First Presbyterian Church
Too Many Barns
Sermon for August 5, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Sermon in the park

Jesus has been teaching the Pharisees about the dangers of greed and burdening the peasants; he spoke of the importance of giving to charity. Listen for the word of God as it is found in 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."'

The problem wasn't that the man was rich. The problem wasn't that he had an abundance. The problem was he thought his problem was his barns were too small to store all his grains and his goods.

If he had more than one barn, he had plenty of room to store the grain he needed for the year and several years afterwards. He had plenty of room to store the goods he didn't need right then. He was a very rich man.

But he wanted to save even more grain. Why would he want to store the grain and his goods and keep even more?

With so much grain to store, he would have plenty to sell at a high price a few seasons later, when grain might be scarcer, taking advantage of the poor. He, like other wealthy landowners, would be able to charge high interest rates, especially for seed at planting time. Today, in some developing countries, when poor farmers have to get loans to buy food late in the season, money lenders charge 10% a month. 1 In the first century Roman world, wealth allowed you to live a virtuous life, that is, a life of aristocratic leisure. 2Or as the rich man said, he could relax, eat, drink, be merry. He was not concerned with the suffering around him.

(I read a poem by Shel Silverstein , called “Lester's Magick Wishes” from Where the Sidewalk Ends. Two people acted it out. Lester spends his life wishing, and not doing anything else. You can find the poem on the internet, but as it is copyrighted, I didn't want to reproduce it here. )

When I first started planning this sermon, I thought the message of Jesus' parable was about the dangers of greed, and how it doesn't just damage the community, it damages the greedy individual. So I thought the story was about how we need to on our guard against greed, and be reminded that life is a gift from God; being rich doesn't secure our future. 3

And then I walked the Relay for Life, with the Presbyterian Youth Group. As I walked around the track at midnight, our way was lit by the candles luminarias surrounding the track. Some were in honor of cancer survivors, some were in memory of loved ones who had died of cancer. There was the slide show of pictures of people who had cancer; those who died and those who survived. I saw Gerry's picture, Jim's picture, and Charlie's picture there.

And then I realized how this parable ended. God said, “ This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” The foolish rich man will have spent his life on things that don't matter. Just like Lester did. When we store up what doesn't matter, we end up being poor. When we recognize what does matter, we can bless others.

Friday night and Saturday morning, a lot of people spent time and money they could have saved for other things. They gave their time to walk and witness. It reminded all of us of what is important and what is not.

Psalm 84 said it is better to be on the outside of God's house than inside the luxury of any tent of wickedness. The psalmist chose God.

The parable reminds us of the importance of knowing that life is more than accumulating possessions.

May these reminders bring us closer to peace.

1 www.fao.org/docrep/T1838E/T1838E03.HTM#Costs%20and%20incentives%20to%20store

2 Stombaugh and Balch, The New Testament in Its Social Environment , p. 66.

3 Brueggemann, et al. Texts for Preaching year c, p. 458.