Rich Toward God (Luke 12:13-21)

[Today's sermon began with a reading of The Table Where Rich People Sit, a picture book written by Byrd Baylor and illustrated by Peter Parnall.  It is not included here due to copyright, but I highly recommend this wonderful book.]

Jesus told a story about a man who Jesus called a “fool.”  The man in the story had everything that Mountain Girl wanted:  he had wealth.  He had clothes that weren’t torn or patched up.  He had a fine table, I’m sure, on which were many numerous plates, beautiful plates, piled high with food.  He had the means to travel wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

And yet, Jesus called him a fool.

On August 27, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon about this man at Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago.  And King said: “There is nothing in that parable to indicate that this man was dishonest and that he made his money through conniving and exploitative methods.”  That’s not why Jesus called him a fool.  This man was a fine, upstanding citizen who earned his money honestly.  As Mountain Girl would say, he had ambition.

But then King said this:  “The other day in Atlanta, the wife of a man had an automobile accident. He received a call that the accident had taken place on the expressway. The first question he asked when he received the call: ‘How much damage did it do to my Cadillac?’ He never asked how his wife was doing. Now that man was a fool, because he had allowed an automobile to become more significant than a person. He wasn’t a fool because he had a Cadillac, he was a fool because he worshiped his Cadillac. He allowed his automobile to become more important than God.”

The same is true for the man in Jesus’ story:  he worshipped his money.

Barbara Brown Taylor demonstrates the foolishness of this in a sermon she gave at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina.  In that sermon, she talks about the happiness she got from buying a new set of cookware.  But then she says:  “When I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep for all of the fears that are taking turns sitting on my chest, it never occurs to me to get up and bring my 13" frying pan into bed with me.”

The same can be said for everything material that we value, can it not?

I once had a church member say to me – not here, of course; you would never say such a thing to me – he said: “You know, if our church runs out of money and we have to choose between having a church building and having a minister, I’d pick the building.”

So, trying to figure out what to say to comfort him, I said:  “OK. When you are going through a hard time and you wake up in the middle of the night filled with fear and anxiety, and you call me up, I’ll go over to the church, pull up a floorboard, and drop it off on your front porch and then leave, and you can go out and grab that piece of wood and crawl into bed with it and let it comfort you.”

OK, I didn’t really say that;  but I thought it.

In another congregation, I once heard the laments of members who wished they could give more to the church.  They really wanted to support their congregation!  But they were sad because, as they put it, they were retired and lived on a “fixed income.” 

Now, most of them lived in very nice houses, with two or three or four bedrooms, even though most nights only one bedroom actually had anybody sleeping in it.  And they had nice furniture and nice cars.  And I understood that their homes had become familiar to them, and had sentimental value to them.  I get that. 

But it seemed to me that their homes were more important to them than doing what they said they really wanted, which was to live more fully for God.  They were so attached to their homes and all the things in their homes that they couldn’t give as much as they wished they could give.  They couldn’t be as generous as they wanted to be.  And that made them sad.

What Mountain Girl discovered is that true wealth is following your passion, finding meaning and purpose in life.  Even the old, rough, hand-built table becomes precious and valuable to her.  It becomes a symbol of the life her family lives, a life spent together in the place they want to be, doing the things that make their hearts sing for joy.

And that, I think, is part of what it means to be rich toward God.

I read an interesting article recently about Greg Long, who is one of the best surfers in the world.  Born and raised in San Clemente, he travels around the world searching for the biggest waves on the planet.

He’s also participated in his share of professional surfing competitions.  In 2008, he won the Mavericks competition in northern California, one of the most prestigious surfing competitions in the world, a competition that includes a lot of prize money. 

But Greg Long knew that if he started surfing for money and endorsements and sponsorships, the joy he got from surfing would be diminished.  To always worry about making an impression on others, and organizing his life around what his sponsors wanted – well, that wasn’t what he wanted.  That wasn’t what would bring him satisfaction.

After winning the Maverick’s Surf Contest, Greg Long split the prize money with the other finalists.  Who does such a thing? 

Someone for whom the riches of money are not as important as the riches of living a meaningful life.

It is my goal over these next four weeks, as we experience our annual stewardship campaign, to help you find a life that is meaningful, a life that is worth living.  And yes, you will be encouraged to give to the church, and even to give more than you’ve given in the past … and yes, part of the reason is that the church needs the money. 

But that’s the secondary reason.  The main reason is that I don’t want you to be sad, like those people in their nice houses.  I don’t want you to put all your energy and all your resources into things that, in the dark night, fail to give you comfort. I want you to discover the joy that Mountain Girl eventually discovered, the joy of living a life that is rich toward God, and rich toward the things that matter.

Why spend four weeks on this one topic?  Well, as we establish patterns in our way of living, in the choices we make day in and day out, habits develop; Roger Wolsey says that these habits are like “deer trails” in the brain.  The more you do something or think a certain way, the more those “deer-trailed neuro-pathways become widened to become neuro-superhighways.”  We have been trained in living a certain kind of lifestyle, and it’s hard to break away from that.

What Jesus does is show us a new path, a new way of living.  It’s hard to break from the well-worn paths on which we travel day after day after day,  but perhaps, given enough time – and if we are willing to work on it, day-by-day, moment-by-moment –  we will not only step foot on that alternative pathway, we will begin to take some steps, and start moving toward a more abundant, generous, joyful life, a life that is filled with meaning, a life that is rich toward God.