Aug. 4, 2013, 11th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 12:13-21

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
    14 Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" 15 Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
    16 And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
    18 "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19  And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
    20 "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
    21 "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."


 “Rich From God’s Point Of View”

Possessions do enhance our freedom to enjoy life.  Yet how dangerous they are when they take possession of us.  The rich man was a fool because he failed to keep a clear space between himself and his possessions.  As well as between himself and others.
He tried to live by bread alone; pile up riches but be void of meaningful relationships which enrich life.

“Ah, there is only one problem, only one in all the world.  How can we restore to man a spiritual significance, a spiritual discontent;  let something descend upon them like the dew of a Gregorian chant...don’t you see, we cannot live any longer on refrigerators, politics, balance-sheets, and crossword puzzles.  We simply cannot.”   Author unknown


“Pronoun Problems”

The two men use the possessive pronoun freely, but never the pronoun which points to a relationship - ‘ours’.

You can, to a large degree,  determine a person’s theology by the pronouns used.  Pronouns give direction to life.  They point to what is important in one’s life.  Mine...yours...ours...Thine.

What a difference it makes when we are able to look at our possessions and say “Thine”.
Then our possessions fall into their rightful place in life.  Then they are not ours in a selfish way, but ours to use in a redemptive way.

We were created for more then just abundance.  We were created to know and be known by God.  Our spiritual needs cannot be satisfied with material goods - no matter how hard we try.

Jewish proverb:  “When you have everything, something is missing.”

We were created to be rich toward God which means to accept life as a gift and give the gift!  Life is a gift.  Life is found and experienced in giving the gift.