Being Rich Toward God...

Luke 12:13-21

The parable Jesus offers now is surely about an individual and choices he has made. And yet, I have found myself thinking instead about the choices we make collectively as God's people about our 'barns' and all they hold. About what matters and what doesn't. About what it means for us together to be 'rich toward God.'  Yes, certainly the words of Jesus now are worth sitting with a good long while as we consider our priorities in our own individual lives and in the lives of our families. And yet, this time through I find myself thinking about lives together as congregations.

And so it is that the memory I share today is an old one.

I was a young adult, working with the youth at my home congregation in that season between graduating from college and starting seminary. Now mind you, youth ministry was not then and is not now God's best gift to me, but it was a good and needed balance to my front desk job at a local hotel before I headed off to St. Paul and the rigors of "Summer Greek." But that is for another reflection.

If I am remembering right, I had coached the high school youth through some kind of worship experience where they dressed up as clowns --- complete with clown white make up and grease paint. (This was at least familiar to me.) We had been in the nave for this experience. The carpet around the altar was white. And as you can well imagine, by the end of our sharing, at least one spot on that carpet was not as white as it had been only hours before.

This is what stays with me now: the sight of my normally dignified and calm pastor on his knees frantically trying to get red grease paint to let go of its hold on that formerly pristine white carpet --- all the while mumbling the name of the church custodian almost under his breath. But not quite. Not quite under his breath that is.

This came to mind this week as I settled into the familiar words of our Gospel lesson and its constantly needed message that bigger barns and all they promise to hold will not save us. This came to mind as I considered the lesson Jesus offers to me and to those I serve, individually and collectively as a congregation. Oh yes, this unsettling memory came to mind as from time to time I recognize myself in my old pastor now --- caught up in the anxiety of others' anxiety about protecting and preserving our 'barns.'

It should be an easy case to make in churches, of course, for all that we are about is not finally about the 'barns or what those barns contain.' And yet, who among us has not gotten caught in the battle about preserving what finally doesn't matter at the expense of what does?

Indeed, in the place where I serve we are blessed with a profoundly beautiful 'barn.' This very summer, in fact, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the building itself. (The congregation itself is, in fact, much older.) We have been fortunate that previous generations have kept it up well and it is, to be sure, a beautiful place to worship with ample room for most any gathering you can imagine. And yet, you who serve in old buildings know the struggle well:

• The cost of maintaining old 'barns' too often precludes us from being about meaningful mission. 
• The anxiety associated with keeping those 'barns' pristine too often keeps us from welcoming into our holy 'barns' those who would perhaps benefit the most from the gifts we are called to share.

It is not easy balance, this one and I, for one, don't think the struggle will ever fully go away: perhaps not until 'our very lives are demanded of us.' No, in fact, the tension that is illustrated in Jesus' parable for us now is one before us and within us every day, in our own lives and in our life together as God's people:

Take a moment to think this through with me:

• What is the balance between 'tending the barn' and letting it be used for mission and ministry? 
• Doesn't it matter that the carpets are clean, the roof is not leaking, the garbage is properly disposed of, the altar rail is dusted?
•  And does it really finally matter that there is clown make up on the carpet around the altar? Does it?

I do know this. My heart still aches to remember my old pastor who gave me many a positive example of what it means to serve God and God's people well -- kneeling on the floor anxiously trying to remove that stain from that white carpet. My heart aches, too, when I recognize that same kind of anxiety in myself. For nothing about it, then or now, boasts of 'richness towards God' which is where Jesus' words finally point us now.

Oh yes, Jesus' story of one rich man compels us to examine ourselves, our congregations, our lives and our life together, and while I don't imagine that worry about 'having enough' in this life will ever fully leave us, if we could but allow ourselves to be shaped by the question of what it means to be 'rich toward God' in our own lives and in our life together, perhaps our 'wealth' might just begin to accrue where it really matters.

What do you think?

•  I have chosen to consider here how the 'barn' itself may just be a parallel for all the 'barn holds' --- at least for many of our congregations. Is this a logical path to take? Why or why not?
• In your experience, what does it mean to be 'rich toward God?' How does that contrast with our anxiety which has us 'building bigger barns' or just protecting the barns we already have?
• Might it be enough to start by simply asking the question about what it means to be 'rich toward God?' How might the right question asked faithfully and often begin to change our values and priorities?
• What might it look like in your own life or in your life together with your congregation --- at a council meeting, a finance committee meeting, a Sunday School Class --- to ask the question of what it means to be 'rich toward God?' And how do you see yourself leading others past the blank stare which is typically our response to such a question never pondered before? How might this very important conversation change everything?
• Are there other ways in which we as leaders put our energies into matters which do not lend towards 'richness toward God?' How are you being called to reconsider your priorities in your life and ministry these days?

The Rich Man and Me

Luke 12:13-21

The perspective offered in this week's Gospel lesson is one that's always hard earned and too often, I'm afraid, comes to us late. I, at least, like the poor rich man in the story Jesus offers now, normally don't hold it. I'm still holding on, saving up, thinking I have forever. At some level, I know better, I do, but that hasn't necessarily translated into a daily awareness. Some time ago now I can remember spending the day with an old friend. She had recently been diagnosed with a rare physical condition. It sounded like cancer although they weren't calling it that. Unfortunately, her diagnosis had come late and by now it had really taken hold of her. The truth of this was hanging silent between us. Looking out the passenger side car window, out of the blue she said, 'I only wish I hadn't worried so much about money." It was true, she had worried a lot about her finances, I knew that. I didn't push it further though, for frankly I could think of nothing to say, although a kind question might have helped her to work it out more deeply. Indeed, these many years after her funeral I wish I had said something more. To do so, however, would have been to acknowledge the weight of the loss we both were bearing then and I wasn't yet ready. Instead I nodded and kept driving.

As I reflected on these words this week, I was sitting on an airplane flying home to Chicago from Jackson Hole. I had spent the last several days on retreat at Yellowstone. They were good and rich days, whose learnings I will share on another day. It was as I was driving south out of the park on Thursday afternoon that I found I was struck, once more, by the utter beauty of it all, of course -- as much as I could take in for I was driving alone. For all the raw beauty of it though, from time to time I couldn't help but notice the not so beautiful stark stands of trees, stripped bare by fire in 1988. I'm told the fire burned so hot at times it stripped the leaves and the life from the trees and left the bare trunks standing before it moved on. In some places you can see new, smaller trees growing up to replace them.

It's the natural order of things, of course, but 1988 was twenty-five summers ago! It was the year I was ordained a pastor and trust me, that seems like a long time ago when I measure the learning and the losses, the hopes realized and the dreams I alone have abandoned in that time. Only, twenty-five seemed like forever looking forward. Looking back, I get a little of God’s perspective on it all as it seems like just yesterday. And yet while I still recognize the young woman in the photographs from that summer I often feel I am not the same person at all.

Well, I was on a schedule on Thursday, trying to get out of the park before sunset, but still I took a

moment to pull off at one point to take a picture. I stepped off the road for just a minute into the midst of the bare trees and the charred limbs lying on the ground, these stark reminders of loss and change. And then I saw the flowers --- beautiful tiny yellow and purple flowers growing up in the midst of it. Life is returning to that bare landscape. In God’s time, life is returning. I offer this image now because twenty-five years seems like a long time. In God's eye, however, it is just the blink of an eye. My friend looked back on her life and realized the same. It had gone quickly and at least in some ways she regretted not living it as fully as she could have.

And so I am grateful that from time to time God wakes me up and I think to pull the car to the side of a winding road to notice the flowers growing up from the charred landscape. Somehow this helps me remember that God holds this all, that God holds us all. Even those things I worry too much about which hold no ultimate meaning or power. I may never fully hold the perspective this week's Gospel means for me to carry. Even now, hearing the story once more I find it hard to believe this all will end --- that one day, too, probably before I know it, my own ‘life will be demanded of me.’ And so I do believe the story Jesus offers now is one meant not only as judgment but also as hope. And if we hear it as judgment, well, I would guess we are hearing it rightly --- but if we are hearing it at all, that means there is still time for new life, for new ways, for new flowers to emerge from the burning away what was. Indeed, I expect Jesus tells this story to this who can still hear hime for that purpose solely. Jesus would burn away my old expectations. Jesus would turn into a heap of charred limbs and logs my life where I think I’m in charge of it all and where I worry about that which finally doesn’t matter. Oh yes, if I hear this as judgment, I know it is meant as a gift of hope I desperately need to wake me up and bring things into proper focus. To remember what matters most even now. An old friend in her dying regret spoke to me of this And somehow, small as they are, flowers growing up out of a long charred landscape, speak to me of this as well. Time goes quickly. But it is not yet too late…

• Do you relate to the rich man in the story Jesus offers now?  Why or why not?
• In your life experience, what brings this story home to you?
• Do you hear Jesus' story as judment or hope or both?