Psalm 107: 1, 8-9 Give thanks to God, for God is good, and God’s mercy endures for ever. Let them give thanks to God for God’s mercy and the wonders God does for God’s children. For God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.
Introduction
If you’re familiar with the Enneagram of Personality—the third sacrament of the Western Protestant tradition, replacing the MBTI[1]—then you may be aware of the “vices” and “virtues” associated with each of the nine “types” or (how I learned to refer to them) “languages”. If you aren’t familiar, here they are:
Ones: Anger/Serenity
https://lesliehershberger.com/enneagram/enneagram-vices-and-virtues/
Twos: Pride/Humility
Threes: Deceit/Honesty
Fours: Envy/Equanimity
Fives: Avarice/Non-Attachment
Sixes: Fear/Faith
Sevens: Gluttony/Constancy
Eights: Lust (Excess)/Innocence (Newness)
Nines: Sloth (Self-forgetting)/Right Action[2]
While a discussion about the Enneagram is a good time, that’s not the topic of this sermon. So, what I want to bring your attention to is that I, according to the professional Enneagram test, am a very strong 5. Look at that list again…
Fives: Avarice/Non-Attachment
According to the Enneagram, my virtue is “non-attachment” meaning, I have the uncanny ability to observe and watch without my own personal investment. Ah, but my vice! Now that’s a fun one: avarice. This is from the latin: avaritia; meaning: greed, miserliness, stinginess, rapacity (which is just another juicy noun). So, this means that I can hoard, with the best of ‘em.
While most people associate “greed” with “money” it isn’t strictly limited to cash and its root-of-all-evil forms. For us 5s, avarice shows itself in the way we will acquire information (by reading, observing, data collection, watching, waiting) and then never, ever, ever sharing it. Ever. (Unless one has a dissertation deadline, then we will—BEGRUDGINGLY—share it; and we will complain the entire time especially as we didn’t have time to read that stack of books of quinary sources.) We even collect and save up our emotions (at least our outward expressions of emotions); yes, pray for our partners. I can save treats for myself for year…s.
So, looking at our gospel passage; I felt a bit dragged, the shadow of divine shade being thrown in my direction. What’s so wrong with storing up stuff? And sitting on it? Keeping it forever and ever? And ever?
Well, according to Jesus, Luke, and my daughter at three: sharing is caring.
Luke 12:13-21
And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Perceive and be on your guard [away] from all avarice because one’s life is not abounding out of possessions for them … And [the man] sad, ‘This I will do: I will pull down my storehouses and I will build great houses and I will bring together there all my grain and goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods being laid up into many years; you rest, eat, drink and feast.” But God said to him…[3]
Luke 12: 14, 18-20a
Luke tells us a man from the crowd demanded[4] Jesus settle a dispute about inheritance between him and his brother. I won’t vilify this man; Jesus regularly displayed great power, authority, wisdom, and justice; why not ask him to arbitrate the matter? [5] And Jesus’s response isn’t to condemn, but to beg off, uh, comrade, who appointed me judge and distributor between you?[6]Jesus isn’t here to meddle or be concerned about the finances between two brothers; this private realm of who gets what from dad isn’t the realm of the justice of God.[7] When Jesus responds the way he does, he distances himself between the justice of the kingdom of humanity and the justice of the reign of God.[8]
This distinction between kingdoms is why Jesus uses this moment as a teaching moment. In response to what seems like a basic and common-sense request for arbitration, Jesus opens up this teaching moment by warning the audience to perceive and be on your guard away from all avarice because one’s life is not abounding out of possessions for them. To the man demanding his part of the inheritance and to us, this correlation of what’s rightly mine to avarice feels extreme. It should feel extreme. Jesus is literally correlating this man’s withheld inheritance as greed because of the way inheritance functioned(/s?) in society. It was a means to keep wealth in one family and it advanced social standing, thus access to power and privilege.[9] Thus, understanding the conflict necessitates taking seriously all that Luke has told us thus far: the Good Samaritan, Mary and Martha with Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer, the Midnight Bread Ride… Sharing is caring.
Jesus continues with a parable. (The parables are always encounters with God; stories change us.) So, Jesus tells a story: A man, already quite wealthy, decides to tear down the structures he has to build bigger structures to store his grain and goods (perishables and non-perishables).[10] As he tells himself all is now well and he has enough and can just kick it, rest, and feast, God shows up. And rather than applaud this man’s problem solving and saving frugality, God calls this man a “Fool” (lit: without reason, perception) because one’s life isn’t secured in accumulating[11] and storing up material goods[12] but in God.[13] God asks the man, These things you collected up, when you die, whose will they be? Jesus concludes the parable with a summary: those who store up for themselves, are not rich in God.
Conclusion
There’s a distinction between what Joseph, the patriarch of Israel, did way back in Genesis and what this man did. Is God against big harvests and storing grain? No.[14] The orientation of the action matters. So, the distinction is located in the orientation of the person. Joseph stored up grain for people; this man stored up grain and goods for himself.[15] The man literally financially impacted the village(s/?) and the village people around him with this decision.[16] As long as he has his, nothing, he believes, can bother him; he was safe by his own hand and cunning. But he was dead in the midst of living.[17]
Being orientated toward both perishable and imperishable material goods, collecting them up, hoarding them in silos and safes, for himself, rendered this man not safe from calamity, but thrust into it. Hoarding these resources for himself, he put himself directly in harm’s way, because he forsook his neighbor, the very person who assisted him in his accumulation of wealth and the very person whom he is now depriving of vitality.[18] Truly, resting your hope in your saved-up resources isn’t wise, it’s foolish, because those things can’t bring life, only God can. [19]
Luke has been driving home the same message, week after week after week: do not orient toward that which brings death but that which brings life. This story, the gospel, isn’t about me and mine, it’s about you and yours. This is the orientation on the one encountered by God in the event of faith. From each of our perspectives, it’s always you and yours—it always has been. When we turn in, when we pull away, when we take for ourselves, when we make material goods our priority in order to save, secure, comfort ourselves, we turn from God because we’ve turned away from others. Even as Protestant as I am, even as firm as I am on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, by the power of the Holy Spirit alone, there is no way on this green earth, that this entire encounter with God is for me alone. If a Christian’s theology, philosophy, ethical posture, political theory, and economic practice is about me and what I (alone) can get and keep to myself, then I must ask: does that person follow the Christ?
When we pull apart from each other, when we turn in on ourselves, when the world orbits us alone, when we think we can capture and hold Jesus (and God) to our whims and fancies as best suits us, we render ourselves dead—living but not alive—isolated and alone. But. But when we hear our names called by Love, and we turn and see Love loving us by sharing theirself with us and loving others, we are brought into the fulness of life out of death, given resurrection now as we are swept up in the majestic, life-giving momentum of divine Love unleashed into our hearts, around our bodies, around each other yoking us together. Together we laugh, we live, we love, and as we love, we share: we share our joy, we share our sorrow, we share our need, we share our fill, we share our life, we share our space, our time, and energy… because, to quote Jesus, Luke, all the prophets of Israel, and 3yo Liza herself: sharing is caring.
Because Love loves and Love shares.
[1] Myers Briggs Type Indicator
[2] Taken from: https://lesliehershberger.com/enneagram/enneagram-vices-and-virtues/
[3] Translation mine unless otherwise noted
[4] Aorist Active Imperative even if addressed to a superior carries a command even if we add in the necessary gloss of hierarchy in terms of referential plea. See also Green, Green, Luke, 488. “He addresses Jesus as ‘teacher,’ acknowledging Jesus’ authority to render a decision in his case, but his is less a request, more a directive. He knows already the ruling he expects and needs only for Jesus to place on it his imprimatur.”
[5] Cardenal, Solentiname, 343. “‘The man saw that Jesus was just and that’s why he wants to set him up as a judge. But he didn’t know that Jesus’ justice was another kind of justice, revolutionary justice. Even now there are Christians who think that Christ’s justice is the justice of capitalism. The Chilean military junta says it’s restoring Christianity, because it’s restoring private property.’”
[6] Cardenal, Solentiname, 343. “LAUREANO: ‘He didn’t come to divide up wealth, to create capital.’”
[7] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 342. “WILLIAM: ‘He didn’t come to distribute the riches; it’s up to society to do that. And the sharing ought to be done among everybody, not just between two. In that sharing they asked Jesus to do, the rest were left out. They ask him to sanction private property, the inheritance laws, the status quo. He refuses, he hasn’t come for that. On the contrary, he’s come to destroy that social order.’”
[8] Justo L. Gonzalez Luke Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2010. 157. “Amid a crowd that is amazed at the teachings and deeds of Jesus, which are no less than signs of the kingdom of God, this man is concerned about his own wealth, and about how to deal with a brother who may be withholding what belongs to him. For him, Jesus is an opportunity to validate his claim to an inheritance. But Jesus will not be manipulated. Rather than taking sides with the man-or even against him-he challenges the very basis of his request. Even though he calls the man “friend,” the Parable that follows clearly shows him to be a fool.”
[9] Green, Luke, 488-489. “‘Greed’ can denote the hunger for advanced social standing as well as the insatiable desire for wealth, though in Luke’s world these two images are intricately related. This is because, in his world, wealth is one of the several important units of exchange that could be translated into advanced status honor. Greed was widely regarded as a form of depravity, both in Jewish literature and in the larger Greco-Roman world. In the present case, the intertwining of community standing and wealth is obvious, since landholders (the rank this younger brother seeks to join in his request for Jesus’ intervention) enjoyed advanced status both in the village economy presumed here and throughout the Empire.”
[10] Green, Luke, 490. “The extent of this man’s wealth is suggested not only by Luke’s initial characterization of him as ‘rich.’ and not only by his capacity to undertake a building program without the benefit of the sale of this year’s produce, but also by his need to build bigger barns both for his grain and for the rest of his ‘goods’ (v 18). Given the subsistence economy of the peasant population surrounding him, this need for increased personal storage space not directly related to his agricultural activity must have seemed odd in the extreme, if not utterly monstrous.”
[11] Gonzalez, Luke, 159. “He is a fool because he forgets that, as is often said today, ‘you can’t take it with you.’”
[12] Cardenal, Solentiname, 344. “I: ‘According to Jesus, it’s not just happiness; it’s life itself that doesn’t depend on the things one may have.’”
[13] Gonzalez, Luke, 160. “But the man is a fool also in a deeper sense. He is a fool because he acts as if there were no God. The words in Psalm 14:1 immediately come to mind: ‘Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God” they are corrupt, they do abominable deeds.’ The fools to whom the psalm refers are not modem-day atheists, people who with their words deny the existence of God. They are rather people who, while still part of Israel, act as if there were no God. They do not care what God desires or commands, and the result is that they do abominable deeds. The man in the parable is a fool not only because he thinks he can secure his own life, but also because he acts as if there were no God. Presumably he is part of the people of God, and he knows that in the Hebrew Scriptures God repeatedly commends those in need to the care of those who have resources. This man knows this, and yet ignores it. This is what makes him a fool like those in Psalm 14. As Jesus says, he is ready to store up treasures for himself, but is not rich toward God.”
[14] Cardenal, Solentiname, 346.
[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 159. “Specifically in the first story, that the man is concerned only about himself and his possessions is e abundantly clear by the constant repetition of ‘I’ and ‘my.’ It is as if there were nothing else in the world but this man and his possessions. His greatest concern is that he does not know what to do with an exceedingly abundant crop; and his only solution is to build bigger barns so he can hold more and be more secure-so that ‘my’ soul may ‘relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ The problem is that nothing of what he has not even his soul-is his. It will be claimed when he least expects it, and all his plans will come to naught.”
[16] Green, Luke, 490-491. “Jesus portrays the farmer as engaging in self-talk. Although this might seem perfectly natural in this setting, persons engaged in soliloquy are consistently portrayed negatively by Luke (cf. 2:35; 5:21-22; 6:8; 9:46-47) In this instance, given the high level of interconnectedness characteristic of the village economy, it is worth asking why this farmer lays out a course of action in isolation from others whose well-being is affected by this decision. Additionally, the content of the farmer’s self-talk echoes similarly self-damning language in Jewish literature.”
[17] Cardenal, Solentiname, 344. “TOMAS: ‘A selfish person is dead in the midst of life.’” “‘But Jesus speaks of the one that “piles up riches for himself.” He’s not against big harvests, he’s against piling them up just for yourself. Like that man did: to keep them and rest and enjoy himself the rest of his life.’”
[18] Green, Luke, 491. “This farmer has sought to secure himself and his future without reference to God. This is the force of the label given him by God, ‘fool,’ used in the LXX to signify a person who rebels against God or whose practices deny God—a usage that coheres with the representation of ‘greed’ (v 15) as a form of idolatry. He did not consider that his life was on loan from God. Failing to account for the will of God in his stratagems, he likewise failed to account for the peril to life constituted by an abundance of possessions (v 15) and for the responsibility that attends the possession of wealth. He thus appears as one of several exemplars of the wealthy over whom ‘woe’ is pronounced in the Gospel of Luke (cf. 6:24). Such persons are not simply those with possessions, but more particularly those whose dispositions are not toward the needs of those around them, whose possessions have become a source of security apart from God, and, thus, whose possessions deny them any claim to life. The worthlessness of the farmer’s machinations is well represented in God’s parting words: These possessions, whose will they be now?”
[19] Green, Luke, 489-490. “…it means that this farmer is cast as one who has fallen victim to the polarity between an existence oriented toward life and one oriented toward possessions (v 15) or between a life in pursuit of the pseudosecurity resident in possessions (= ‘storing up treasures for themselves’) and a life in pursuit of riches vis-à-vis God (v 21). From the Lukan perspective, then, the wealthy farmer has failed to comport himself properly with respect to his possessions, for he has not entrusted his life to God and, as a con sequence, has not acted faithfully with respect to his possessions.”
LaurenRELarkin.com 