8th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Why exactly does God call the rich farmer a fool?

The farmer has an unexpectantly huge harvest. It doesn’t all fit into his current barns. So he decides to tear down his barns and build larger ones to store all the grain. This way, he will have resources for years to come.

Isn’t that what we would do, too? We have been taught to save for a rainy day. We either have or yearn to have 401K pension plans and IRAs so that we can take care of ourselves in old age. My in-laws had to move into nursing homes last year; we are blessed that they had nursing care insurance and a house to sell; their foresight and planning and saving now makes it possible to pay for their needs.

So why is the rich farmer called a fool?

He comes by his wealth honestly. The Bible doesn’t say anything about him being a cheater or oppressing people or anything like that. He’s just a rich guy with a lot of land who is bringing an abundant harvest into his large silos.

So why is he a fool?

He is a fool because when he makes his plans for dealing with the unexpected abundance, he is completely self-centered. He talks only to himself. Just count the “I”s and the “my”s in the text.  As one commentator put it, this is the un-holy trinity of “I, me, and myself”.

This self-centered thinking reveals a practical atheism. The farmer might not say that he doesn’t believe in God, but his actions reveal that God doesn’t figure at all in his approach to life and to money.

For example, just last week we read the gospel passage where Jesus teaches his followers the Lord’s Prayer. “Give us this day our daily bread,” Jesus has us pray. This farmer has his daily bread and then some. He has enough bread for today and tomorrow and next year and the year after that. His decision to hoard his extra grain speaks to a lack of trust in God’s providence.

Jesus also just taught the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example for how we are to love God and our neighbor. The thought of neighbors didn’t cross the farmer’s mind one bit. And yet there were poor people all over the place. Luke tells us about a poor widow who can barely rub two coins together and poor man Lazarus suffering hunger and illness at the gate of a rich man. Think of the difference the rich farmer could have made in their lives. However, love of God and neighbor doesn’t figure into his thinking at all.

This is connected to his total lack of gratitude and awareness that all we have is a gift from God. God made the bumper crop grow. God is the maker and source of all we have. Our Creator places goods and gifts and skills into our hands for us to steward for a while. We get to use them to express our faith, our gratitude, and our love for God and neighbor. The rich farmer doesn’t get this at all.

He also doesn’t understand another gift from God: Time! By storing all the grain in his new, bigger silos, he thinks his future is taken care of. Alas, death comes for him that night. The farmer forgets that no matter how wealthy we are, we all die at some point. Then all the stuff we own doesn’t make any difference at all.

Jesus calls the farmer a fool because he stores up treasures for himself but is not rich towards God. He prepares for a future in this life but forgets to prepare for the life to come. He stores up a pile of riches, but even his life on earth is rather poor. For this farmer comes across as rather lonely. He doesn’t have anyone to talk to but himself. I picture him sitting at his dining table eating a delicious meal, all by himself. So sad!

That’s exactly what Jesus does not want to happen to us. Jesus wants us to be part of a community. Jesus wants for us to love and be loved, to have family and friends, to be surrounded by people who support us and challenge us and inspire us and give our life meaning.

Just this week, I was talking to a woman at my church in Baltimore. She shared how depressed she sometimes gets because of the news and of her son’s struggle finding work and some health problems. “But then”, she said, “I spend time with my art, and I spend time with my family and my friends and people I love, and I feel better and more hopeful.” Also, she was at the church to pick up lunches for the homeless and deliver them to the North Avenue Mission.

She has a life rich towards God. She loves and is loved. She gives and receives. She is tied into a community of care that sustains her when she struggles. Her life is meager by material standards, but rich in every other way. She doesn’t have stored up treasures but is rich towards God.

That is the life Jesus offers us. We enter into this life through the gift of baptism. At this point, I am switching my attention to today’s reading from the Letter to the Colossians.

Our segment reminds the young church in Colossae that they have died and risen with Christ. In baptism, their old selves have died, and their new selves have risen with Christ. Back then, candidates for baptism stripped off their old clothes, were baptized naked, and then put on new clothes, usually white, symbolizing the new, forgiven, joyful, blessed life God granted them. The letter picks up on that when it says: “You have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourself with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the creator.”

God the Creator is at work in you. God has clothed you with a new image of yourself: You are a beloved child of God. God is working in you to transform you ever more into the most faithful follower of Jesus Christ you can be. God knows that we are a work in progress, and he has patience with us.

But God also calls us to live according to this new baptized life: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience… Above all, clothes yourself with love…Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts…Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Living like this, leads to a life rich towards God.

Living like this does, however, demand that the old life dies. Among the things of the old life that need to die our Bible passage lists greed. Greed has to die. This matches perfectly with today’s gospel where Jesus warns against all kinds of greed. Colossians goes so far as to call greed idolatry. Why?

Because greed warps our priorities, our relationships, our faith, our whole outlook on life.

Greed makes the man in the crowd interrupt Jesus’ sermon and ask him to take his side in a dispute with his brother over an inheritance. I am sure each and every one here today can name people who had a falling out over money or property after the death of parent or grandparents. It rips families apart.

Greed makes the farmer keep everything for himself. Even though his old barns had already made him a rich man, he wanted more. Rather than sharing his surplus with community members, he hoards it for himself. As a result, he is lonely with no one to talk to. His relationships with the community are ripped apart.

Greed makes the farmer think the surplus grain is all his, to do with as he wants to. There is none of the gratitude towards God that Colossians calls for. Greed has severed his relationship with God.

One scholar placed the parable of the rich farmer alongside the story of Adam and Eve. What do people most desire, he asks? Paradise. Living in harmony with God and other people, in peace and joy.

Adam and Eve had that in the beginning. In the garden of Eden, they walked and talked with each other and with God. That paradise fell apart when the serpent inserted itself. Adam and Eve started talking and listening to the creature rather than the creator. They got greedy for the power and wisdom of God. By acting on that greed, they severely hurt their relationship with God and each other.

Greed was the false god Adam and Eve trusted, and it led them to actions that hurt them deeply. That is why Jesus warns against greed. That is why Colossians calls greed idolatry.

It is not bad to be wealthy, to have retirement funds, and to own stuff. It’s not even wrong to enjoy our stuff. The problem develops when we are greedy about our possessions. When they fill our hearts with something other than gratitude. When they blur our understanding of how we are called to be faithful stewards. When they block us from seeing and having compassion for our neighbors in need. When we think they can guarantee our security. When they erode our faith and wreck our relationships. Then our possessions are idols. Then our attachment to them needs to die.

Use your possessions for things that make you rich towards God: Use them to love God and neighbor, to make this world a better place, to build networks of community and support, to gain the full and rich life Jesus wants you to have. Amen.