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"Reflections"
Pr. David Hewitt - August 4 & 5, 2007
Last week, Pastor Paul preached on the text in Luke in which the disciples ask Jesus how to pray, and Jesus, after teaching them the Lord’s Prayer, goes on about the importance of persistence, daily persistence, in praying to God. Pastor Paul went on to say that that persistence is not the means by which we wear God down, slowly but surely, so that He will – reluctantly do what we want – NO; But rather that a person with a persistent prayer life is a person who has opened him- or herself up for God to change them into the person they can be.
Now, with that in mind, let’s recall our Gospel reading for today, from Luke, chapter 12. There we have someone who is doing something like praying – because, remember, praying is having a conversation with God. This man comes up to Jesus and says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Now, look at this fellow for a second. What gall he has, coming up to Jesus – God in the flesh – and demanding that Jesus settle a difficult family dispute. Jesus is quick to point out that this man is being awfully presumptuous: “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” But we do that in prayer, sometimes, don’t we? We say, “God, take care of this situation that’s bothering me – right now,” when we should be saying, “God, this situation is bothering me…do what you feel is best, and mold and shape me, by Your Holy Spirit, so that I do my part here in the most loving way possible.”
But why is it that this man is so demanding? Jesus knows, and, as He tells the crowd what this man’s problem is, Jesus knows that this fellow is over-hearing. Christ says, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” And then Jesus goes on to tell the crowd – and us – an important story about how a rich person can mess up his or her life, to the point where God calls that person, “A fool.”
By the way, since we’re about to talk about “rich people,” I wonder, how many rich people do we have here today – raise your hands? [Pr. David comments, depending on the response, then:] You know, it’s funny, the measure of the spectrum of the very rich – in the billions upon billions, to the very poor – which is most of the people in this world – is wider now than it ever has been. We can look at a few people with their billions and say, “You know, I’m not rich,” but if we look at the larger picture…when we realize that we are among the small percentage of people who have cars and homes and well-paying jobs, and that many of us have significant savings and medical insurance and pension plans…and that we have disposable income to spend every month on “fun” and pleasurable things to do, even things like vacations and movies and restaurants and tickets to the big sporting events…well, then, we realize that we are rich. We are like this man, materially-speaking. We are in the danger zone that he finds himself in.
Jesus gives us a big hint as to where He is going with this story right at the beginning. He says, “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.” The land produced abundantly – not the man himself. But the landowner – and from the Greek word for “land” we knows he’s a BIG landowner – gives himself ALL the credit. This great harvest is a great harvest of MY crops, MY grain, and MY goods, and, he asks himself, what should I do? I, he says, I , I, I need to pull down MY barns and put up larger versions of MY barns, and then I can tell MY soul to relax…to eat, drink and be happy. 15 out of the 60 words that he speaks in this story are “I, me, my,” and the like. And he never talks about anyone else—no other human being, not even God. Here he is, with this big decision, this turning point in his life, and all he can do is what the literal Greek renders as “thinking within himself” (Lk. 12:17) God couldn’t help him, because he never turned to God to listen to His advice and cousel.
Now this man is a pretty easy target here in church. He’s pretty easy to make fun of, on a Sunday morning—but not on Monday, or Wednesday, or Friday! On THOSE days, we are back in the rat race. Headlines scream at us constantly – have you saved enough for retirement? Do you have enough medical insurance? Why don’t you have an I-Phone? Have you saved enough for your kids’ college education? Why aren’t you spending enough to keep the economy going? Look at those guys over there – they must be doing something right – because they make a lot more money than most people do. That’s the REAL world that we live in – the rich fool’s world – where you ARE a fool if you’re NOT a fool like HIM. In this world, you are a called a fool if you’re not thinking and planning and earning and spending and investing like you’re told to, like you’re SUPPOSED to do: “Look out for Number One.”
I found out how pervasive this view is in our culture in Catechism class one day last spring. We were looking at the book of James, where James makes the charge that some Christians favor rich people over poor people…and I was asking, “Why do we look up to rich people?” and some of the kids said, “Because they work harder than we do.” And I said, “Oh really? So, just because you’re taking in more money, you must be working harder?” And some kids said, “Yup – of course” – looking at me like I was the fool. And I said, “Well, Mother Teresa and Jesus, they might disagree with you.” And I went on to tell the youth about what I’d just read in the newspaper. A study had been done that showed that when surrounded by symbols of money, college students who were tested said they would give less money than others who tested without money symbols around them. “Money changes people’s motivations,” concluded one doctor. We know that the richer people are, the lower percentage of money they give to others. People with money have convinced themselves that they have earned their fortune, and that others should have to earn any money they get. We are tempted to let our prosperity change our view of reality…money, Jesus once said, is so powerful, it’s like a god…Jesus even gave the god of money a name: “Mammon.”
You see, our selfish souls don’t want to focus on how others helped us get where we are – that would ruin the big self-image we’ve built up. We don’t want to know how others helped us become rich, or prosperous with many possessions, or beautiful, or popular, or intelligent, or famous, or comfortable. The rich landowner refused to focus on the truth that he was very fortunate to own a great piece of land that maybe he inherited and that had just the right combination of God-given weather that year – the right amount of rain and sun to bring about a bumper crop. He’d rather give himself all the credit. He’d rather build bigger barns so that everyone else could see how much he owned. He’d rather spend on his own luxury relaxation than help others. He knew others would look up to him because of his “conspicuous consumption”—something Tevye once sung about in “Fiddler on the Roof,” when he sang, “If I Were a Rich Man”:
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise.
"If you please, Reb Tevye..."
"Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know!
Let’s take out that mirror again – the one each of you received when you came to worship today. Here, I’ve got mine. Now, in a sense, everyone has a mirror in their lives – and the key question is, what do we do with it? What’s a mirror for? Now, if you’re like most people, you’d say, “Simple. We have mirrors to look at ourselves…to see my reflection…to see what I look like.”
And, in a spiritual sense, you’d be wrong. Spiritually, here’s what God has to say about mirrors. In our lesson today – 2nd Corinthians – we read this: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Cor. 3:18) God says here that He wants us to be transformed in our lives – and we are transformed in our lives NOT by how we reflect ourselves, but rather our lives are transformed by HOW WE REFLECT HIM…how we reflect God, in all that we say, and in all that we do.
That’s a different way to use a mirror, isn’t it? -- Holding your mirror on someone or something else, instead of on yourself. The rich landowner always kept the mirror of his soul on himself. He never talked to or listened to God. He never thought of others. Not only was he selfish; he sought to keep the focus of others on himself, as well…that they would notice how rich he was…how much stuff he had…letting others know that he had “made it.”
But God was the One who “made it”: “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away” – and the Lord took “it” away from him that very night. Most of all, God took away the man’s mirror – God took away from him that precious opportunity all our souls have, to reflect, in what we say and what we do, upon God, and in so doing we get to reveal to others the image of these key truths…that God exists, that He is a God that loves and wants to save all people, that He is a God who gives all the good that is in the world, and that it is our only purpose in life to do God’s will.
That is what Jesus means when He calls upon us all today to be “rich toward God.” It’s seeking to be a little mirror—just as Jesus Himself was the big mirror that reflected the love of God onto all of humanity. He is the Son of God – the Son who died on the cross for you and me – The Son/Sun who beamed the blinding light of truth on how deep and how wide God’s love really is.
You know, a mirror is most powerful when it is reflecting light. You can start a fire by taking a mirror and reflecting, not your own image, but the image of the bright sun onto some kindling wood. Let us, in our lives, reflect the bright sun – the Son of God – onto others every day. Now that’s real power. But it is not easy to do. It requires giving up on our deep obsession with our own image in the mirror – “What do people think of me? What do I think of myself? Have I made it? Am I comfortable?” It’s refusing to ask those devilish questions anymore…it’s refusing to allow the world to convince you to put the focus on yourself, and on your image…it’s allowing God, through daily prayer and daily exposure to God’s Holy Word, to transform your life…it’s allowing the Spirit to direct that mirror off yourself, so you can be free to do good for God, and for others. It’s realizing that my life is not about me, but about what God can do through me. And it’s realizing that my whole life, and everyone else’s whole life…what little life here on earth we have left…is a “God thing.”
So, take this little mirror, and keep it, if you wish, in your pocket or your purse, to remind yourself which reflection is most important in your life. Amen!
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