s not the problem Jesus is addressing here. Instead, his problem is where he places his trust. His full barns have become his god, that’s where he’s placed his trust. He’s an idolater. His idol isn’t some stone carving, but a barn and a collection of silos. Looking at them, all filled with the bounty of his fields, he thinks his future is secure. Furthermore, I do think this story illustrates how the love of stuff not only destroys our relationship with God, but also with others as this farmer, at least in the story, has only himself with whom to talk.
Jesus moves from this story to encouraging us not to worry about tomorrow. Elsewhere, Jesus says they’ll be enough troubles tomorrow to worry over, take care of your troubles today.[4] “One day at a time,” is a motto our AA friends live by, and it’s a good one. Worrying, as Jesus reminds us, “will not add a single hour to the span of your life.”[5]
Steve Jobs ended that commencement address by recalling the 70s phenomenon known as The Whole Earth Catalog. There was a country road on the back of last issue, above which were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Jobs noted that it was their farewell message and one he has wished for himself and for the graduates. I don’t know about the foolish part, especially in light of our text today, but I like that advice, “Stay Hungry.” If we are a little hungry, we’ll work harder and we’ll acknowledge our dependence upon others and especially upon God. If our bellies are always full, we can mistakenly believe all is well and we need no one.
These are trying times in which we live. We can live by fear and be anxious and strive to assure our future by hoarding and isolating ourselves. But we can’t stop the inevitable. Sooner or later, we’ll be gone. At such a time will we be known for what we did with the blessings God entrusted to us? Or will we be known by what we left behind, unused. I encourage you to look at your lives from the perspective of your faith in an Almighty God. Do we trust that God will be with us in the future? If so, do we live like it? Do we embrace the possibility each day holds? Do we give freely and generously? Do we seek out the fellowship of others? Are we willing to take a risk, to be a little foolish, not like the farmer who thought he had it made, but foolish by worldly standards which means trusting in God whom we believe wants something more and better from and for us?[6]
Examine yourself. It’s not yet too late to change. It’s not too late to start enjoying the life God’s given you. It’s not too late to make things right with God or with a friend or family member. It’s not too late, but at some point in the future it will be. Life is too short to be greedy. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Hungry and foolish for God… Amen.
©2011 Jeff Garrison and First Presbyterian Church, Hastings, MI
