3 August 2025 Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Hosea 11.1-11    Psalm 107.1-9, 43    Colossians 3.1-11    Luke 12.13-21

We might be tempted to see this parable as reminding us that we never know when our ‘time’ will be up, or that we wish we had spent more time with ‘family’ rather than ‘at work’.  And yes those things are important for us to consider, but I do not think they are the ‘take home messages’ Jesus is trying to give us.  This parable is warning us against greed and an egoistic preoccupation with our own security.  Warning us against becoming so self-absorbed that we don’t give a second thought for anyone else, especially those people we can’t see, or don’t want to see.

Society has taken one piece of today’s passage and created a whole new life for it.  The saying, ‘eat drink and merry, for tomorrow we die’, has taken Jesus’ words and put a whole new meaning on them, and it is a meaning that is almost the opposite of what Jesus was saying in this passage.  The way we use it today gives us permission to ‘do whatever we want’, on the basis that we cannot control our futures.  But Jesus is not using this as an excuse to ‘do whatever we want’, just the opposite.  Jesus is warning people to follow God, seek after God’s kingdom, and not just focus on ‘me’.

Last week Jesus spoke to the crowd about God being a ‘good parent’ and that we should ask God for whatever we need, trusting that, as a good parent, God will give us all we need.  In this passage, Jesus is cautioning those around him against worrying about the wrong things and thinking only of ourselves instead of seeing the ‘bigger picture’  of the community in which we live.  And next week he will amplify that message by showing them that just as the birds of the air and the flowers are well cared for and are not ‘in need’, so too we can trust that God cares for us, and we also will not be ‘in need’.

Generally, in polite society, we don’t like talking about money, especially in church.  We see it as ‘intrusive’ or ‘private’.  Maybe we don’t like talking about it because we see it as something ‘outside’ our worship practices.   But the thing is, Jesus talks about money and possessions more than he speaks about any other subject.  How many of us pray ‘give us today our daily bread’ and actually mean it as it sounds.  Most of us would agree that we have more than enough ‘bread’ and other food in our fridges and pantries to last us through any ‘’emergency’ weather event.  How many of us have wardrobes bursting with clothes we bought ‘on impulse’ and now rarely wear.  Do we consider the cost to our planet’s fragile ecology of our purchases and the wastage those create.  We may ‘assuage’ our consciences by giving some of our unwanted or rarely worn purchases to the local op shop, but that is not really the point, it doesn’t do much to help save the planet, and it will not do much to save my soul either.

In this passage, Jesus is not talking about money, or possessions, or the fairness of the dispute between the brothers, he is talking about greed, and the parable illustrates this very well.  The man in this parable appears totally unconcerned by anything or anyone except himself and his possessions.  And the thing about greed is, it is never satisfied.  No matter how ‘much’ you have, greed always tells us we want more.  No matter how ‘rich’ you are, greed tells you there is more to be made.  The man in this parable has more than enough to last many years, he says as much, but he is only able to think about himself.  I can do this or that, I will put it here or there.  He does not appear to even consider sharing some of his good fortune with others, especially those who have little.   This man is so ‘me’ focused, he is unable to see anyone else in his own story.   

And the thing is, material things may give us a ‘short term’ emotional high, but it doesn’t last.  Things like relationships, community, love, purpose, those things Jesus describes all through the gospels, these will last, and they will also give us emotional highs, and those highs will last for a long time.  We find joy in a good conversation with someone whether it be friend or stranger, we find a sense of purpose when we are able to help another, we have feelings of community when we gather with friends or family, and we can bask in the warmth of a loving relationship.  If we focus only on ‘short term’ highs, we will end up endlessly chasing more and more.  But Jesus tells us that God wants so much more for us than simply ‘stuff’, God wants life and love and mercy and community for us.

Jesus speaks about us being ‘rich toward God’, but do we know what that actually means.  What does a heart, or lifestyle, or bank account ‘rich toward God’ actually look like.   Maybe it means guarding against greed more than obsessing about fairness.  Maybe it means acknowledging that our ‘hard-earned’, ‘self-earned’ wealth comes from God anyway and belongs to God.  Maybe it means making human interconnectedness more important than personal gain or asset management.  Maybe it means talking with God more seriously and more often than we talk with ourselves.

In this parable God confronts the rich landowner with the most chilling words ‘this very night your life is being demanded of you’.  Do we really hear those words.  I have always just seen them as meaning that God is saying ‘we don’t know when our time is up’, but there is a deeper meaning in these words.  Our lives are demanded of us by God every day, and in every way.  The call to take my cross is a daily, hourly, minute by minute call.  And if our lives have been demanded of us, how do we then live.  What do we no longer do, or need, or hold on to, and what do we continue to carry.  Be rich toward God.  Don’t shy away.  Be brave and wrestle with what this invitation means, because the richness we spend on God is the only richness we will keep in the end.