Citizens of Heaven - Week One: The Rich Fool

It’s (Still)The Season of Pentecost! And we are launching a new sermon series today entitled Citizens of Heaven. 

The long season of Pentecost takes us from Easter to Advent.  It's the season within the historic rhythms of the Church that helps us understand what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ, to be his hands and feet in the world.  

This sermon series, which will take us all the way through August, takes its name from Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, where he states this: 

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ..." Philippians 3:20

What did Paul mean when he said that “Our citizenship is in heaven?"  Paul was writing to a church that was in one of the most Roman cities outside of Rome.  The early Christians there had some serious choices to make when it came to where their loyalties lay.  

What Paul wanted them to know was that even though they might be citizens of Rome, their ultimate citizenship was the kingdom of God, and they were called to live into that over and against the prevailing winds of Empire.  

This series will help us learn what it means to live according to the values of God’s kingdom, even during troubled times when to do so might call our loyalty to the empires of the day into question.    

Today, we will read a parable of Jesus about a man who decided to build bigger barns, and what it means for those of us who want to follow Jesus, but struggle with trusting our future to him.    

But first, I want to talk about something that touches us all in one way or another: 

Never Enough - A Culture of Overconsumption 

We live in a culture where most of us have trouble grasping the meaning of the word "enough." We've been programmed, brainwashed, hoodwinked, and manipulated into thinking that we don't have enough.  

You might very well ask, "Enough of what?"  And the answer is: "Anything and Everything."

Have you ever bought something at a store even though you already have something similar at home?  Most of us have. 

I was cleaning out my pantry the other day and discovered that I had two jars of relish.  I bought another jar some days before that discovery because I couldn't remember whether I had any or not. Now I have three jars of relish. 

The relish isn't the issue, so don't get fixated on it.  The issue is that we do this kind of thing all of the time, and with so many other things in our lives. 

I recently went through my closet and culled for clothes and shoes that I hadn't worn in the past year.  There were enough of those clothes to fill another closet.  Raise your hand if, like me, you use multiple closets for all of your clothes and shoes.  

And then there is the issue of money.  Are you familiar with the old adage that our expenses rise to meet our income?  That's where most of us live and breathe.  And even if we are frugal and like to save, we seldom say to ourselves, "I've saved enough."  

I often wonder when I read news articles about the billionaire class how they think about their vast wealth.  You would think they would finally say, "I think I have enough," but they never seem to do that.  It's never enough.  

What makes us believe we need more?  I think it has to do with fear and a need for security and control.  And the culture around us feeds into this insecurity.  We put our faith and trust in it by continuing to consume with little regard for how our constant overconsumption affects the world around us. 

What happens to us when we do?  We narrow our focus, we see the world in a myopic way, we pay attention only to the six inches in front of our face, we become self-centered, and we live with a sense of scarcity.  

When our focus turns inward, we lose sight of the needs around us and how we can make a difference.  But if we are to live into our heavenly citizenship in the kingdom of God, we need to raise our gaze and look around us.  

CITIZENS OF HEAVEN CARE ABOUT THEIR COMMUNITY

Luke 12:13-21

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 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.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 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. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 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?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

There seems to be a disconnect between the question and the answer.  Jesus does here what he does in so many other instances.  He answers the actual question that is beneath the question.  

Jesus is deflecting to answer a deeper question: “How much is enough?” The man who is asking Jesus to intervene on his behalf wants what he believes to be his fair share.  Jesus goes beyond that and basically states, "You know, you can't take any of this with you when you die."

In the story that he tells, Jesus presents a man who has a really good year with his crops.  The man with a bumper crop already has barns.  Before his windfall, he had plenty of storage for everything he needed, and then some. 

In the context of the first century, Jesus is highlighting something implicit about village life.  Everyone who is hearing him would have expected the story to take a turn where the man in the story fills his barns, and then turns to his neighbors to see if he can help fill theirs, too.  

But this man does something different.  He decides to build more storage.  

And then he essentially plans to deprive his neighbors, run up the price, and make a profit.  

Jesus’ ending is a “can’t-take-it-with-you” moral, and much more. It's about either living in scarcity or living in abundance.  Scarcity is a by-product of a culture of overconsumption, a culture of never having enough.  

If you live in the economics of God’s kingdom, you cannot live in scarcity; you must live in abundance.  Living in abundance, Jesus teaches here, is the antidote to a culture of overconsumption, of never having enough.  

Enough is the quickest path to contentment. 

What Do We Learn Here?

1. I remember hearing preachers use the following quote from Jesus in Matthew 26:11: "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me."  They would use this as a way to excuse the fact that they cared very little about the needs of their community.  It was an out-of-context interpretation that essentially meant you shouldn't enable people who are unable to help themselves.  

2.  When the thought of not having enough keeps us in a state of scarcity, we use whatever resources we have to make sure that we will always have enough. We become susceptible to the lies that sharing our abundance will somehow deprive us of having enough.  

3.  Hoarding what we have at the expense of our neighbors isn’t Christlike. Jesus unequivocally states here that building bigger barns isn't the answer.  God's economy doesn't work that way.  Generosity breeds generosity.  Living open-handedly enables us to both give and receive.  

4.  Supporting systems that reward the barn-builders and harm the village ultimately harm all of us.  The top 1% in our country could wipe out poverty in America, solve most of the hunger and disease in our world, and still have enough to buy a boat, a jet ski, a summer home on the coast of Maine, and pretty much anything else they ever wanted.  This is a fact.  

But even those of us who don't have those kinds of resources can live out of our abundance, make a difference in our community, and do whatever we can to address the needs of our neighbors.  That's one of the many reasons we come together like this every week, to be reminded that together we can do great things for the kingdom of God.    

A lesson about when enough is actually enough.  

I've been trying to sell my house for nearly nine months.  When I was getting my house ready to sell, more than two dozen people from this church came to help me pack up, paint, fix stuff, and generally make my house look awesome. 

We took an entire kitchen with full cabinets, and reduced it down to just a couple of what I needed. Guess what?  I haven't gone down to the garage once to look for something.  I had everything I needed.  

I've been trying to apply what I've learned through that in other parts of my life.  It's not always easy, but I'm learning.  Money has been tight.  I've had to trust God more.  I've been shedding so many of the fears that used to drive me.  

And it's made me vow that when this season of my life comes to an end, I never want to go back.  I don't need bigger barns. None of us does.  We can't take it with us when we leave this world, so why not learn to share it now when the needs are great, and the village is filled with longing?  

CITIZENS OF HEAVEN CARE ABOUT THEIR COMMUNITY