This sermon was preached at St. John's, Karoonda (9 am) and Trinity, Tailem Bend (11 am).
I've got two responses when it comes to car trouble. One is fear.
Does the fuel gage read E? Then man I don't know. But the other is
thinking I'm a big shot. Does the fuel gage read E? Are we near a
petrol station? Then let me take out my tool box, aka wallet. But
my wallet isn't that great of a tool, when you think about it. I
just feel safe in using it.
So what a surprise when Jesus hears a request from the crowd:
“Teacher,
tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me”.
Actually that's not a surprise, rabbis often got inheritance
dividing questions. The surprise is in Jesus' response: “Man,
who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”.
There's a surprise. Jesus can see something that the man hasn't
said: “covetousness”. How well he knows that man (and you). He
knows, and tells by a parable, that you have small eyes.
The rich fool did. What gifts does the rich fool ignore? Community
(“I
will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and
there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19
And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up
for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
- talking to himself and using his goods for himself) and his breath
(“This
night your soul is required of you” - if it's
demanded back, then it's a gift). His eyes only saw his big harvest,
and didn't even see it clearly.
The gifts of idols seem safer but they are just small. Now why
would I say that? We're just talking about covetousness, right?
Well it's what Paul says in today's Epistle: “Put
to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality,
impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is
idolatry.”.
It's idolatry because it's relying upon something else more than God
– that we fear, love, and trust in the pursuit of money and
possessions above God.
For Luther, financial idols are the most common and they squeeze out
all gifts (all gifts other than them, and they themselves are no
longer received as gifts). When you have enough, you think all is
right with the world, and you feel you're sitting in Paradise. When
you don't have enough, you're despondent, as if you knew of no God.
That is, when you have money, there is no other gift in all the
world, and it's not a gift – it's your money. And when you don't
have it – it's your only thought and obsession.
But every gift that idols give is a shaky gift – they're gifts
that only go so far. A good harvest is only a good gift so long as
you have it, and as the saying goes – a fool and his money are soon
parted. A fat wallet is only good right up until you're robbed, a
big house only up to when it burns down. A good harvest in big barns
– right up to the point where your very life is demanded back from
you.
Speaking of fools – what about God's Word? Isn't that also a
gift? But you can even interpret Jesus' parable to abuse the good
gift of the Word – by making it about worldly success (here's the
formula for success in farming – put your good harvest into a
savings account not into a bigger barn, or here's the formula for
financial planning to make the most out of your income). This is
twisting Jesus' parable, because when he told it, he told it against
the idolatry of greed. It's a parable, like all the other parables,
leading you to repentance and trust in Christ. To twist God's Word,
that's being a true fool. That's actually how the Bible defines
foolishness.
At the root is using money and possessions out of fear or out of
being a big shot. Money, like every other idol of the heart, is a
small god that can't do much. A small god is something you can hold
on to (out of fear) and be bigger than (like a big shot). The true
God holds you in his hand and provides all you need, not just all you
think you need.
This guy going to Jesus is like you going to a friend and saying,
help me build pull some stones out of my paddocks and put them down
to make a road around my farm, but the friend owns a business that is
called “We build sealed roads completely for free and we also help
clear stones out of paddocks”. The request isn't bad by itself,
but man, don't you know who you're asking? And the answer is, either
out of fear or out of thinking you're a big shot, you don't.
Jesus gives gifts that don't seem safe, but are real, and are very
good.
When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”, we pray that
God gives many real, true, good gifts. He doesn't just give food, or
money, he also gives other people - “a devout husband and wife,
devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers . . .
good friends, faithful neighbors”. The rich fool, in clinging to
his goods with his small eyes, ignored the good gift of a community
of people. And when we think we've covered everything under daily
bread, we still haven't! He gives you your own life. And even
though you exchanged it for a false god, he gave you new life in Holy
Baptism. God the Father gives you Jesus, by having sent him to be
born and die and now live and reign. He gives you the Word. The
Holy Spirit gives you Jesus, by sending you the Word, Baptism,
Absolution, and the Lord's Supper. Community, goods, and eternal
life are a gift that God gives – and only the true God can pull
this off.
Because it's Jesus telling this parable, you have to say the cross
is the highest gift. The cross is the highest gift – and it's even
for you. Even you he died for. His forgiveness is for even you.
The cross is all over this parable, as St. Augustine once preached
when he said
“he asked for half an inheritance on earth; the Lord offered him a
whole inheritance in heaven.
it is no light matter when He says, “Beware.” He knows well how
great the evil is; we know it not, let us believe Him.
And how did God speak with a fool? O, my Brethren, with how many
fools does He speak here, when the Gospel is read! When it is read,
are not they who hear and do not, fools?
For what is more perverse than one who wishes to have
“much goods,” and does not wish to be good himself? Unworthy are
you to have them, who does not wish to be what you do wish to have.
For do you wish to have a bad country house? No indeed, but a good
one. Or a bad husband or wife? No, but a good one. Or a bad hat?
Or even a bad shoe? And why a bad soul only?
And idolatry itself is called covetousness; because again in matter
of divine worship he is covetous, whom the one and true God suffices
not (for whom not even God is good enough).
“O my servant,” He will say to you, “whom I have redeemed and
made free, whom from a servant I have adopted to be a brother, whom I
have set as a member in My Body, give ear to Me: He may take away
what thou hast acquired, Me he shall not take away from thee.”
You don't have anything better than the forgiveness of sins by Jesus
cross, and there is no part of what is taught or what is lived that
doesn't have this truth at it's center. Try thinking of one – the
divine service, your family life, prayer (it's the highest gift in
all of these).
But this gift doesn't seem safe because it seems shakier than
financial idols. To be rich toward God means to believe in his
promises, in salvation. But that doesn't look very safe to the
world. It looks very poor and miserable, as poor and full of
suffering as the Savior who gives new life by his crucifixion and
death. That's a big surprise.
And yet those works of evil and idolatry are what's really shaky and
unsafe, because they don't work out like sin, death, and the devil
want them to, but God bends such evil works to bring good for you out
of them. The rich fool, he didn't mean to share his goods with
anyone. But what does God say: “whose will they be?”. Despite
his works, people were still served by what he was given (it just
didn't do him any good). How often Christians have been put to death
to get rid of the Church, but people, in seeing their death for the
sake of confessing Jesus and his cross, become Christians instead
themselves. Bringing death out of life is also what Jesus does on
the cross for you, and it is a good gift.
In this reading, without even mentioning his cross, Jesus focuses
everything on the cross, because what seems shakier than suffering,
but what is sweeter than hearing in your suffering, “even so, I've
died for you. Even so you are mine. Even so your sins, though many,
are forgiven you by my blood and death.”
But why stop talking about your goods? Your goods aren't treasure
when God's Word is, but they are tools, and tools benefit people.
Christians pass on God's good gifts, and again in surprising ways.
Even my very breath is a gift from God. That, you too may have.
Love isn't pragmatic, doesn't care about what works/what's efficient,
but about what's faithful to God's gifts. This works with the gifts
of daily bread, and when all the gifts of daily bread have been
covered, you're still not done. It works that in seeing Christians
sacrifice even their lives, people see the confession that even your
breath is a gift, as well as the eternal life that is yours through
Christ Jesus our Lord.
Conclusion: I make a foolish mechanic, but no one who has heard the
Word of God need be a fool. Not when Jesus, the giver of every good
gift, has died even for you. Amen.
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