July 22, 2007 Message

July 22, 2007
1 Corinthians 10:15-17,26; Luke 12: 13-21

A guy walks into a diner and asks the man behind the counter if he will give him a free sandwich if he shows him something amazing. The man agrees, so the guy pulls out a hamster, that begins dancing and singing "Amazing Grace".
"That IS amazing!" says the counter man and gives the guy his sandwich.
"If I show you something else amazing, will you give me a piece of pie?" The man behind the counter agrees, so the guy pulls out a small piano and a hamster and a frog. This time the hamster plays the piano while the frog sings "What a Friend We Have in Jesus".
The man behind the counter, completely stunned, gives the guy his piece of pie. About then, a man in a suit, who's been watching the entire time, offers to buy the frog for a thousand dollars, which the guy agrees to.
"Are you nuts?" asks the man behind the counter. "You could've made a fortune off that frog."
"Can you keep a secret?" says the guy. "The hamster's a ventriloquist."

Moral: Be careful when buying singing frogs, especially if accompanied by a hampster.

There are a lot of things to be careful about. Growing up, you have to be careful crossing streets and of burners on kitchen stoves and of people you don’t know and of the green stuff on your plate that mom calls ‘vegebles.’ Then you have to be careful to listen to the teacher and careful going down the slide and careful getting on the right bus after school. Later it’s being careful about driving too fast and the friends you hang out with and about getting home on time on Saturday night. You get older and it’s being careful about the money you spend and what you say in front of the kids and what the neighbors might think. Finally you have to be careful to take your medicine and careful of what you eat and careful crossing streets. There's always something to be careful of, right?

As related in today’s reading from Luke (12:15, The Message), Jesus told the people gathered around him, as he would tell us today if he were here, “Be careful! Avoid being even a tiny bit selfish and wanting more. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot."

That being the case then, as followers of Jesus the Christ, what is our life to be defined by?
Some would say that because there are only a limited amount of resources in the world, a Christian should not acquire wealth. You should take only what you need and leave the rest to others. A person doesn’t need a new car or nice clothes or a nice house. You don’t need to eat out in fancy restaurants. Live a simple life so that others can have some of the world’s limited resources, too.

Some would say that God blesses with wealth those who have been more faithful disciples than others. Wealth is seen as a divine reward for having been good. God is more than happy to prosper those who go to church, keep their nose clean, and give 10% of what they make to the church with more. For these folks, wealth is a sign of divine favor.
And some would say there is no connection at all between our wealth and God. These people think the money they have belongs to them and not to God. After all, God has no use for money.

Well…Jesus doesn’t say any of that. He doesn’t say there are limited resources in the world. And he doesn’t say that if you give God one-tenth of what you have, the rest is yours as a reward. And he sure doesn’t say that you can live as if you can keep God and money separate from one another.

Rather Jesus says that when life is all about what you have and about your getting more – then it is wrong, and that is not a good thing. In fact, it is rather foolish. If I become obsessed with having more and more, my possessions will possess me. And I will forget that God is the maker and owner of all things including everything I have and all that I am! Unfortunately that happens to some of us, doesn’t it?

Life often becomes about what we have and about what is ours and about holding onto it. And that is indeed foolish – making no sense at all – because, as the wisdom of Ecclesiastes points out, we are going to lose it anyway.
That then takes us to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (10: 26) when he suggests how ‘sensible’ people should live: “So live with the very life of Christ in you, a life that will unite and transform. "The earth," after all, "is God's, and everything in it." Might the answer be found there?

Everything on this earth is God’s. Imagine that! Our life is God’s! We are God’s. You and I, every one of us, is God’s. Our life is not ours at all – it is God’s, unless of course Paul had it all wrong. But I don’t think he did.

This idea that we are God’s is reinforced by our baptism, I think. For in Holy Baptism, we are claimed as much-loved daughters and sons of God through no effort or merit of our own. At our baptism God’s claim on us is recognized. We are also baptized into the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who emptied Himself for our sake, who became poor in order to save us from sin, death, and evil, and who died that we might have life and have it abundantly.

The baptized life is a daily denial of all our idols including our quest of the ‘American Dream.’ As we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we begin to realize that our life may have been obsessed with acquiring wealth that we will eventually lose anyway when we die. Jesus is right. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.

Today God calls us again to the waters of Baptism to lose our lives and to be reborn as grateful children of God, knowing "The earth is God's, and everything in it." We can trust God to care for God’s creation because as the song says, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” Ours is the greatest treasure of all. We are loved and cherished by the God who gave His life for us on a cross. Ours is an inheritance in heaven that can’t be bought. We have the certainty that nothing can separate us from God’s love. And that promise changes how we look at who we are, what we have, and where we are going in life.

We don’t need to be wealthy. We don’t need to have a lot of money. We don’t need to have more and more things. It’s not only foolish, it is wrong to think that is the answer. Jesus says, “Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”

Life is best defined by our “breathing the air of Christ,” as Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, says, “Christ becoming the atmosphere in which we live.” It is living in a state of equilibrium trusting that God has no agenda that is not for our own good. And it is a life of community – a family really - living for one another. Knowing that we are God’s dearly loved child changes everything! It changes how we look at our life, and how we use our gifts and resources. Paul vision was that if you have a gift, it is there so that you can help another become a giver in return. God’s gift makes givers. When you know that everything belongs to God, then life can be as it should be –using God’s things on behalf of the Kingdom of God.

Rowan Williams describes the good life as, “simply one in which we have learned how to be for each other, and in so being to live fully as ourselves.” Christian people are holy simply because they are adopted by God into a family relationship. Our sharing as family becomes tangible and real by our words and actions. Those who are baptized are immersed in Christ’s love to be transformed into a different person in this ‘new life’ community called the church.

We are rich because as a child of God, God has given us everything we have and everything we are – even His own life on the cross - that we may be His precious children forever!