Being rich towards God
Luke 12: 13-21 Proper 13
1 August 2010
Every once in a while, you hear people say that they just don’t understand the Bible. It is all too complicated, too ancient, too obscure. But a person cannot really say that about our Gospel lesson this morning. There is a different problem with this saying of Jesus: it is too clear, too straightforward, too contemporary. There is nothing doubtful or unintelligible about it. The problem is, we don’t believe him—or at least, we don’t want to. There is a very popular brand of Christianity spreading around the world now—the so-called ‘prosperity’ gospel—which sets itself in absolute contradiction to this part of Jesus’ teaching, as if, after all these years, Jesus himself has been proved wrong and that greed really is good, that having lots of money really is the most important thing in life.
Listen to his words again: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” The Jerusalem Bible has an interesting translation of that verse: “Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.” Do we agree with our Lord at this point? Our whole consumerist way of life is based on trying to find security through what we own, especially by owning more than we need. And, of course, we find that what we need has grown exponentially over the last several generations. How many times have you seen an advertisement for some company offering you what they call “financial security?” The underlying premise is that, if you have enough, then you will be secure. That seems reasonable—although the word “enough” still has to be defined. You remember what one of the old 19th century robber barons said? “Enough is just a little bit more.”
But are we made more secure by what we own? It is obvious that poor folks are insecure. They don’t have enough to live on today and probably will not tomorrow, either. So are the rich truly secure, then? Not according to the story of the rich farmer which Jesus told. “Fool,” God said to him. All this stuff you accumulated; tonight you die: who will get it then?
Jesus concludes: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” And what does it mean to be “rich in the sight of God?” Luke, sensibly enough, quotes Jesus again only a few verses farther on into the same chapter: “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So then, the only wealth that is safe is the wealth that is invested with God, which is generosity towards the poor. The only excuse for having a lot of money is the opportunity to give most of it away. If you have more than you need, then you must be seriously planning to divest yourself of the rest. To hold on to more than you need is to open yourself to the danger of avarice, greed. And as St Paul once said, avarice is a kind of idolatry and the love of wealth is the root of all evil.
I could go on and quote dozens of passages in the Bible about the care that God has for the poor. The Old Testament doesn’t seem to be quite so negative in its evaluation of wealth as the New Testament, although the prophets are very critical about how much of the wealth in their societies was accumulated by taking advantage of the poor—for example, our recent Old Testament lesson from Amos.
The danger that wealth poses is two-fold, I think. In the first place, nothing is so likely to displace God from one’s heart as a possessive, greedy spirit. In the second place, nothing is so likely to cause one to neglect his poor neighbor. So the threat of wealth is to both of the great commandments: loving God with the whole heart and the neighbor as oneself. That may be what Jesus was trying to tell the rich young man who came to him one day. Most of us probably think that Jesus treated him quite unfairly, when he told him to go and sell all he had, give it to the poor, and then come and follow him. Yet, he was being offered a position within the inner circle of Jesus. The other disciples had left everything to follow Jesus also, although in their case, it wasn’t so much. He cared more for being rich in this world than for being rich towards God. It is not an uncommon problem.
It would, of course, be easy to deflect this teaching away from ourselves and towards those whom we think of as being really rich: Warren Buffett, The Walton Family, or Bill Gates, for example. These people do have incredible money and some of them actually give substantial parts of it away—though probably not enough, by Jesus’ standards. But, of course, those with lots less money than they have are also called upon to renounce any idea that security comes through what they own and to make sure that they are generous in giving away what they don’t really need—and that they are fairly honest with themselves about what they do need.
There is a difficult issue here about what we really need. The things that Jesus had in mind were pretty basic: food, clothing, shelter. Our societies are much more complicated. In Plymouth you need a car to get to work—there is no public transportation. Do I need my Blackberry? That is a difficult question. How fast and often do I need to be in communication with people trying to contact me? Perhaps the question would be: am I willing to forego an upgrade if presented with a genuine need? On the other hand, how carefully am I looking for the needs of those who are truly my neighbors? There is a priest in Honduras, for example, who emails me once in a while to say he needs new tires for his truck—which he wears out in the dirt roads in the mountains there. Is he my neighbor? Are his tires more important than an upgrade to a new phone, a new program for my computer? There are no easy answers to this. Clergy, I find, are particularly addicted to the latest technology. A new iPad or a gift to Haiti relief?
There are other channels for our giving than the poor, of course. The Bible urges us to support God’s work in this world by giving to the Church, for example. But making sure that all of God’s creatures have enough to live on is the main direction in which our generosity ought to extend. God really does have a tremendous concern for the poor. In ancient times, there were a very few rich and the vast majority were poor. So it was through most of history. In some of the developed countries in the 20th century there was a move towards greater equity, but over the last generation, that has been reversed. Time and time again, the prophets say that if a society were functioning as it ought, there would be no truly poor—that is, desperate persons living in misery. These people are our neighbors, and we must love our neighbors as ourselves. Whether we ought to act on the basis of philanthropy or through taxation is a debateable point. Jesus says that it would be a lot easier for us if our hearts were not so wrapped up in accumulating more than we needed.
We could talk about the best way to help the poor, the reasons why there are so many, the reasons for the huge disparities of wealth in our world. Those are interesting and important conversations, if we are ever to truly tackle our social problems sensibly. But Jesus’ main point here deals with all sides of those conversations and requires the same virtuous character: generosity, giving alms, being rich in the sight of God. If we are to live like that, it will mean, of course, largely setting ourselves against the main tendency of our whole consumer culture, which depends on our desire for what we don’t need and lots of it, to keep the economy going. There has to be a better way than that!
In the translation of Eugene Peterson, Jesus said: “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”