Delivered at Northside United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on July 31, 2022
I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.
What We Leave Behind
Audio Version
Click here to watch the entire service on YouTube.
Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be
on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do,
for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid
up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who
store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
Luke 12:13-21 (NRSV)
Luke 12:13-21 (NRSV)
When it's all said and done
No one remembers
How far we have run
The only thing that matters
Is how we have loved
From “Blink” by Revive
No one remembers
How far we have run
The only thing that matters
Is how we have loved
From “Blink” by Revive
In the mid 1990s, singer Alanis Morissette recorded a song titled “Ironic,” in which she describes a number of disastrous reversals of fortune. In the first verse, a man who has just turned ninety-eight years of age wins the lottery... and then dies the very next day. In the second verse, a man who has always been afraid to fly finally works up the courage to board a plane to take a trip he has always wanted to take... only to die in a plane crash. As the plane falls from the sky, he says to himself, “Well, isn't this nice...” Irony, according to Morissette, is “like rain on your wedding day.” “It's a free ride when you've already paid.” “It's a black fly in your Chardonnay.” “It's a death row pardon two minutes too late.” “It's meeting the man of [her] dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife.”1
This song stirred up a bit of controversy back in its day, not because of the morbid stories contained within it but because of Morissette's use of the word ironic. It has been suggested that the things the singer describes in her song are not truly ironic, making her use of the word an irony in its own right. Irony is, according to one dictionary, “a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what was or might be expected” or “an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations.”2 Some examples of irony would be a burglary at a police station, a fire at a fire station, or a dentist's requiring a root canal.3 A friend of mine once argued that what Morissette describes in her song is not irony but rather what we might call bad luck.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a parable that, in my opinion, would fit in quite nicely alongside the stories of ironically bad luck Alanis Morissette tells in her infamous song.
As we read the Gospels, we can see that different people have different motivations for coming to Jesus. We read a number of stories in which people come to Jesus because they have questions for Him. Some ask Him questions because they are sincerely seeking answers. Others have more underhanded motives, for they ask Him questions with the hopes of either tripping Him up or later using His answers against Him. We read other stories in which people come to Jesus because they are seeking healing for themselves or for loved ones who are suffering. In Jesus' culture it is not uncommon for people to turn to respected rabbis for help in solving their problems,4 so naturally there are stories in the Gospels in which people come to Jesus with their disputes as well.
One day, when a crowd has formed around Jesus, someone in the crowd makes a request of Him. He says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”5 The Jewish Law dictates that two thirds of a man's estate must be bequeathed to the firstborn son, regardless of whether or not he happens to his father's favorite child.6 Such a system of inheritance is sometimes known as primogeniture.7 To people like us whose culture emphasizes things like equity and fairness, the idea that something like sex or order of birth should privilege one child over another might seem unjust, and it probably seemed unjust in Jesus' day to anyone who did not happen to be a firstborn son. We can surmise that the man who asked Jesus to speak to his brother about the family inheritance is a younger brother who either thinks that he has not received his fair share or believes for some reason that he deserves more than he has received.
One might expect Jesus to side with the lesser-privileged son in this matter, considering His concern for the underprivileged, but Jesus apparently wants nothing to do with this dispute. He asks the man, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”8 (I actually find this response ironic, since, as we hear in the Apostles' Creed, Christ will someday return “to judge the quick and the dead.”9) Jesus then turns to the crowd that has gathered around Him and says, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”10 He then tells the crowd a parable which is often called the Parable of the Rich Fool.
God says to the farmer, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”14 In the words of Alanis Morissette, “And isn't it ironic? Don't you think?”15 Jesus warns the crowd, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”16
Before I continue, I want to acknowledge that there is some ambiguity regarding what exactly is meant in the parable when God says to the farmer, “This very night your life is being demanded of you.” It is possible that God is telling him that he is about to die. In the Common English Bible, God simply says, “Fool, tonight you will die.”17 It is also possible that what is demanding the farmer's life is not God but rather the farmer's possessions.18 In other words, God could be saying to the farmer, “You Fool! The things you own are owning you right now.” Though this latter interpretation warrants a sermon of it's own, for the purpose of this sermon, I am making the assumption that God is telling the farmer that he is about to die.
I think that Jesus' Parable of the Rich Fool might be telling us something about the futility of the way we often live our lives. The farmer in the parable makes a plan: he will build barns that are big enough to store his abundant harvest and then take it easy as long as his crops will sustain him. Sadly, he dies before his plan can be fully realized. The parable isn't really clear in regards to how much of his plan he is able to complete before he dies, but it is clear that he does not get a chance to enjoy the easy life he wants to live.
It has been suggested that, “if you want to hear God laugh, tell God your plans.”19 Though I do not especially like the snarky image of God this saying conveys, I do think it makes an important point. Our plans do not always work out as we hope they will. Who among us has not had to cancel plans because of some unforeseen circumstance? The Scottish poet Robert Burns once destroyed a mouse's nest while he was plowing a field. Still holding his plow, he composed a poem as an apology to the mouse.20 He mused,
The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!21
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!21
Perhaps what is most laughable about our making plans is the assumption that life will actually accommodate them. The last few years have been, among other things, a bitter reminder that we are not in control of our lives to the extent that we want to think we are. St. James writes in his letter,
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”22
There is a futility in making plans, because we simply do not know what lies ahead of us and because we are ultimately not in control of our lives. We need to learn how to live our lives in light of these realities.
For me, Jesus' parable calls to mind the book known as Ecclesiastes, which tells the story of a teacher and king, presumably Solomon, who sought meaning amid the meaninglessness of life. First the king sought meaning through wisdom, becoming wiser than anyone who preceded him. He realized that “in much wisdom is much vexation” and that “those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.” The king then sought meaning through pleasure. He said, “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure...” He also sought meaning through his wealth by building houses and planting gardens and vineyards. He realized that, upon his death, everything he worked so hard to accomplish would be passed on to someone who did not work for it and who may or may not use it wisely.23
In Jesus' parable, after telling the farmer that he is about to die, God asks him, “The things you have prepared, whose will they be?” There is a futility in accumulating things, because we cannot take the things we accumulate with us when we die. We will have to leave them all behind. In the words of Job, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there...”24 One pastor I know remarked that he had never seen an armored car at a funeral.
The king who sought meaning in life came to the conclusion that all people, whether they are wise or foolish, happy or sad, rich or poor, will inevitably meet the same fate.25 This, I think, is the bitter reality with which we are confronted in the Parable of the Rich Fool. No matter who we are, someday our lives will be demanded of us. As people who worship a crucified and risen Lord, we cling to the hope that death is not the end of the story. We hold on to the hope that, because Christ conquered death, His resurrection will be the first of many resurrections. Until then, death is a reality all of us must face. All of us will lose people we love in this life, and all of us will inevitably reach the end of our own lives.
If I had been preaching here three years ago, when this parable was previously the Gospel reading assigned by the Lectionary, you might have heard a very different sermon form me. Though I have always been haunted by the reality of death, I have done my damnedest to keep it out of my mind. Over the last couple of years, the reality of death has been slapping me in the face repeatedly. In October of 2020, my father suddenly died of what appeared to be a heart attack. In September of last year, one of my grandmothers died after living with dementia for a number of years. Then, in November, my other grandmother died of complications caused by COVID-19. I suppose that, at this particular moment in my life, it is only natural that this parable would force me to confront my own mortality.
A few weeks ago, when I began thinking about this parable in preparation to preach here today, it began to hit a little too close to home for me. I have been working at my current job for nearly thirteen years. I cannot say that it is my dream job, but I can say that it is a lot better than the job I had previously. That said, I sometimes wonder if I was meant to do something else with my life. In fact, when I accepted the job back in 2009, I had already been contemplating a career change. What keeps me at my current job are my benefits, which include health and dental insurance, and the possibility of retiring with a nice pension. In the last few weeks, it occurred to me that I have no guarantee that I will live until I am able to retire. I am starting to wonder if I am wasting my life by chasing a pension I might not even live to enjoy. Needless to say, I have a lot of things I need to think through at this time.
The Parable of the Rich Fool reminds us that we are ultimately not in control of our lives. It reminds us that we cannot hold on forever to the things we accumulate in this life. It reminds us that our lives will someday come to an end.
So how are we to live our lives in light of these harsh realities?
I wonder if maybe this parable is calling us to consider what we will leave behind when our lives are demanded of us.
In Jesus' parable, the question God asks the farmer is unfortunately left unanswered. We simply do not know who will receive the things he has prepared for himself. Maybe someone else will be able to benefit from the crops he has stored up, or maybe they will be left to rot. Jesus' parables do not always provide us the details we wish we had.
A certain editorial cartoon that has made its way around the Internet depicts an elderly father standing with his son in front of an open storage unit, which is crammed full of things the father has accumulated over his lifetime. The father says, “One day, Son, all of this will be yours.”26 If this son is like most of us, then he is probably not looking forward to inheriting his father's stuff, because he has already accumulated on his own more stuff than he really needs.
The farmer in Jesus' parable leaves behind a barn full of crops, which may or may not go to waste. Many people leave behind garages, basements, and storage units full of junk that, truth be told, their families will not need. Some people leave behind bitterness and broken relationships. Some people leave behind legacies. Some people leave behind stories of how they made a positive impact on the lives of others through their self-sacrificial love. Some people leave behind examples for others to follow. Some people leave the world around them a little better than they found it.
The 1995 film Mr. Holland's Opus tells the story of Glenn Holland, a gig musician who becomes a high school music teacher to make ends meet. What he really wants is to be a composer, but the demands of teaching and the needs of his family leave him very little time to write music. At first, Mr. Holland hates teaching, because he feels that he is not reaching his students, but over time he starts to love it. He learns to meet his students where they are, showing them how the rock and roll they love has roots in the classical music taught per the school curriculum. He learns to give extra time to struggling students and to take an interest in their lives, since struggles within the classroom are often caused by tensions and pressures from the outside. He teaches his students that music is more than notes on a page and that making music is meant to be enjoyed.27
About thirty years after Mr. Holland began teaching, the school cuts out all music and art programs in order to save money, forcing him into an early retirement. A special farewell assembly is held for him, where students he taught over the course of his career gather to honor him. The state governor, who was once a struggling clarinetist in the school orchestra Mr. Holland directed, gives a speech.28 She says,
Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life and on a lot of lives I know. But I have a feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his. And this was going to make him famous, rich, probably both. But Mr. Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure. But he would be wrong, because I think that he's achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life.29
Glenn Holland wanted to leave behind some great music for the world to enjoy, but his magnum opus – his “great work” – is the positive impact he made on his students. I have tried to determine whether or not this film is based on a true story. I have come to the conclusion that the story is indeed true, in the sense that there are many people in this world who believe that they are now better people because of the teachers who selflessly invested in their lives when they were young.
So what could the farmer in Jesus' parable have done differently? How might his story have had a happier ending?
Jesus goes on to encourage His followers not to worry about their basic needs like food and clothing but to instead trust in the God who feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies. He urges His followers not to strive for the things they need but to strive instead for the Kingdom of God, assuring them that their basic needs will be met as well.30 The Kingdom of God is not just Heaven but also anywhere God's will is done “on Earth as it is in Heaven.”31 It is anywhere people follow the Royal Law to love their neighbors as they love themselves.32 The Kingdom of God is what Christ came to Earth to establish.
Before Jesus began His public ministry, His forerunner John the Baptist called people to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” in anticipation of the great change that was coming. When people asked him what they should do specifically, he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”33 The farmer in Jesus' parable could have considered for a moment that maybe he had been blessed by God so that he may be a blessing to others. He could have used his abundance to leave the world around him a little better than he found it. It has been said, “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence”34 – or, we might add, bigger barns. Even if the farmer had sold his crops at the market, he would have driven the overall price of food down, benefiting everyone in the community.35
Jesus says to His followers,
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.36
The things we accomplish and the stuff we accumulate will amount to nothing when our lives are inevitably demanded of us; however, the love we show to others has a way of living on. It lives on because showing love to the people around us can cause them to become more loving to the people around them. It lives on because it is the kind of thing that is treasured by God. Even if our acts of love are forgotten in this world, they will never be forgotten by God.
Thanks be to God.
Notes:
- https://genius.com/Alanis-morissette-ironic-lyrics
- Wikipedia: “Ironic (song)” (section: “Linguistic dispute”)
- https://literarydevices.net/irony/
- William Barclay. The Parables of Jesus. 1990, Westminster John Knox Press. p. 121
- Luke 12:13 (NRSV)
- Deuteronomy 21:15-17
- Wikipedia: “Primogeniture”
- Luke 12:14 (NRSV)
- Wikipedia: “Apostles Creed” (section: “Church of England”)
- Luke 12:15 (NRSV)
- Luke 12:16-17
- J.R.D. Kirk and Sean Gladding. “Slavery and Food, Sex and Money with Sean Gladding.” Homebrewed Christianity's LectioCast, 07/25/2015.
- Luke 12:18-19
- Luke 12:20 (NRSV)
- https://genius.com/Alanis-morissette-ironic-lyrics
- Luke 12:21 (NRSV)
- Luke 12:20 (CEB)
- Michael D. Coogan, et al. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Third Edition. 2001, Oxford University Press, Inc. New Testament pp. 121-122
- A quote like has been attributed to Iyanla Vanzant, Woody Allen, and perhaps others.
- Wikipedia: “To a Mouse”
- ibid.
- James 4:13-15 (NRSV)
- Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:23 (NRSV)
- Job 1:21a (NRSV)
- Ecclesiastes 2:15-16
- https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoon?searchID=BA500208
- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113862/
- ibid.
- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113862/quotes/
- Luke 12:22-31
- Matthew 6:10
- James 2:8
- Luke 3:7-11 (NRSV)
- This quote, which has made its way around the Internet, is of unknown origin.
- Kirk and Gladding
- Luke 12:32-34 (NRSV)
Print
PDF
No comments:
Post a Comment