August 4, 2019

Eighth Sunday After Pentecost
Ecclesiastes 1: 2, 12-14; 2:18-23
Psalm 49:1-12
Colossians 3:1-11
​Luke 12:13-21

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who is all and in all. Amen
 
Who is your God?
 
That’s what Jesus is asking the crowd to consider
 when he tells the parable of the rich fool.
 We sometimes turn this parable
into a morality lesson
about how we can’t take things with us when we die
or a stewardship sermon about giving out of abundance,
 and sure those things are in there,
 
but Jesus’ message goes much deeper than that,
it’s about priorities,
 it’s about who is god in our lives.
 
Luther, in his explanation of the first commandment
(you shall have no other gods) in the Large Catechism
 defines a god in this way:
 “A ‘god’ is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need.” (Kolb and Wengert, 386)
 
In other words A god is who or what we turn to when life gets rough
And by that definition
 the rich man turned to his goods as his god.
 
This rich man is foolish
not because he is rich
or his land produces abundantly,
or because he plans to save for the future
 
 he is a fool because he places his trust about the future of his life
 in the goods he has stored up
rather than God.
 
We overhear his conversation with himself
when considering what to do with the abundance that the land produced
“I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build bigger 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.”
 
 He places his trust for the future in his goods,
 he creates a false idol out of them
 
 and of course as soon as he settles in,
 thinking his future is secure
 due to his own work and possessions
God comes to disabuse him of that notion
“You fool!” God says “This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”
 
and those goods that can’t save him
 are revealed as an idol. 
 
And while this idol is revealed at the end of life,
it has been working harm throughout life.
 
The idol of greed turns us in on ourselves
and away from our neighbors,
in fact if we place our trust in things,
 whether it is money, or possessions,
or even the ability to produce possessions
 we come to see our neighbor as a threat,
 
 because if they have something then we don’t
 and that means they are a threat to our security
 and we come to see life as a zero sum game,
 
 if they have it than I don’t
and I need it because that is where I’ve placed my ultimate trust.
 
And just like that
neighbors become enemies
 
I wrote this before I woke up this morning
 to find two horrific examples
of the results of this kind of idolatry
splayed across the news,
first in El Paso and then in Dayton,
 
people dead
 because someone believed the lie
 that their neighbors were their enemies
so much that they saw them as a threat
and intentionally went to kill them.
 
Who our God is matters.
 
Our God is the source of our life
Creator of the world
Who created the world with enough for all,
So that there is no need to fear the future,
no need to attempt to control it and those around us
 in search for security.
 
Christ who, claimed us in baptism
has declared us God’s once and for all
Christ has secured us.
And that makes a difference in how we live our lives.
 
We heard Paul in our second lesson today
 talking to the Colossians about this:
“So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
 
In Christ God has set us free
 from trying to save ourselves
which allows us to focus on other things like caring for one another.
 Again Paul says you “have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”
 
Christ is all and in all which means those we saw as threats while under the influence of the idol of greed are revealed as neighbor, are revealed as Christ. 
 
And when seen in this way
caring for our neighbors, becomes caring for God.
 
Who is your god?
 
Jesus asks the crowd to consider for themselves,
 knowing that their actions reveal who they trust.
Do they turn inward, serving the idol of greed by serving themselves,
 or do they turn outward toward others,
 toward Christ, who is all and in all.
 
Who is your God?
 
What do the actions of your life reveal?
 
Consider this
and then come to the table,
 where God has provided enough for all,
 where in God’s own body and blood
 God forgives us and renews us,
and then renewed in the image of our creator
 God sends us back out
 to live lives that reveal just who is our God. Amen