Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to humans to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to my successor, and who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.
Luke 12:13-21
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
Every day, we can count our blessings. The big things come to mind easily --- safety, shelter, enough food to eat, our family, our friends. Then we can move onto the more subtle blessings --- the warmth of sunshine, finding something once lost, a smile and a “How are you?” from a neighbor --- or better yet, from a stranger.
When we think about it, we realize our blessings are too numerous to list. We are blessed by God, yes, in more ways than we can count. By the same token, we ourselves are a blessing as we reflect God’s generous spirit to others in our actions and words — when we are that neighbor to someone in need, when we feed the hungry, when we give comfort to the hurting, when we lift someone else up when they’ve stumbled. Part of God’s blessing to us is the opportunity and ability to bless others. Blessings are designed to be overflowing through us --- to be poured out for all to enjoy. Just as God’s love teems within our lives as the swelling river overflows its banks, so we pour out God’s blessings to others we encounter. Every day of our lives is a gift, and an opportunity to be a blessing.
So, with this context in mind, let’s look first at the parable in this morning’s reading from Luke. Jesus used parables a lot in his teachings. A parable is a comparison of two things, done through a story that has two meanings. The first part uses familiar characters, activities, and situations that we can identify with and understand, and the setting is taken from ordinary life. The second part focuses us on God and his kingdom. It reveals the character of God: what God is like, how God works, and what God wants. A parable is not an account of a factual event, but rather, it’s an allegory meant to illustrate a moral truth.
Let’s look at this parable and ask ourselves what insight this gives to the nature of God’s relationship with us.
The rich man’s fields produced abundantly, so much so that his barns were bursting at the seams. The man says, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.”
There was never any thankfulness toward God about the abundant blessings that God lavished on this man. In fact, he uses “I” the entire time. I have no place to store my crops….and so on. Perhaps the sin of this man was #1: not recognizing that the abundance of his fields was indeed a blessing from God, and #2: not recognizing that his wealth was intended to further the kingdom of God. This man was focused on his possessions and keeping them for himself, and not focused on God. His greed blinded him to the eternal relationship God invited him into.
A lot of commentaries I read on this passage concentrated on the last line: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
When paired with the passage from Ecclesiastes, this parable points toward the futility of accumulating wealth. In fact, this morning’s passage from Ecclesiastes is a full-on lament. Here we are, working so hard (“toiling” as the text says), and then at our death, the fruits of our labors are passed on to our successors, successors who may indeed squander them all. Verses 20 and 21 say, “So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it.” How frustrating is that! …if you see your blessings as the fruit of your labors and not from God.
From an American cultural standpoint, we can in some ways relate to these passages. The U.S. is, by and large, an individualist culture. We value independence and personal identity. We focus on the rights and concerns of each person. Americans have a strong sense of personal boundaries and a keen sense of personal ownership. When we read the parable of the rich fool storing up his crops in his barns for his own use, we might not agree with the man’s choices, but we can understand them.
In my work with refugees, I interact with a lot of people from collectivist cultures — from African countries, from Afghanistan, from Syria. Part of refugees’ incredible resilience is their near universal, unshakeable faith in God. Because of my interactions, I’ve learned to see our relationship with God in a new way. People from collectivist cultures, like many refugees are, emphasize the importance of community. The interconnectedness between people is central to each person's identity. Because they see the world as collective, they have a different understanding of ownership. Being able to use one’s wealth to bless others is not generally understood to be an exchange or a transaction (they don’t see it as the passing of resources from one person to another). A person from a collectivist culture is more likely to see abundant resources as a communal blessing that we all partake in.
So, from this standpoint, what struck me most about today’s passage from Luke wasn’t actually the parable; it was the interchange that took place before the parable, the verbal exchange between Jesus and the person in the crowd. Starting in Verse 12: “Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’” This tells me: Jesus is not concerned about transactions. Jesus is concerned about relationships.
God’s love is not transactional: There’s no “balance due upon receipt”. God puts no conditions on grace; no conditions on love; no conditions on belonging. God’s love is relational; we live in communion with God, in a relationship rooted in his steadfast love. God loves us in our strength and in our weakness, God loves us in our righteousness and in our sin, and God is continually inviting us to live in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. For me, that’s a hard thing to understand and an even harder thing to accept. Maybe that’s why Jesus used a parable to convey this. He illustrates this aspect of God in a way we can relate to. Jesus’ message here is meant to illuminate the nature of God’s eternal relationship with us—we are to be rich toward God. Blessings flow into us and through us as a sign of God’s unending, extravagant love. The blessings in our lives are not a transference to us, but an expression of our relational bond –- us with the triune God. Blessings from God, as expressions of our relationship, flow freely in many forms, and all equip us to be a blessing to others in our own way. We each have personal gifts we can use to help other people.
The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12: 7-11 “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of powerful deeds, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”
This is the movement of the spirit in our lives as we live in relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
So, let’s reframe this, this time removing the language of transaction:
God showers us with abundant blessings as a sign of God’s love. Blessings are designed to be overflowing through us --- to be poured out for all to enjoy. Just as God’s love teems within our lives as the swelling river overflows its banks, so we pour out blessings to others we encounter.
The choice to be made isn’t necessarily whether we do or do not share – When we accept and live into our relationship of love in Jesus Christ, blessings for all will happen. When we are reconciled with God, when we fully and completely live the life we are called to live in Christ Jesus, when we are rich toward God, we ourselves become conduits for God’s love.
We are the embodiment and the action of God’s relationship of love with the world.
What do we do with this information? How do we understand the way this affects the nature of our relationship with other people as fellow children of God? The question we can ask ourselves is not just “How do I share my blessings?” The question is: “How am I a witness to God’s relationship of love with the world?”
Amen.