Friday 23 March 2007

We will end the week with the parable of the Rich Fool in Luke's gospel.

Someone in the crowd said to him, "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." (Luke 12:13-15) 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."

He has no community: No one with whom to go for consultation...no one to pull him out of himself...no one but the image in the mirror...only what he thinks he possesses. He is living in utter poverty and yet, he thinks he is the riches person in the world. No community and left to live the rest of his life (which he thinks will long and luxurious) alone...as alone as someone talking to him/herself. Again, this is a good descriptions of Luther's turned-in-on-self. Remember, this all starts with a person demanding that Jesus help him get his "stuff" from his brother. Stuff over family...stuff over relationship...stuff over vision...stuff over life that is as abundant as the grain and goods he thinks are making him safe and sound. It is very easy to let this happen to all of us. Stuff can pull us and hold us and demand our lives. Yes, the gods of our lives really are those things that we must have to prop up in order to keep them. So grain and goods demand complete attention and we could say, life sacrifice. I once hear a person define a "god" as something to which we bow down and then spend our life trying to support, prop up, and keep alive. This was used to describe the cold war build up of nuclear weapons. Once in the arms race and then claiming to have this great, life-saving power, a nation and its people must give up much in order to sustain the weapon program - even when people go hungry and schools are underfunded...because there is no longer the money to supply those in need, for we have spent it on our gods.

Connection: We all take part in the turned-in-on-self game. In many and various ways...by what we do and what we leave undone. Therefore, everyday we are reminded to bring our baptism into focus to show us a new way to be humans and to consider the great gift of life handed to us by our God who builds us up in community.

Great Light of the World, we too often get lost in the darkness of our wants and our demands. Continue to be that light we need in order to see the life into which you call us. Amen.