Sometimes the story is about the money. Sometimes it is about more than that. Either way, it’s about money.
For Sunday
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 13C
Collect
Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
From Luke 12:13-21
“Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
Reflection
A while back I took a sales call. I usually don’t. But they were persistent and I thought I’d need to take it or else they would never stop calling.
The salesman was following up for someone who had stopped by a month earlier to try and sell us new windows. I had a positive experience with him. And said that we aren’t looking to buy, but don’t mind collecting information for when we might be interested.
When I did take the phone call, I tried to politely explain that we weren’t buying now and didn’t plan to buy in the next few years. He became quite pushy and asked what we did plan to work on.
I refused (it is none of his business) and I had tried to politely get out of the conversation. I even told him so. He was incredulous: “why won’t you answer my question?”
Simple questions are never just that question. He wasn’t asking me because he was curious, he wanted me to provide him with a new clue so he could find something else to sell me.
The man asking Jesus to settle the dispute isn’t just asking for a simple response. He wants something. The fact that we might side with him and want what is his to come to him does not mean it is any less a question of his desire to receive a share of the inheritance.
We are likely to code this as a question of fairness.
And it is. But it is also more than that. It is also about possessions. And what we think we gain from possessing them.
We might not fully understand why Jesus gives the man a “not my job” response. But we can be sure that his teaching about possessions is a caution to the man and his brother.
That neither of them is righteous in inheriting wealth. Whether he gets his share has no bearing on his place in following Jesus. But when we place the pursuit of possessions above our pursuit of the Kin-dom, we are putting ourselves off of the path.
This is the ongoing struggle that we’ve seen throughout the gospel this summer. We are called to follow Jesus. And from time to time, things show up in our path that seem reasonable or fair. The question always comes back to “how does this help me follow Jesus?”
Problem in the Text
This week’s video deals with that problem: We love our stuff…and fairness. But mostly stuff.