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Sermon
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THE LAND OF A RICH MAN
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1). The old man on his sick bed was boasting a little. “My start in business,” he told me, “came in the 1901 drought. In 1901 chaff was everything. Chaff was both petrol and diesel. It drove the local economy. I managed to buy up the district supply and made an excellent profit.” His housekeeper snorted with disapproval. After, as she walked with me to the door, she said, “Did you see his book on the bedside table?” I nodded, having registered the well-thumbed volume with its floppy black cover. “He has his nose in it all the time,” she went on, “but it’s not the Good Book; it’s his financial records.” She made no effort to disguise her disdain. I had visited after his only daughter had become ill and died. She had regularly worshipped with us; we were Presbyterians in those days. Although George had called himself a Methodist, he never went. If ever he had loved anybody, it had been his daughter, and now she had died. Here was a man, addicted to paper profit, who spent almost nothing on himself let alone family, and who had cut himself off from the riches of relationships. He had especially despised his Scottish son in law for having “no head for business.” When George died, his own minister spoke bluntly at the funeral. "We have taken nothing into the world," he quoted, "and will surely take nothing out of it" (I Tim. 5:7). Afterwards the farmers shifted uncomfortably in their suits and ties, nodding sagely. They agreed together, “There are no pockets in shrouds." Thus was re-enacted in our time Jesus’ parable of the rich fool who stored up treasures for himself but was not rich towards God (Luke 12 13-21). The character in the parable, however, is not an old man ready to go the way of all the earth. He still has dreams. He could be any of us. He says to his soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God says to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” As Jesus says, it’s “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:25). The kingdom, incidentally, may be defined above all as generosity. We have no need to focus obsessively on accumulating wealth as many today, as ever, think we should. When we pray, “Give us today our daily bread,” we trust that God will do the right thing while we focus not on good and honour and “stuff like that,” but on God’s kingdom and its righteousness. That is, while we work towards ensuring that God’s will be done, on earth as in heaven, “God’s rich hand [will] supply our need.” Last Sunday I mentioned the children of Israel with Moses in the wilderness, and how when they gathered more manna than their daily need, it “bred worms and became foul.” I also mentioned Jesus teaching to the disciples here in Luke 12: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. . . . Your Father knows that you need them. . . . Instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be yours as well” (Luke 12:30-31). You may have seen on the ABC over recent weeks the series Worlds Apart. Each week a different American family flies off to a place in the “undeveloped” world. They live, say, like tribal people in a remote part of Kenya, or villagers in an island off the eastern tip of PNG. Mom, Dad and the kids stay for a few days, then fly back to their suburban houses with their gadgets and belongings. Worlds Apart is more than entertainment. It asks whether our much celebrated Western culture is as advanced in matters of wisdom as we like to think. There are many texts in Luke’s Gospel that speak of the exclusion from the kingdom of those addicted to wealth. The parable of Lazarus and Dives (Luke 16:19-31) speaks of a "great gulf fixed" between heaven and hell, so that rich Dives in Hades is unable to move to where Lazarus is with Abraham and the angels. And Jesus himself speaks of a place where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched (Mark 9;48), and of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (e.g. Luke 13:28) and of being thrown into “outer darkness” (e.g. Matthew 22:13). Those texts are part of the message. Bound together with them are other texts that speak of God's desire “for everyone to be saved” (I Timothy 2:4), and of God's “plan for the fullness of time to gather up all things Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). And texts of how Christ died for all, that all might live, and of God's great love for the whole world. And finally a strange text describing Jesus, after his death, proclaiming the gospel to “the spirits in prison” (I Peter 3:19), which text the Apostles’ Creed interprets as Christ’s descent into hell for the sake of those in hell, to rescue even them. It isn't that the Bible is muddled. Although there are two sets of texts, one describing eternal punishment for those who refuse God, and the other describing God's limitless patience and love in seeking out the lost, even after death, there is in Christ a wonderful connection. There is a judgement. There are spiritual realities corresponding to our pictures of heaven and hell, and already in this life we have all experienced both of them. There is also the triumphant note, which we sound at Easter, that heaven has won the final victory over hell. Somewhere perhaps, sometime, in the pilgrimage through life and towards death of those of us hooked on this world’s goods, (and I have my own times), there can be a chink for the entry of grace. Perhaps, in response to grace, a thin mouse-squeak of faith. Maybe faith the size of a grain of mustard seed. According to Jesus that's all you need to move mountains. Faith, hope and love, these three, says Paul, abide to eternal life. These three, faith, hope and love, you can take with you. In the end, of course, it's not our faith that counts. This side of heaven our faith is always imperfect. That's why we're told, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. We are encouraged to reach for
nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him (I Cor 2:9). He promises to take our weak, faltering prayers and join them with his strong prayer. For even when we're unable to pray consciously, God’s Spirit, deep within us, joins itself with our own human spirit crying to God with sighs too deep for words (Romans 8:26). In Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan describes a man, a muckraker. Head down, mucking out the cow yard, he is unaware that above him hovers a shining angel offering a crown of glory. That's a picture of ourselves when we concentrate on lower things and become oblivious of grace. Colossians tells us to "seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." If you have never before received holy communion, or if it has become hard for you to do it because of sorrow or shame or a feeling of unworthiness, reach out today and receive the bread and wine, and thereby receive Christ. For you will find that the things that are above where Christ is have come right down to meet you. ___________________________________________________ A sermon presented
by the Rev Dr Stuart Murray at St Aidan's Uniting Church North Balwyn,
on 1st August, 2004. IT MAY BE
REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT. |
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Page updated 1/8/04
