I was preparing to move, you see, to "downsize.” My last child had just left for college, and I was suddenly an empty nester. Unfortunately, my possessions, like my waistline, had somehow expanded over the last twenty years. All this stuff didn’t look so overwhelming when tucked away in closets and cabinets, but now, brought out into the open, it was more than I could handle.
Yet, deep down, I still wanted to keep it all. “I can’t give away my grandmother’s good china,” I thought—“even if I do have plenty of other sets." I looked over at the boxes of family photos and papers. "I can't throw these away--even if they are crumbling and faded. Oh, and here are the piles of cute books and toys that my sweet babies loved so much. Maybe I could rent a storage room or two?” I reasoned with myself.
How easy it is to accumulate more and more things, and how hard it is to let go of them. I've moved several times in my life now, and each time, I'm bowled over by the sheer amount of stuff that has mysteriously sprouted in my closets since the last move. I can certainly identify with the rich "fool" in Jesus’ parable. He's not a bad guy. The text doesn’t say that he gained his wealth dishonestly. It doesn’t say that he refuses to tithe to the Temple or to let widows and orphans glean from his fields. It just says that he's blessed with an abundance of wealth, and he feels good about hanging onto it. He's even a religious man who knows his bible by heart: He quotes a bit of wisdom from the book of Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing better for a man under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be happy, and this will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life.” What can be wrong with a little bit of hard-earned happiness, after all? Right?
Like me, Jesus' “rich fool” isn't a bad guy, but he is a foolish one. He's counting on finding lasting happiness from the wrong kind of treasure. He has forgotten, as we all like to forget, that neither our fleshly bodies, nor the earthly treasures that we value so highly, nor the dreams that we spin for ourselves, will last forever. Most of us know, in our rational minds, that we “can’t take it with us.” And yet, we drool over the latest tech gadget or piece of jewelry that we see advertised, even when we know that we don’t really need any of it. You see, our gnawing desire for more and more things isn't really a rational decision. It's a reaction born of anxiety. The acquisition of things is a kind of drug for filling up the empty places in our souls. It's a drug that numbs the quiet dread that we don't have enough, that we are not enough.
It's therefore not surprising that the parable of the rich fool in Luke is found in the middle of Jesus’ teachings on anxiety. Right before today’s Gospel, Jesus preaches about the care that God lavishes even on ordinary little sparrows. Right after today’s parable, Jesus again reassures us, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.” But we do worry. Who among us isn't worrying right now about inflation, about recession, about retirement accounts, about the church budget? “If we just get a little more,” we reason, “then we can relax, then we will have enough and won’t have to worry anymore.”
We're lying to ourselves, though. When it comes to amassing possessions, there's never an end to the worry. “Things” only add to our worries: we worry that our things will be stolen, that they will be destroyed in a flood or a fire. As we accumulate possessions, we worry that we need a bigger space to store them in, and then we worry about how to pay for that space. Then perhaps we worry that we're spending too much money on air-conditioning or heating for that bigger space, then we worry about the climate crisis that our energy use is causing. We even worry about the dangers to the environment caused by the things that we do decide throw away. And yet, it's rare that we summon the courage to break the cycle.
Jesus isn't trying to load us down with more worry in this parable, though. Jesus is offering to make us free. He wants to give us treasure that leads to life, in place of the treasure that is inevitably swallowed up by death. “Do not be afraid, little flock,” he says to us tenderly in verse 32, “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 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.”
What is this divine treasure? The treasure that Jesus offers us is more than just detachment from the world of things. To be free of the anxiety that traps us in covetousness and competition, we must put not just our “things” but ourselves in God’s hands. To be rich toward God, we must be not just frugal, but we must love. The treasure that Jesus offers us is Love—God’s own out-pouring, self-giving Love. The kind of love that God shows us human beings in today’s beautiful words from Hosea, the love that is more powerful than judgment. It's the never-ending love of a Parent for her child. It's the love that brings God to pour out God's life for us on the Cross. Here at God's Table, we find God's Love in a tiny pinch of bread and a small sip of wine. And yet, God's food is always enough, isn't it? When we consume Christ's Body and Blood, we join together in Christ's death and in Christ's life. In Christ, there are no more boundaries between "mine" and "yours."[1] We are one in the grace-filled Love of God. Each of us is always enough.
When I read today's parable, I couldn't help but think of the founding members of St. Ambrose. Far from being fools, they must have been an unusually courageous and determined lot. They left a flourishing downtown parish to form a totally different kind of faith community. They wanted to be a community without a building that would weigh them down with costs and cares; a community without the burden of paying weekday clergy; a community not afraid to talk about money in their mission statement; a community that pledged to give half of all income dollars to serve the needs of others. Admittedly, this ideal didn't last long, as growth and church habits called for "bigger and better barns." But it makes me wonder what Jesus is asking our community now.
What would we do if God came to us here today and announced: “This very night your life is being demanded of you,” just like he said in Jesus' parable? What would we decide to change about our individual financial lives—and about our life as a parish community? I'm not declaring it to be God's will that you quit paying my salary or sell the building or go home and give away your 401K to the poor. But I am saying that we might want to reflect on Jesus' challenge. In these angst-filled days, how much is truly enough for a follower of Christ? What burdensome barns does God hope we can leave behind? What would free us for love, for freedom, for rejoicing in the Life that never dies?[2]
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