11:00am Service

Sunday 31st July 2016

St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmunds

Preacher: Craig Young

Luke 12: 13-21

Today we will be looking at the reading from Luke which tells of the “Rich Fool”. It begins with Jesus being asked by someone to tell their brother to share their inheritance and Jesus responds in such a way that he is almost saying this is none of his business and please go and sort it out yourself. Jesus is here on earth for a short time and in that time he is to teach us how to live and not act as judge especially if we have the power to sort it out for ourselves.

I hope that by us looking at this passage today we can see how this parable shows us how to live rather than just appreciate how the foolish man in the parable got it wrong.

We all know that with God all things are possible and that we should ask for His help in all that we do. However we need to be aware that as Christians we are in a unique partnership with God and that by seeking his help we should not be abdicating our responsibility to this relationship but seeking to shoulder that part of the partnership which we can. We need to think for ourselves, how we are to live up to God’s standards and values but do this by being informed by the example of Jesus and the Gospel message which he left us as the way to lead a Godly life. We need to trust in God but we also need to realise how much we are called to do as we discern what our part of the partnership will entail. In doing this we should be able to strike the correct balance in our partnership where we do the things which God knows we can do and ask Him for guidance to enable us to do it and then to ask that He take care of those parts which we cannot handle.

Jesus says watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed because life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

Looking at our rich Fool we can see that he owed everything to the Grace of God. Farming in those days and even today still depends on the grace of God as it relies so much on the elements of weather and soil which man cannot totally control. Of course with technology we can create an alternative environment and influence conditions to a certain extent with irrigation or by growing in shelters such as greenhouses but if the sun does not shine then all is lost. This man’s wealth was an activity that depended on God as it was not like buying and selling so his story is not really about accumulated wealth but how we relate to God as we go about accumulating wealth if that is where we find ourselves. It’s a parable about recognising that to live a good life we need to have a good relationship, a good partnership with God. Our man by contrast decided to store up great wealth but made the mistake of putting his trust in that alone. This is not an uncommon fault as history tells of business men, politicians and dictators who have done just that but we can also see that in the end their lives really amounted to nothing as their greed has brought them disgrace or disaster. By contrast there are very wealthy people who give the bulk of it away in acts of philanthropy and we can think of Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates and by doing this demonstrate that there is nothing to be gained by storing up great wealth because they have recognised that more good can come from sharing their resources than locking them up.

Now I cannot comment on their partnership with God but I can look at my own partnership with God and try and see the point which Jesus was trying to get over with this parable. I live by the grace of God. I am not a fatalist but I do know that one day I will die but also that in life I have at least got this far. I am what I am and have been working in partnership with God. I often wonder what would have happened if I had given over more of my life to God, given Him a more prominent role in informing what I could have been but then I’m stuck with being me. How much better could I have been or more importantly how much better can I become if I try to do more for God’s work and take on more in my role as partner. Am I becoming lazy by expecting God to step in and do it all? Well Jesus says in verse 21 right at the end of our reading that we need to be rich towards God.

How do we become rich towards God? I will argue that as we develop our relationship with Him we need to discern something of His will that becomes part of and adopted as ours. There needs to be something in us which will truly reflect an aspect or a combination of aspects of Gods will for humanity and when that happens we can clearly see where we are to go. Some of us just get an inkling and need to work hard at putting God’s will into practice whilst others get it in spade loads and go off and do great works. What Jesus asks us to do is to trust in God and to develop a good working partnership with him by first of all following his example. This takes us right back to the beginning when before the parable Jesus is asked by someone that he tell his brother to share their inheritance. Jesus is not the judge in this family dispute and the man who is complaining should really sort this out for himself. Jesus does not tell him what to do but suggests that the pursuit of wealth may not bring true justice to this situation. If his brother does not share then he is at fault and our man needs to realise that true life is to be found in developing his partnership with God. It is more important to guard against greed of all kinds and be rich towards God because when all’s said and done it will be just you and God in the end and wealth will not count for anything but if you had any it’s what you did with it which will determine your character and how your relationship blossomed. In a way this sort of thing makes me shudder because I can always think of those times when I could have been rich towards God but failed to carry it through. God is a very good partner because he is always in helpful mode. He encourages us through the Holy Spirit to develop our gifts and is most patient with us as we struggle to become more than we are as we try to follow His will for the world. God himself helps us to become rich towards God if we let him.

The one thing which we should never forget is that God loves each and every one of us but he does want us to change in a way which will see us reflect His values much more closely. God wants to preserve our free will so it needs to be we ourselves who make the changes and this is how we get our partnership with God to work. When we meet challenging situations in our lives or read in the scriptures values that we must put into action we can become demoralised or demotivated. We might feel inadequate or guilty because we doubt or realise that we really need to raise our game and do better. Remember that due to His love for you God sent Jesus to find the in’s and out’s of us and that due to that humanity God does really understand our problems no matter how unique we think that these might be to ourselves. The forgiveness and Grace brought to us by the life and resurrection of Jesus present us with a powerful set of faith principles which will offer continual encouragement for us no matter the situation in which we find ourselves. This enables us to keep trying to effect the changes that we know we need to make and it’s never too late to do this.

When we decide to follow Christ we enter into a partnership with him and adopt his values.

Through the work of the holy spirit who Jesus has sent us we have a guiding influence who on one hand helps us to see where we need to change and on the other makes God aware of our struggle. No matter what the outcome as long as we want to keep trying to develop our partnership with Him God will not give up on us. In this partnership relationship we need to be aware that God does more for us than we do for Him. Whist we may quite correctly feel that we can never do enough for God we actually do well because of our desire to be rich towards Him. Not only will we know peace and contentment in this life but as followers of Jesus we have him as our brother and he has promised that as such we will be co-heirs with him in all that God the Father will give us in inheritance of the Kingdom. God has adopted us as his children and as such would like us to do our bit to sort out the problems of the world by trusting in Him. Trusting Him to be in charge of the big things in the big picture but hoping that we will do all we can to support him in those little things which we can influence. We need to look to our relationship with him and to deepen it by honing those skills and gifts which he has given us. We need to guard against greed and be rich toward God. How we do this is our mission in the world.