Here's the text of my homily for this weekend. It will be helpful for you to read the gospel passage on which I preached: Luke 12:13-21. (You can find the audio version on the side bar or here.)
“I shall tear down my barns and build bigger barns.”
Well, as we just heard, that didn't turn out too well for the rich man in the gospel story.
Some of us may actually own a barn, but most of us probably don't. But we don't need a barn to understand this scripture. Actually, we need something much bigger. We need a much larger context. We need some understanding of the age-old question, “what is the origin of the universe? “That's what we have to start today.
Whether you subscribe to the Big Bang theory, and or some form of the argument from intelligent design, or if you take literally the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis - one thing I think we can all agree on is this: neither you nor I or anyone else brought the universe into being. And given why we're all here this afternoon, I'm going to take the chance that we would also agree that God is the origin of the universe, is at the center of the universe: that God is the origin of all that is, all that was and all that will ever be. And if God is that, then there follows from that, a certain order of things, a certain order of being, a certain order of reality, by which all other things and beings and realities are to be measured and ordered. (Trust me, we'll get back to barns in a minute.)
It's this order of things in life that Jesus is calling us to examine in this gospel with this parable, because he knows that sometimes (even often) we get this order of things mixed up: backwards, upside down, inside out. That certainly happens any time, or better yet, every time I begin to think that: my concerns are the center of the universe; that my needs, that the people I love, that getting what I want, that getting my own way - that these are the most important things in the world.
See, here's the hard truth in the heart of today's gospel: Nothing in my life is more important than God in my life. Nothing I have, nothing I want, nothing I need, nothing I fantasize or desire, is more important than having God at the center of my life. And here's a tough one: no one I love is more important than God. No love in my life is more important than God's love for me and my love for God. Nothing and no one is more important than God.
Now, included in my love for God and in God's love for me, included are many things and persons and realities - the most important of which are the people God calls me to love and care for and the people through whom I draw closer to God. But in all of this, God comes first. Everything and everyone else is in second place.
It's when we get this order backwards or mixed up or upside down. It's then that we begin to want more things, and to work for more things, to collect more things, to cherish more things - and to begin to put things before people, and things and people before God.
Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong in wanting or working for or having things. We need things. Without some things, we wouldn't live. But when things become more important than people, more important than God; when working to get more things begins to shape and control our schedules, our choices, our decisions, our affections; when things become the object of our love and desire; when getting more things for those we love starts to become how we love those we love; when all things, all the things we have, seem never to be enough; when the things we own begin to own us; when things or people become the center of our lives of our universe; when we have so many things that we haven't got room to keep and store all the stuff we have; when a desire for more things begins to crowd out our desire for others and for God -- that's when we begin to draw up plans to build bigger barns to store up all the things we have… So that we can rest easy and eat and drink and be merry.
For many of us, for most of us, the house we live in is our barn. It's where we store up everything we have. And our bank accounts and our stock portfolios are a “barn” where we store up all we have -- which is often more than we need. And that's the question for today. “Do I have more than I need?” The bottom line, the real question Jesus poses here is not “How many things do you have,” but rather, “Do you have more than you need?” and, as I collect and store up all the things I have, “Am I making room for the things of God?”
Remember the words in the gospel just now? What if tonight you should lose your life? What good that would be all the things you have stored up? So it will be for all who store up treasure, for themselves, but are not rich in what matters to God. These are incredibly important words. Jesus is saying, "Don't be a fool - storing up stuff for yourselves, only to be found poor and wanting in what matters to God.” When we store up stuff for ourselves, more stuff than we ourselves need, we are doing that in a world where millions and millions of people have so much less than what they need - to survive. And stirring up more things than we need, almost inevitably leads to our having a deficit, to our being poor, in precisely those realities that matter to God.
Just his past week, I came across some words from Scott Galloway. I'd never heard of him before. He's a college professor, an entrepreneur, a multi-millionaire, and a philanthropist. He writes not as a preacher, but as a financier. And here's what he wrote. “Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get no incremental happiness.” Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get no incremental happiness. Or in the terms we're using here, “Once you have what you truly need, having more will not make you happier.”
Galloway also wrote (and this is astounding
here): "The whole point of prosperity is that you can protect other
people.” The whole point of prosperity is that you can protect other people.
Or in our terms,
Don't store up riches for yourselves, but rather grow rich in what matters to
God, sharing what you have with those who have not.”
In the gospel today, Jesus is calling us to take an inventory of all the things, all the stuff we have; to do an audit of our resources; to make an accounting of the balance between my accumulating the stuff of wealth and my desire to grow rich what matters to God.
“The things that matter to God…” What are they? Well, I don't know what they will be for you. I have some idea of what they are for me.
We often don't, we often can't discover what they are unless and until we begin to let go those things we truly don't need.
If the Lord calls me home to him tonight, he'll look to see what treasures I've brought with me to the pearly gates. I won't have a barn or a basement or an attic to rummage through to show God what I'm bringing. I won't have a suitcase or a knapsack or a bank account or a wallet to open up and show him what I've accumulated. I will have only the soul God gave me when my life began. And when he searches my heart, he will find out precisely what I have truly treasured. He will know who and what have been the center of my universe.
In a few moments at the Lord's Table, we will be fed with food for the soul: the treasure of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. May the Sacrament we celebrate and receive here give us the courage to take that “inventory” of the barns in our hearts - and give us the wisdom we need to let go, and to let God be nothing less than the origin of all that we are, all that we have: to let God be the center and the heart of our universe.
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