you ask me to enter

but then you make me crawl

 

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke the 12th chapter!

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But Jesus said to him, "Friend, who set me to be judge or arbitrator over you?" And Jesus said to everyone, "Take care! Be on guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then Jesus told 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 of my grain and my goods. And I will said 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?' Jesus added, "So it is for those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

Today's gospel-scene has many implications for the life of a disciple.

Today's gospel is about Jesus' insistence that all of life, no matter how lived, is a life of faith...

Here's the thing, today's Gospel, regardless of how familiar, or unfamiliar we are with this scene; is one we tend to think we know the moral of...

Before Jesus can finish speaking, we're already nodding in agreement, 'you can't take it with you when you go," we say a little too piously...

For as well as we may think we know the moral of this story, though, we're not too good at even following the morals we create!

Despite the obvious truth that indeed we cannot take it with us when we go, we spend so many of our days trying to do just that, to take it with us.

That's the trouble; for as well as we think we know the moral of this story, we tend not to live out the moral; we can't seem to quit trying to take all that stuff with us when we go...

 

Like we said a couple of weeks ago, though, when the gospel becomes just some list of do's and don'ts, we should get suspicious.

So what if this Gospel-scene isn't just some little morality play?

What if Jesus wasn't retelling us that age-old fact that we can't take it with us?

What if Jesus was doing something else?

What if Jesus was doing a little myth-busting?

What if Jesus was inviting disciples to live into another, an alternative story?

What if Jesus knew all too well that life is always an act of faith, and Jesus is calling disciples to trust in a story that is, well, trustworthy?

 

What if?

Here's the thing, as much as those loud voices on the commercials insist otherwise, life is always lived in the realm of faith; there are no guarantees either way, for good or for ill...

Not that that stops folks from trying to insist otherwise.

We all know that the voices that shout a version of the story most often and loudest are the ones who tell a story of, the myth of 'not enough.'

Not enough...

 

That's the same today, as it was then...

Some 2000 years ago, Jesus and the disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, with a crowd following along.

During a quiet moment in the journey, someone shouts from the throng, "Jesus, tell my brother to share the family inheritance with me!"

We get that request; in the dog-eat-dog world we think we live in, we have to make sure we get our due.

The thing is, though, as the ask hangs in the air, Jesus retorts, "Buddy, I'm not hedge-fund manager. Anyway, watch out for greed."

And then Jesus tells a story.

Jesus tells a story that nearly seems misplaced...

Jesus' story doesn't have to do with squabbling siblings, the story doesn't have to do with inheritance laws; in fact it doesn't seem to have anything to do with that situation at hand!

Jesus tells this story of a rich guy, whose land was fruitful. As this fellow brings in the harvest he realizes he has a problem, the barns that he has aren't big enough to store this miracle he has be blessed with.

So this rich guy decides to tear down the barns that are standing, so he can build bigger ones; saying that once that project is complete, he will quit the rat-race of not enough and finally take it easy.

Suddenly, though, the story turns dark...

This parable Jesus has been telling has a kick to it.

 

The story goes on; before the man can finally end that story of not enough, God interrupts the whole shoot & matchstick saying, 'You fool! Tonight you pay the piper. Your storehouses, what are they worth now?'

Jesus ends the parable ominously, "that's how it is for folks who are rich for themselves, and poor everywhere else."

Yikes.

But notice, on the face of things, the parable doesn't seem to have anything to do with the request to split an inheritance.

In fact, the petition for the inheritance to be split could be a cry for justice. The person making the request could just be asking for their due, not some extra amount that they will need to tear down barns and build bigger ones to store all the bounty in, like the fellow in the parable!

So why does Jesus tell that parable, at that moment?

Perhaps Jesus told that parable to do a little myth-busting, as we mused earlier...

What if Jesus tells that parable because he knows all too well the kind of myth the person who made the request tends to trust?

What if Jesus knew the narrative of the myth that person trusted, and knew finally it wasn't trustworthy?

What if Jesus was all too familiar with, and sick of, that myth of never having enough, and the never-ending task of grabbing whatever we can to finally have a little security in that story of not enough?

When you look at the Gospel-scene that way, the parable Jesus tells after the request, begins to make sense…

Yes, that person in the crowd may just have been asking for a fair-share, and that parable may have been about a mismanaged miracle; but at a deeper lever the question and the parable are about the same thing; the myth of 'not enough.'

A myth, it seems, Jesus is terribly suspicious of...

The person in the crowd believes life is, at the end of the day, a fragile thing, a thing that is only a hospital bill away from ruin.

So in that myth of not enough, he really believes he needs his due.

And the rich-man in the parable, has lived his life believing the same myth, the story of not-enough; and finally when he thinks he's about to end that mythic game, it all comes crashing down and ends abruptly and tragically...

The request and the parable have something important in common; they are built on the myth of not enough, the logic of scarcity...

 

Jesus knows the person making the request, well-intended as it may be, is living out the myth of 'not enough.'

Jesus knows any person living out the myth of 'not enough,' is rushing head-long toward the tragic-ending of the story of not enough, so Jesus tells his parable.

Jesus tells the parable showing the only way that story, that life of not enough can end; suddenly, and tragically poor before God...

 

Jesus tells that parable, that story, to bust the myth of 'not enough' that the person making the request knows all too well, and has dangerously started to believe.

Jesus knows splitting the inheritance won't really solve the problem, because the problem is the myth the person obsessed with their inheritance trusts...

Jesus knows the myth of not enough is actually is the problem of this person's life, and Jesus came to offer true life, not a myth; another way to that popular myth, another story.

This myth-busting that Jesus did then, is just as true and important for us to hear today, as it was for that person then.

That myth of 'not enough' seems to live on, and unfortunately we know it all too well, and we dangerously tend to trust it, too.

Jesus knows that all of life, is a life of faith, faith in the story of not enough or faith in another story.

And Jesus embodies that it is important that we place our faith in a story that is worthy of our most precious treasure; our trust.

None of us know the future, but all too often we hedge our bets, figuring that the end of story will be one of not enough.

Store up for that rainy-day, that unexpected bill, etc. etc. etc.

Sure, it may never be as exaggerated as the character in the parable.

Sure, it might always be as well-meaning as the person making the request in today's Gospel-scene.

But like the character in the parable, like the person shouting from the crowd; we all have our barns sitting there holding/hoarding what God has blessed us with, because at the end of the day we worry the true story will be one of not enough.

So in light of that foolish myth we all tend to trust, Jesus lives another, a different story.

Jesus tells this story; asking, in effect, 'what if the myth you've been believing isn't trustworthy.' Jesus tells this story; asking, in effect, 'what if there is another story, a different way for us to live.'

Jesus tells this story of the fool who built bigger barns, to bust the myth we all too often go along believing, to cast aspersions on those barns we're trying to build.

Jesus tells this story to prompt disciples to look critically at the myth of not enough, so we can find ourselves in another story, a different story, a life-giving story.

 

Jesus does this, because as the parable makes clear, that myth of 'not enough' can't save us; heck, it can't even end!

The only way that story of not enough can end, is if we die...

Jesus tells this story because that man, just like us, has gotten all too comfortable trusting that myth of not enough.

Jesus tells this story because that man, just like us, needs to hear that the myth we've been trusting does not deserve our trust!

Jesus tells this story because that man, just like us, needs to have that myth of 'not enough' busted, so that maybe we can find ourselves in another story, in God's unexpected story.

Jesus tells this story because for people to be disciples, for people to follow God; it is important to live in God's story,

not the myth of things,

not the myth of greed,

not the myth of 'not enough,'

but God's story;

God's story that is always unexpected, and is always enough.

 

So Jesus tells a story prompting us to wonder, could there be another story, another way to live in the world.

What story is God telling about you?

What story is God telling about the world, about Trinity?

 

We'll end with a great poem by one of my favorite story-tellers Shel Silverstein:

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,

Listen to the DON'TS

Listen to the SHOULDN'TS

the IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS

Listen to the NEVER HAVES

Then listen close to me-

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.

AMEN