Return to Sermon Page

August 1, 2004; Proper 13, Year C
    The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector

“Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’”[i]  It may seem strange to us that a man would ask Jesus to act as a judge to settle a dispute that he has with his brother about their father’s estate.  But in Biblical times a rabbi was called upon to enforce and interpret the religious laws, which included the distribution of the estate or inheritance to the heirs.   These laws are found in the Book of Deuteronomy[ii], the Book of Numbers[iii], and the Mishnah, which is the Jewish interpretation and application of the Torah or Law.  The man who asked the question assumed that Jesus was a rabbi, and therefore he should enforce the Law about how the family inheritance should be divided up.

Even though I have counseled members of families that are squabbling over who gets what in the family estate, I would never presume to take on the role of a judge to settle the dispute.  Today we have civil courts in which those disputes are resolved.

I found it interesting to discover this past week in my study that of the three world religions that worship God – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; Christianity is the only religion that does not have laws about the distribution of an estate to children or relatives after an individual dies.  Why is that?

The short answer is that Jesus believed that the gift he offers of the inheritance of the kingdom of God was more important than any inheritance that we receive from our family.

As I believe we all know, Jesus placed entrance into the kingdom of God above everything else.  The parable that we heard today of the rich fool expresses that old adage, “you can’t take it with you.”  All of the “things” that we accumulate in life, “things” that we feel are very important, are in the end worthless to us when we die.

The parable is an example of what can happen to anyone when they become greedy.   Obsessed with the accumulation of wealth or possessions, it becomes their reason for living and consumes their every waking moment.  A modern day example of this occurred several years ago during the bull market when many people invested in stocks and started making hundreds, thousands, and millions of dollars almost overnight.  Some became so consumed in investing that they quit their jobs in order to manage their investments.  They were so consumed by their investments that they ate, drank, and slept trying to figure out how they should buy and sell in order to make more money.  It became their reason for living.  When the market crashed, they did too.   They had little or nothing to show for the days and months they had spent in front of the computer managing their investments.  Perhaps all that we do in life is “vanity,” as the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes states.

In contrast to this sense of “vanity” or hopelessness, Jesus presents us with the understanding that this life should be seen as an opportunity.  An opportunity to acknowledge the gift of this life, making the most of it, enjoying it along the way, but never forgetting that we should not be consumed by it.  Instead we should be consumed by our salvation and the inheritance into the kingdom of God.

The grave mistake that the rich farmer committed was in believing that what he had was all that there was to life.  Therefore he grabbed it all for himself, persuaded that he had essentially arrived in heaven.  If you remember he even said to his soul, “Soul you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”   His wealth had become his god, and he worshiped it.

This mistake can be made by anyone.  You do not have to be rich or have many possessions to be greedy or consumed by what you have.  I believe what the writer of Ecclesiastes concluded; life is “vanity” – when we focus just on this life.   It makes no sense when a good Christian man, woman, or child gets cancer or any other fatal disease; or when they are killed in an accident.  It makes no sense that good Christian people live in poverty.  The list can go on.  After all, if God cares about us, shouldn’t life be better?

I believe that life is better for people of faith.  Even though we are not exempt from the tragedies of this world and the greed or abuse of others; in all that happens to us, we have something to grasp, something that cannot be stolen or destroyed.  That is our relationship with God.

But like any relationship, we must be involved.  In all that we do in life, if we have no time for God, the relationship will suffer.  When Jesus talks about storing up treasures in heaven he is not talking about giving our “things” to God, rather he is saying that God is more important than the things that we have, and we should invest just as much, if not more, in developing a relationship with God as we do in accumulating the “things” of this life.

It has been estimated that we will listen to three years worth of advertising on the television in our lifetime.[iv]  That does not take into consideration the ads that we read in newspapers, magazines, and junk mail.  All of those ads are aimed at convincing us that we will be happy if we have what they are selling.  Our rummage sale had some of the items that have been advertised over the years that were supposed to make us happy.   Well, they did for a while, but then something happened and they did not make us happy any more so we discarded them, probably in favor of something else that was supposed to make us happy.

We live in hard times.  We live in a disposable society, where it is cheaper to throw something away when it is broken rather than fix it.  This mentality has bled over to relationships, where, when we get bored, or don’t find it as rewarding to us; we throw it away and search for another relationship, rather than trying to fix it.

Well, God has provided the fix to our relationship with him through his Son, Jesus Christ.  God is not about to throw us away when we break, commit a sin that is, and I don’t believe that he gets bored with us.  He may not be as attractive as the actors or actresses on TV, he doesn’t offer us a pill for a better sex life or freedom from the pain of arthritis, he doesn’t even offer to make us rich, all that he offers is his kingdom to anyone who wants to come in.  How much is it worth?

Jesus thought that it was worth his life. 

Return to Sermon Page

New Revised Standard Edition (NRSV) bible links are from bible.oremus.org