Sermon for Sunday, August 06, 2007 by Josh Oxley

Have you ever been oblivious to life around you while you anticipate something that is about to come? Odds are, you have. We’re especially prone to do this as children, in the days preceding Christmas or our birthday. You might remember the gifts you received, the excitement of presents and cake and parties, but you probably don’t reminisce too often about what you did 2 or 3 days before then. The lead-up is exciting, yes, but it’s not very memorable. You were so caught up in anticipation that all the excitement of day-to-day life melted away in the face of this great event that was coming.

That’s a part of life, a healthy part, and something to be enjoyed. In moderation, that is. Sometimes, in that glorious anticipation, that yearning, we become numb to the here and now, the everyday. We lose sight of the greatness of the present, of the gift that each blessed breath and heartbeat really is, because a looming goal of ours has filled our sight. It’s pushed the seemingly smaller, mundane blessings aside in its preeminence, and in doing so, it has made us a sort of slave to this future event. Today, in our Gospel reading from Luke, we see Jesus interact with a man much like ourselves in that regard.

“Teacher,” he says, “tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Now, this is a fair thing to ask, right? Doesn’t God love justice; doesn’t He value good and security in this world? Of course He does. And the man was probably in the legal right to hope for his portion of the inheritance. Jesus, however, never looks merely to the surface of our lives, but stares deeply within. This man in the crowd, Jesus realized, was not just asking for legal assistance, but was in danger of making mammon, or wealth, an idol to be held above God. He was beginning to value life as “the abundance of possessions,” as Jesus himself puts it. And then, in the parable of the rich fool, the Great Teacher begins to illuminate just how dangerous that fixation can be.

I remember hearing this story as a child and concluding that God was being unfair with the rich fool. He had received a great blessing, a bumper crop that he could scarcely take in. How exciting for the man! If he were a friend of mine, I’d congratulate him and celebrate. In his genuine mirth the man tears down the barns that have served him so well in the past, making room for the vast stores of grain. God isn’t saddened by this abundance, however. It’s the man’s reaction to his great blessing that we are to mourn. “Soul,” he says, “you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” Not ‘Soul, give some of this to those nearby who have none.’ Not ‘Soul, thank God for this great abundance you have to share.’ Not even ‘Soul, what do I do with such splendor?’ Instead, the man’s concern turns only inward, and he is in danger of a deadening of his soul, of suffering a spiritual death.

God intervenes, and the man’s joy is turned to mourning. He is to depart the mortal coil that very night. Days spent pining away at and preparing for his future years of decadence and luxury are shown to be worthless, chaff burned up in the encroaching flames. The futility of his hoarding becomes obvious. “And those things you have prepared,” God asks, “whose will they be?” This rich man was truly poor when his numbered days reached their close. And Jesus, knowing the heart of this man who questions him from the crowd, does not desire to see another of His children led astray.

God is not being vindictive: Instead, Christ is trying desperately to show the folly of idolatrous wealth before others fall to its seductive power. The rich man of the parable is not to be mourned for his wealth alone, but for his inability to be “rich toward God.” He offered no cup of cold water out of his abundance; he not once turned his gaze to the plight of the widow or the orphan. When he fully invested his time and possessions in himself and his own future, he was already turning his back on his fellow mankind and on God. He had killed his own humanity. God, in taking his life, only made the outward match the inward.

Do you see that the rich fool made the same mistake that we do when we focus so intently on the future that the present falls away from our notice? We go on autopilot. Great blessings, even people, all around us become means to an end, instead of ends themselves. We begin to appreciate only that which is moving us towards a goal, instead of relishing what has been given to us in the moment. In our goal-oriented society, when climbing the next rung of the corporate or social ladder can seem so overwhelming, we are especially at risk of exchanging the real for the potential.

Internships are more often than not viewed in this way. You take an internship to get experience, which enables you to find a permanent career in that field. A business meeting isn’t just a business meeting, but it’s valuable time to network with future colleagues and lay the groundwork for future plans. Now, to be mindful of the future is a sign of wisdom, because it takes the careful balancing of living in the present and looking towards the future. But your average intern doesn’t happen to be the wisest individual you’ll ever meet, and is prone to overlook the blessing that each day brings in that internship while he or she longingly wishes for that job many years down the road. I, and many of you, have fallen into this thinking before.

And that’s such a waste. You can’t appreciate the people around you, the opportunities that each moment of the day brings if you live only looking to the future. Life becomes less rich, less wondrous. Dreams you once had will begin to melt away, and monotony will creep into your life. I think most days are far from monotonous when we look to them in scrutiny and true appreciation. Each word spoken, each breath breathed is something to marvel over. But, in our frenzied preparations, our stock options and car payments, our college tuitions and vacation plans, we rob ourselves of the beauty that life inherently has been endowed by God. And we rob God of effective followers, of true Christians who live in and yet not of the world. We think ourselves the lords of our own lives, ignoring the Word of the Lord as it came to Hosea, saying “I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.” We fool ourselves into thinking that we hold some power over the course of years to come.

The future holds hope of many things, the Second Coming of our Lord being chief of these. Paul tells us that we too will be revealed in glory with Him. The promise of resurrection and redemption hangs on the edge of every word and motion within the liturgy. And yet, the here and now is all we really have. For example, I may look to the future and promise great sums of money to the church in my appreciation for its service to God, but it is how I use the meek sum in my wallet at this very moment that God most cares about. It is how we act tomorrow at work that defines us more than what our pension will be when we retire. It is the steps we take on the journey, and the pilgrims that we share the journey with, that matter far beyond where our Holy Pilgrimage may finish. To look to the finish is to find hope, but only insomuch as we bring that hope back to the here and now and hold the present moment as dear as it really is.

All we have to offer God and each other is our present selves. Not who we will become, not what will occur in the distant future. Just now. Those things we think so important, that looming family inheritance that fills our vision, is truly small in comparison to this life we have been given. Inheritance, in our minds, lends security. It is safe. Insurance is safe. Bank accounts and savings bonds are safe. And all are blessings in their own right. But security was never the goal of this journey, was never the promise of our Baptism. I’m reminded of Lucy, in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, who, nervously awaiting her first encounter with Aslan, the great lion and Christ figure, hopes that he is safe, non-threatening. “Isn’t he safe?” she asks Mrs. Beaver. But the reply is startling. “Who said anything about ‘safe’? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.” I would concur with Mrs. Beaver, and say that the Creator and Sustainer of the world is indeed good, but not safe. He requires transformation; he requires sacrifice, and yet, out of love, cannot be called safe. Our own lives should mirror that.

Our own Lord said later in Luke that, “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.” It is very safe to live only in the possibilities of the future, but it is risky and painful to live the day to day. And yet it is only in that risk that we find true life. Only in that risk, in that outpouring of ourselves can we focus the abundance of our time, our possessions, and our passions for the glory of God. That is truly fulfilling the commandment to love God and love others. That is the life turned outward, overflowing with steams of living water to a broken world, not stockpiling possessions in the hopes of avoiding all toil and pain in this life. That is the power of a life lived in the moment while evermore gazing towards the blessed future. Gazing, not clinging to it. Let go of it. Let go of the future with reckless abandonment, live in the blessing that is this borrowed moment on earth, and embrace the freedom that is rich toward others and, most of all, rich toward God.

Amen.