How Big is Your Barn? | July 31, 2022 | Hillhurst United Church
This Sunday, Andria Irwin preaches on the Parable of the Rich Fool in a sermon called "How Big is Your Barn?" about what it means to be truly rich.
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Hillhurst United Church
“How Big Is Your Barn?”
Luke 12: 13-21
July 31, 2022
A few weeks ago now I did an interment at Queen’s Park Cemetery for a well-loved man. And the family had asked if, following the service, I could join them privately to add some items to the grave site along with his ashes. As we gathered around the site where he was being laid to rest I asked each of them to say a few words about what they were sending with him as he began this next part of the journey. They added a worn baseball hat — his favorite sport and family activity. They added a used chew toy — his dog’s. And they added a pair of broken sandals — a pair he would never get rid of despite the families pleading. We blessed each of these items, and the memories they held, and we prayed for him to know the eternal love that was travelling with him.
I wonder — and this is not a rhetorical question, you can turn to your neighbour — I wonder at the end of your earthly days what you would choose to take with you, if you could?
I suspect, for most of you, the things you mentioned (if things at all) had little to no monetary value. Like the hat and toy and shoes. These are not things that mattered per say, but symbols of what mattered. Symbols of joy and loyalty and family and love and accomplishment and adventure.
The parable we heard Suzanne read today is often lovingly referred to as “the parable of the rich fool.” And before you think this is a place where we point fingers out from the pulpit like [this] I want you to know that once, when I took a “what financial archetype are you?” quiz my result was the fool. We are always in this together and Amen for that.
Let us Pray: Generous God, meet us in these words this day that they might shape our tomorrow. Let us sense your grace and compassion. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
I have a habit of collecting what I lovingly call “street poetry” when I’m out on my daily walks with Eugene (my dog). If you were to see me stoop down and pick something up you would probably call it garbage, because that’s what it is. Something someone has discarded in the wind. But I collect anything that has human handwriting on it. Sometimes I pick up medical prescriptions or grocery lists, but sometimes they are much more personal. Diary entries. Confessions. Notes between friends. This week I saw a yellow lined post-it out of the corner of my eye and it turned out to be a letter from a gentleman to his mother asking if he could come home.
It is a series of apologies for not realizing what he had when he had it. A heart wrenching confession of taking the gift of his mother’s love and friendship and presence for granted.
I live close to the drop-in centre downtown and these stories are not unusual to come across in my neighbourhood. Heartbreaking stories of what we are left without when our lives get away from us. Rarely do these stories center around money, although to the stranger’s eye that is what the unhoused population is missing. Instead, they center around the loss of things like community, family, comfort, security, love. Not riches as the man in our parable talks of, but the riches of a life worth living.
What’s interesting in our passage today is that Jesus tells this parable not only to the rich man who posed the question, but to the crowd of others who very likely had little. Which means, whether you’re a financial fool or a frugal one, there is a word for you here today. We are not talking about financial freedom this morning, but a freedom of our faith. What does it mean to serve and love with abandon? What does an embarrassment of riches look like in the Kingdom of God, here and now? How can we honour God with the resources we have? How can we feel blessed when those resources are lacking? What does a resource of faith look like? This is the parable of the rich fool. And it asks you one question: how big is your barn?
The parable begins “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself ‘what should I do? For I have no place to store my crops.’”
Notice, immediately, where the blessings are coming from. The parable does not say “the man toiled day and night, planting and tending to the ground and hence the land produced abundantly.’ It says “the land of the man produced abundantly.” The man, for all the scripture says, did nothing. I’ll tell you what he does do though … he immediately turns the abundance into a problem.
We do this with our blessings, don’t we? Either the anxiety comes forth in us: “it’s too good to be true,” “just waiting for the other shoe to drop,” “I didn’t deserve this, it must not have been meant for me.” Or we get greedy: How do I secure this moment of unexpected happiness in receiving? How can I make sure there’s room for even more? How can I protect what’s mine? Yeah this is good, but more would be better.
Some of us are ignoring our blessings entirely and some of us — again I’m not pointing fingers here, I used us not you — but some of us have been stockpiling what we did not earn.
Dorothee Soelle, an activist, mystic and liberation theologian writes that “possession occupies those who possess and contradicts the ideal of having life […] the desire to possess is marked by an unceasingly growing, voracious element that manifests itself in the simple desire to have more.”
Let us heed this warning: if we don’t want to become spiritually destitute we need to start singing praises instead of seeing problems. It is a lot easier to say thank you than it is to say please. When you start to give credit to the creator for the abundance you are blessed with, you start seeing even more of it. And you will realize that the gifts of God are not so fragile. You cannot outrun them, you cannot outspend them, you cannot undeserve them. When it’s about us, we worry. When it’s about God we rejoice.
Our parable continues with the man’s solution. “I know, I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all of my grain and my goods. And I can relax for many years and be merry.”
Again, I ask you, how big is your barn? I know some of you feel itchy in your seats right now. Me too. And if you don’t, remember Jesus was preaching to the have nots as well. This is not a prosperity gospel passage, we don’t do that here. Good Christian folk, right?
But time and time again history tells us that we have shown gratitude for the abundance of God’s blessings by asking for “more.” “Good Christians” charged people to get into heaven and then built cathedrals out of gold. “Good Christians” thought more land would make them greater and took land that wasn’t theirs to sow seeds on. “Good Christians” thought taking children away from their families would mean more hallelujahs.
Reality check: it didn’t.
The Pope flew to Edmonton this week on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” to confess that we got it wrong. That maybe building a bigger barn wasn’t how to share the love of God after all. He said, “our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” And whether you accept the apology as genuine or not, he goes on to say this (please watch):
[Video played showing this part of the speech] To remember, brothers and sisters, you have lived on these lands for thousands of years, following ways of life that respect the Earth, which you received as a legacy from past generations and are keeping for those yet to come. You have treated it as a gift of the Creator to be shared with others and to be cherished in harmony with all that exists, in profound fellowship with all living beings.
In this way, you learned to foster a sense of family and community, and to build solid bonds between generations, honouring your elders and caring for your little ones. A treasury of sound customs and teachings, centred on concern for others, truthfulness, courage and respect, humility, honesty and practical wisdom.
Notice what he said about how our indigenous siblings treated the land: “you have treated it as a gift of the creator to be shared with others.” We do not need a bigger barn if we are willing to let the overflow of our abundance serve God’s vision for the world. If we allow it to serve our neighbours.
It is worth noting that the concept of building ancient warehouses to stockpile goods in is absolutely biblical. It is what Joseph (the one with the fancy coat) told Pharaoh to do in the face of Egypt’s famine. Saving for future needs is appropriate stewardship of God’s gifts, as is enjoying them, that is not why the man in this parable reeks of greed. We smell greed because that is where the stewardship stops.
When we receive abundance that is uncomfortable to hold, perhaps it is a sign that God has given us enough to share. This kind of sharing is happening all around us. Some of you have opened up your literal homes to strangers, refugees from across the world. You have fed children who were not your own. You have dropped everything — important things — to go to those in need. We see medical professionals offering reproductive options to our neighbours in the south. We see the tears of the indigenous people and hear prayers still for the mending of relationships. You march beside those with less privilege than you, putting yourself in harm’s way to reduce harm to our siblings in the LGBTQ2+ community or the BIPOC community. This is what it means to be rich. To have so much that you can give.
Our parable concludes with God saying to the man “you fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” And Jesus turns to the crowd and says “so it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” Richness in God is not possessing some holiness or piety, it is living the life God imagined for us; one of love and joy and shared sorrow, of support and connection. Of adventure, the kind that comes from enjoying what God has surrounded us with. A life not of having, but of holding.
There is a 17th-century haiku I have always loved written by Mizuta Masahide that simply says:
Barn’s burnt down
Now I can see the moon
The question in this parable for us is not how will you spend your money? It is how will you spend your life? Will you live poorly, even when you are rich? Or will you live richly, even when you are poor?
We are each rich; in the name of Christ may we open ourselves up to show it.
Amen.
Blessing
Friends leave this place may we do so in a spirit of receiving. May we receive life, in all its beauty. May we receive forgiveness, in all its discomfort. May we receive abundance, in all its forms. And may we share it through the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the miraculous working of the wild and Holy Spirit. Go in Peace.