Sermon for Harvest Sunday 17th October 2021

A Sermon for Harvest on Sunday October 17th, 2021: “Wisdom or Folly” (Luke 12: 13-21)

(Please read Psalm 67 & Psalm 104)

 

Some parts of the bible are hard to understand. This parable of Jesus is not one of them! Jesus tells of the man who had an abundant harvest and planned to build new barns so he could retire, relax, eat, drink and be merry (Luke 12:16-21). Like the vast majority of people (then as now), the central character, really did think he was the owner of all he had.

 

Notice the prominence of the first-person pronoun in his speech: six times he says “I,” He refers to my crops, my barns, my grain, my goods; and tellingly even, my soul. He thinks he is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul. He is obsessed with himself, and immediately, the man is at odds with God…and on a collision-course with God…

 

The Bible declares, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). By right God owns it all, lock-stock-and-barrel. We know this. If He permits us use of any of the fruits of the earth, the LORD still retains the ownership. Each person will give an account to God of how they used these gifts… as stewards. Have we looked after that which has been entrusted to us?  

Our lives are not our own. As members of His church, we have been bought with a price. Our bodies belong to the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 6: 19-20).  If He has blessed you with health, wealth or talents someday (as other parables attest); you will answer for how you invested your “possessions” in light of eternity. We can honour God with what we have been given.

 

It was no small thing for God to call the rich man (in Jesus’ Parable) a “fool”.  The word, fool was more than our casual term of abuse…the “court jester”.   It referred, sometimes even to the Lord’s own, to the person who lived a life without reference to God.  He fails/refuses to seek justice and compassion; he is pictured (knowingly) ignoring the path to true life; he is the one who builds his house on sand, not rock (Mt 7: 24-25).  Jesus paints a picture of a man who is not successful… for all his wealth, he doesn’t enjoy his life.  Here is someone the world would probably regard as a great success, a role model for all who wish to “make it” in the world.  We live in a society which, like the fool, has largely forgotten the Lord their God! The fool in his heart says, “There is no God!” (Ps 53:1)

 

He is a fool because he has forgotten he is utterly dependent upon God. The pandemic reminded me of this, more than anything else. The fool says precisely what Moses warned the people not to say:”…my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me…” A fool fails to acknowledge God’s grace as the source of it. The fool is ungrateful and presumptuous.  The greedy man is self-sufficient. His confidence was in his many barns full of produce, not in God’s care. How often the man speaks of himself!  He even speaks to himself! What a lonely man he is. There is no conversation with God, no prayer for guidance as to what do with his surplus. The irony is, there is no self without God.

 

There is no self without others, either. He asks himself, “What shall I do?” He proudly declares, “This is what I will do.” He does not ask, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” The rich man is a fool because he had also forgotten that his wealth was completely dependent on others.  He did not plant the seed himself – neither would he be able to build the bigger barns to store that grain without the help of others. 

 

How clear these notions are becoming to us in the west at present! The fruit on our table has been picked. It had to be distributed. Only now, in days of shortage or concerns about shortage, do we (even) think of thanking the faceless providers of our food and fuel. Even our “smart devices” contain metals dug out of the ground by black children who are paid an absolute pittance.

Only now, in spite of the warnings of God and humankind, is it dawning on us that we depend on little creatures and little people. Every animal of the forest and the cattle on a thousand hills are mine, says the Lord! (Ps 50). Break the chains that God has created in his wisdom…then all we are is fools!

 

God calls him a fool because, in his change of circumstances, he has forgotten what is really important.  He looks as though he is living the “good life” but (quite simply) he has forgotten God. He is looking forward to eating, drinking and making merry (in his retirement) but he is living no kind of life at all.  The things he treasures are like food that will perish…

 

The problem is not money (by itself) but forgetfulness.  Leaving God out of our lives is the great danger. Ignoring that God has blessed some of us with plenty in order that we can bless others who have less. That was always God’s call to his people: not to plough right to the edge of the field at harvest time, not to pick every grape and consume it for ourselves, but to give (gladly) to others and, in so doing, to be generous towards God…

 

The fool becomes less fearful of God, less worshipful, less thankful – perhaps unwittingly at first. In the end he overlooks God and his fellow human beings altogether.  It is always part of our worship to be generous to others and so to God. We have so much, much more than we need.  In this land we have an abundance of food and things, but the more we have the more we seem to need.  We don’t just want daily bread. We want to hoard it, keep it and not share it – and still we’re not filled!! Still we’re not happy…

 

Money comes between brothers; families won’t speak to one other because they are at war over possessions or money that belonged to their parents. Money and things are the last things to go! We cannot talk civilly about money, even in our church fellowships… 

 

James, the brother of Jesus warned about the folly of leaving God out of our plans:

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapour that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin. (James 4: 13-17)

 

This man made plans without reference to God and was only counting on what he was capable of doing. He is wise in his own eyes (Proverbs 15:15). Our greedy man is his “own lord”. God calls him a fool.  With no guarantee that his goods would last, his barns could have been hit by lightning and burned to the ground before morning. Thieves or an invading army could have taken it all from him. Pests could have eaten and polluted his storehouses. Nothing in this life is guaranteed except death (and, perhaps, taxes!).  

 

Making plans without God – foolish, and there can be dire consequences.

So, Jesus rightly called him a "fool" -- that very night his life was required of him -- he had lived only for the material and had not been "rich toward God". This man had forgotten he had a soul… and (moreover) that God created and owned that too! He had left God out of the picture. That very night, the owner of that soul would ask for it back… Jesus says to the man – worrying about wealth, worrying about his future – ‘you’re not in control of today, let alone tomorrow!’

 

“Lord, help us to let go of any sense that we are in control of our destiny. We hand back to you all that is yours, anyway…our plans…that you may bless them or alter them, as you will. Speak to our fearful hearts, your words of comfort…that we need not fear tomorrow or any changes to our circumstances…"For I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you - plans to give you hope and a future" (29:11).

Help us be generous in our giving to you, as to others. As we look forward, we do so thankfully, in the knowledge that you have never failed to provide for us; that you have never forsaken us, nor ever will. You have provided bread for the body for the day and strength for the spirit; we know that, in Jesus Christ, we have bread that never spoils…forgiveness and life in all its fullness…if we would receive it with faith. Grant us wisdom. At this Harvest Time we remember our great, unchangeable God “who did spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” In Jesus’ Name!

MFR 17/10/21

 

 

 

 

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