“Super-Size Me” The of the Rich Fool : 13-21, by Marshall Zieman, preached 8-4-2019 at PCOC

So I woke up this morning thinking about El Paso, and then read on my phone about the shooting in Dayton, Ohio. In light of this, it made my sermon this morning seem sort of irrelevant. I was tempted to just chuck the sermon and have a fireside chat instead, when we can just talk about a slew of things that are coming together across our land and have mixed together like a poisonous cocktail.

The ingredients are hate, hate speech, political rallies that stir up hate, mental health, guns, violence, and social media. It’s not just one thing, it’s all of these things mixed together that are culminating in acts of mass violence.

A time is coming when we need to address all of these things together. Our nation needs to figure out how to come together and talk, and so should people of faith. How can we best address this? What do you think we should do?

Let’s keep that in mind as we turn to Luke’s and continue in our sermon series looking at interacting with various folks.

In answer to the question, “How much is enough?” Will Rogers was quoted as saying, “Just a little bit more.” That’s usually the answer we give, too, whether we’re talking about money, or sleep, or sex, or vacation, or chocolate or Husker victories. We can never get enough. In our scripture passage for today, Jesus talks about this subject of how much is enough? We continue in Luke’s gospel. This morning we are in chapter 12 and we begin in verse 13.

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.”

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!

So, I just think it’s funny that this story in our lectionary schedule comes right after our Big Annual Church Garage Sale. I mentioned last week how full the basement was. In my 5 years here, I’ve never seen it so full. I know that we’ve made several thousand dollars in sales this year. 2

So the first good news is that instead of building bigger barns to store all this stuff, at least we had the decency to pawn it off on others. But Jesus’ words here were not meant as a means to address the sins of gluttony or over-accumulation per se. It’s that last thing he says which provides our focal point for this passage: “if you’re not rich towards God.”

So, sure, go ahead and built your bigger barn, just make sure not to lose sight of God in all of it. However, the point is, that’s a bigger temptation than you realize. It’s easy to think, if I had a bigger house, a bigger garage, more storage capacity, my life would be so much better. Would it?

I remember when we first moved here, one of the things I loved most about our new house is our garage. I’m sort of embarrassed to say it’s a 3-car garage. We’ve never had a 3-car garage. When we were considering buying this house the garage was empty, so it looked even bigger; a giant cavern. Becky liked other things, but I liked that garage.

In my defense, the house we left behind in Dallas had a tiny, one-car, wet, leaky, old detached garage. Our Honda barely fit. So to see this new garage was like, heaven. I put shelves in it, and our cars easily fit. All our lawn equipment fits. It’s great.

A few days after we moved in, I was driving down our street, and just a few houses away I drove by a house with a 4-car garage. And then, down the road from our house is this country estate house, and I looked at it: They have a 5-car garage! Suddenly my garage started feeling a little cramped as I imagined all that I could do with a 5-car garage.

Now, first of all, that is envy, which for good reason is called one of the seven deadly sins. Secondly, this is like literally wanting to build myself a bigger barn. And no, God was not really a part of that equation.

Author and seminary professor, Michael Battle, writes this: "We learn the essential lesson: do not attempt to possess things, for things cannot really be possessed. Only make sure you are not possessed by them, lest your god change."

You really can’t possess your things, but they sure can possess you, and then your god changes. If you’re storing up treasures for yourself, better make sure that you are richer towards God - that your things don’t possess you.

In our passage, the problem wasn’t that he was rich. He wasn’t a fool because he was rich. But he’s called the Rich Fool because he wasn’t rich towards God - his things now possessed him - and only a bigger barn would do.

So, which of your things possess you? We’re all so different. Is it your house? Your cars? Your back yard? Your den? Your sound system? Your security system? Your clothes, your shoes, your jackets? Or maybe it’s just your assets in general - your Index Funds, your IRAs? 3

Jesus warns us in verse 15: “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Throughout history, God has repeatedly warned us about this because of what our possessions have the power to do… lead us away from God. Way back when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the first commandment was “You shall have no other gods before me.” The second was, “You shall not make for yourself an idol.”

I think this second commandment is the longest of all ten, because God goes to the trouble to spell it out: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them…” Wherever they appear!

Don’t make them your god, your idol, don’t let them lead you astray! For your own good, God doesn’t want you to share your affections with these other things. In this sense, God is described, later on in Exodus, as a Jealous God. Jealous for your affection.

Ever wonder what preachers sounded like back in the 1800’s? Here is a snippet of a sermon from Charles Spurgeon in 1863, on the results of Idolatry:

“Brethren, the whole history of the human race is a record of the wars of the Lord against idolatry. The right hand of the Lord hath dashed in pieces the enemy and cast the ancient idols to the ground.

“Behold the heaps of Nineveh! Search for the desolations of Babylon! Look upon the broken temples of Greece! See the ruins of Pagan Rome! Journey where you will, you behold the dilapidated temples of the gods and the ruined empires of their foolish votaries. The moles and the bats have covered with forgetfulness the once famous deities of Chaldea and Assyria. The Lord hath made bare his arm and eased him of his adversaries, for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” (CH Spurgeon, sermon #502, March 29, 1863, Newington)

The whole human race struggles with breaking the second commandment. Don’t make for yourself an idol. I think the temptation will always be there. But there is good news - Jesus gives us an anti-dote to idolatry. It’s found in the last thing Jesus says in this passage: being rich towards God.

I’m going to spell out a few things for us, but I’ll bet you already have a sense of what this means. If you’re rich towards God, what would you be, how would you live?

Well, you’d be interested in what God thinks about things, careful to include what we know about God in our decisions, respectful of what we already know about God, interested in knowing more about God’s opinions of things, determined to do what God says to do, and desiring to see yourself as God’s ambassador.

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I wonder, who would be someone you know who you would say is “rich towards God?” In my generation, the answers were often folks like Mother Teresa, or Billy Graham. Closer to home, is there someone in your family you’d say is rich towards God? Someone you would like to model yourself after?

Let me be clear: any of us can be this sort of rich. In fact, this is the kind of rich that we all should aspire to be.

The Apostle Paul wrote this to young Timothy: 17 As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, 19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life. (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

In contrast, this rich fool was all set to check out and kick back - to eat, drink, and be merry. Yet, that very night his life would be snuffed out. Life is uncertain, as El Paso and Dayton showed us yesterday.

What’s wrong with this way of handling riches – by caring more for them than for God, is that your riches become your God. You change your God.

John Piper wrote, “The issue is not that the man’s fields prospered. The issue was: What did he do with it?” What does it mean to be “rich toward God”? The meaning is plain from the contrast: it is the opposite of laying up earthly treasure for yourself. Being rich toward God is the opposite of treating the self as though it were made for things and not for God. Being rich toward God is the opposite of acting as if life consists in the abundance of possessions not in the abundance of knowing God. Being rich toward God, therefore, is the heart being drawn toward God as our riches. (John Piper, Desiring God) So what do you see as the true treasure of your life? Remember Jesus’ words: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) See your spiritual walk with God as a treasure to be nurtured. Make sure that other things, even other good things, don’t crowd out God. Amen. Let’s pray.