“Eat, Drink and Be
Merry!”
Sermon delivered on
Scriptural Basis: Colossians 3:1-11,
Luke 12:13-21
This
is quite a day. Today we’re going
increase the size of our church family by a total of twelve, celebrate the
Sacrament of Baptism for five of our new members, and then we’re going to come
to the Lord’s Table to celebrate Holy Communion. This morning’s service might run a little bit
past
But
both the Letter to the Colossians and the gospel lesson for today are full of
warnings. Warnings to avoid earthly
temptations, warnings to set aside certain behaviors, warnings about hoarding
our abundance, and finally a warning to be rich toward God. What gives? It’s entirely true that the organizers of the common lectionary didn’t
know that we’d be having such a grand celebration today, so it would be easy to
argue that the confluence of Scripture choices and all of our happy events
today is merely a matter of coincidence. Not being one who believes in coincidence, however, I think we need to
take a closer look at what’s going on.
The
writer of the Letter to the Colossians is warning the church members there to
avoid inappropriate sexual pleasures and greed, which he equates to idolatry. While
we commonly think of greed as craving money or material possessions, it rises
to the level of idolatry because it deceives us into thinking that our house,
or our car, or the next promotion at work will satisfy the longings of our
souls. We come to worship at the altar
of “stuff,” and not in the pews of our churches. Greed can be sneaky, because it can sometimes
look like smart long-range financial planning or prudent business decisions,
but we have to be careful that we aren’t crossing the line from wisely setting
aside for a rainy day to grabbing everything we can even if we’ll never be able
to use it all. Worse than that, sexual
licentiousness and greed create divisions in communities and families when our
objective should be unity in Christ. And who among us is going to argue that
it’s perfectly OK to make anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive language
part of our personas? These things too
create divisions in communities and again, we’re supposed to be about unity,
about oneness in Christ Jesus.
Then
Luke weighs in with Jesus’ parable of the rich man whose abundant harvest can’t
be contained in his barns, and our twenty-first century sensibilities can’t
come to grips with what we read. What
did this guy do wrong, we ask? His
fields produced a bumper crop, more than his barns can hold so he makes what to
us seems to be a wise business move and plans on building larger ones, probably
with all the latest upgrades and inventory management systems, yet God calls
him a fool and demands his life. What’s
so different between what this fellow does and the advice Joseph gives Pharaoh way
back in Genesis, where Joseph tells Pharaoh to set aside from the abundance of
seven years to provide for the coming seven year famine? The difference is focus. Joseph gave prudent advice based on a vision
that seven years of abundance would be followed by seven years of famine, so
laying aside sufficient stores to allow the population to survive the famine
was for the good of all. Our intrepid
businessman, most likely what we would consider a corporate farmer today, was
entirely focused on himself. Look at the
words he uses: “I will do this: I will pull down my barns, I will store
all my grain and my goods. And I will
say to my soul, Soul, you have ample
goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink and be merry.” No mention of the source of his good fortune,
no indication that he contributed some of his excess to the poor and
needy. No hint of being rich toward
God. In fact, one could infer that in
the event of hard times our corporate farmer might profit from selling his
stored grain at above-market prices, further enriching himself. It’s about having enough to meet your needs,
not having more than anybody else just so you can say you have it. And that’s not to say that you shouldn’t plan
for retirement or an once-in-a-lifetime vacation, and make the sometimes tough
choices now that will allow you to enjoy a long and happy retirement without
money worries or truly relish that special trip knowing it’s paid for. That’s being a good steward of what you’ve
been blessed with.
The
message from both of these passages is one of focus. Focus on the way we are called to live as
Christians, which is so very often at odds with the culture that surrounds
us. We’re called to be faithful in our
relationships, kind and gentle, forgiving and always, always honest with one another. We’re expected to share of the abundance that we’re blessed with, not to
hoard it. We’re called to work for unity
in the name of Jesus Christ, and to be rich towards the God who is the source
of all things.
What
does it mean to be rich towards God? Darned if the gospel doesn’t explain that to us. If we look back a few chapters in Luke’s
gospel, at some of the lessons we’ve heard over the last few weeks, I think we
can begin to draw a picture of what being rich towards God looks like. The Good Samaritan informs us that being rich
towards God means helping your neighbors out of your own resources. Mary shows us that being rich towards God
means listening intently to Jesus’ words. The Lord’s Prayer tells us that being rich towards God means trusting
that God will provide all that we need in life. Being rich towards God means being as generous as you can be in your
charitable giving.
On
this day, when God is being generous indeed to our church family, blessing us
with new members and allowing us to share a simple meal, let us all remember to
be rich towards God. Let us work for
unity within these walls and without, set aside what our society considers good
and strive for what our Risen Lord tells us is good, and put away our greed
once and for all. Let us come to the
table to eat, drink and be merry today for God has been good to us. And then let us spread that goodness
everywhere we go.
In
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
