Have you ever been riding in a car and dropped something? Or could you imagine riding in an open train car and playing catch with someone? You and your catch partner are tossing the ball back and forth and there’s another person on there with one of those radar guns. You and your buddy throw the ball at your normal fastball speed of 60 mph. You hear the pop of the ball in the glove and the radar person says, “yup, 60 mph”. But what you didn’t know was that there was a person standing by the track with a radar gun. You get to talk to them and they tell quite a different story. “There I was. I was standing by the track and I see a train coming toward me at 60 mph. I notice two people with a ball and one threw the ball at 120mph and the other guy caught it! But then it got weirder. The other guy acted like he was throwing the ball, but he seemed to just let it go and it floated in mid air until the other guy slammed into it. This game of catch and what was happening in it depended on where you were watching from. You could say that the ball’s speed or more accurately, its velocity was relative to where you were watching it. There you go. That’s Einstein’s theory of relativity in a nutshell. That’s the simple version, and its tenets affect so many things in physics and our lives. As I was reading along in a commentary on today’s gospel, the author referred to relative wealth. No he wasn’t referring to the bundle you’re hoping your millionaire great aunt might leave you, but it triggered the memory of this train baseball thought experiment in my head. Wealth or money or our gifts are a lot like the baseball. From the inside we see things the way they “really” are. We get what we work for. We earn our money or receive inheritances and it’s ours and we use it to buy the things that make us happy. We use it to buy the things that make us secure or safe or set up a for us system where we will have no worries. Wealth is relative because it may seem to be doing one thing from a particular viewpoint but is doing something quite different from another viewpoint. The Barn Guy from today’s Gospel is playing catch with the wealth ball. Luther’s understanding of the two kingdoms can really help us out here with this relativity problem. Luther understood there to be two kingdoms: the kingdom of the left and of the right or the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. If we’re viewing the barn guy from on board the train or that is from the perspective of this world or his vantage point, he’s got it all right. Things couldn’t be going any better. He seems to have his priorities in line: hard work, make hay while the sun shines and then kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. From this perspective wealth is awesome and solves all of his problems. But we have to remember the train and the 60 mph fastball that seemed to make a simple trip from hand to catcher’s mitt. What does man’s wealth and life strategy look like from the kingdom of God and what is Jesus trying to tell us? First of all, the barn guy starts a conversation with himself in which he thinks of himself just a little too much. You would think that he alone was making life’s journey. I really liked David Lose’s observation on this point. He writes, “The relentless use of the first person pronouns “I” and “my” betray a preoccupation with self. There is no thought to using the abundance to help others, no expression of gratitude for his good fortune, no recognition of God at all. The farmer has fallen prey to worshiping the most popular of gods: the Unholy Trinity of “me, myself, and I.” This leads to, and is most likely caused by, a second mistake. He is not foolish because he makes provision for the future; he is foolish because he believes that by his wealth he can secure his future: “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” The one thing that I will relentlessly point to as a preacher is the fact that Jesus’ desire iss to bind us together as a community. Our mission is to each other, and to loving and caring for each other, thereby wealth is found to be in relationships. St. Augustine once said that God gave us people to love and things to use, and sin, in short, is the confusion of these two things. The band Pink Floyd has a song from some years ago where they really did a great job with a satirical look at money and the way it is often viewed in this world. It cuts to the chase and can help us to see the love of money displacing relationships. Money, get away, get a good job with good pay and you’re okay. Money, it’s a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. New car, caviar, four star daydream Think I’ll buy me a football team Money, get back. I’m alright Jack keep your hands off of my stack. Now here’s the line that really seals the deal. The writer uses a profane expression, for the same reason that St Paul used it to make a very profound point, but we’ll keep it G rated. Money, it’s a hit Don’t give me that do goody good stuffy stuff. I’m in the high fidelity first class traveling set, and I think I need a Lear jet. Money, it’s a crime. Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie. Money, so they say Is the root of all evil today. But if you ask for a raise it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away.” The kingdom of this world rails against the counterintuitive act of charity. Why would I give something for nothing? I can see this song as a soundtrack for the portion of a gospel movie where Jesus tells this parable. The barn guy has stacks of cash for himself and all the pleasures they can buy and he is only focused on himself. That’s the problem with what he is doing, self centeredness and “I onlyness.” This is the very core of what sin is and it doesn’t only apply to individuals. This type of hyperfocus can even apply to churches. Some churches can become so focused on themselves and their awesomeness and success or on their difficulties and struggle to survive that they forsake their mission, which is to help build and maintain relationships with God and one another, to help usher in that other kingdom, the kingdom of the right or the kingdom of God. Some focus on their barns and not the people within. Actually, the cause for the reformation had to do with a church stewardship campaign gone awry. In trying to raise money to build the big cathedrals, the church and its buildings became the focus. Pastors, Bishops, Cardinals and Popes perpetuated and preached false doctrines, misled the people, used fear and intimidation to provoke people to give more than an honest share to the church to build barns for this world and not the kingdom of God. The people were in need of one another and the love of Jesus, not this world’s wealth and splendor. This is not saying that we shouldn’t have buildings in which to worship and fellowship, just as Jesus wasn’t saying that you shouldn’t build appropriately sized barns for your harvest. We come together and work together to provide those things. But what it is saying is that building edifices to ourselves and for our glory is going down the wrong road. If we spend all of our resources doing that then where will we be if “our life is demanded of us that night?” Will we have had time or resources to build for God’s kingdom? The example is simple. I do not come here, I do not bring my family here, and I don’t think anyone that participates in the Living Faith family online or in person does so because of anything to do with a building or anything that we could spend money on other than on those in need. The warmth, the caring, the willingness to work hard side by side in our community, the compassion, the laughter, the tears, the caring for those in need, the service, the word, the bread, the wine and the communion with one another is. That’s it. That’s why the Spirit gathers us each week. The first fruits go to the mission of reaching out- in, with and through the Gospel and then for a barn that is sufficient for our needs, a pretty cool rented one at that. That’s what Jesus was saying. So let us continue to strive to be that type of church, viewing ourselves from the right perspective, that is the Kingdom of God and let us as always strive to do even better, in giving toward our needs and most importantly the needs of others so that we can stand before God when our lives are demanded of us with callouses on our hands, not from patting ourselves on the back, but from building God’s kingdom. Amen…….The Lord be with you. Let us Pray. Benevolent God, you are the source, the guide, and the goal of our lives. Teach us to love what is worth loving, to reject what is offensive to you, and to treasure what is precious in your sight, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen……In God’s reign, the “rich will be sent away empty.” Jesus uses a parable to warn against identifying the worth of one’s life with the value of one’s possessions rather than one’s relationship with God. The Holy Gospel is from the 12th chapter of St Luke. 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?’ 21So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
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