Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "How Much Is Too Much? "
Date: August 5, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Luke 12:13-21

I am grateful that I did not need to trouble Jesus about dividing the inheritance when it came time to settle my mother’s estate.  A decade ago, she named me successor trustee to her living trust, and executor of her estate.  When she had to move into assisted living, we sold her house and invested the proceeds to provide for her care.  People of her Depression-era generation who think that costs too much do not realize the tremendous asset they are sitting on in their mortgage-free home, especially here in California.  Each month, I would receive a statement from the investment brokers on the status of the trust.  From time to time, I would make copies and mail them to my two sisters to keep them informed.

Upon my mother’s death last June, assets in the trust were sold to fund her bequests.  After paying outstanding bills and making her specific bequests to her church and relatives, the rest of the trust was divided equally, per her instructions, three ways between my sisters and myself.  No one had to come complaining to me, nor to Jesus, that they didn’t get their share from their brother, as Jesus was beseeched today.

Yet that is not always the case.  A lawyer would be far more familiar with these estate situations than I, but I can assure you that, even as a minister, I hear horror stories of a sibling who is not satisfied with how the parent’s estate is being divided, or an executor who delays distribution because of lack of knowledge in proper procedures.

Jesus’ response to the anxious beneficiary was to settle down, don’t be so greedy, don’t spend your inheritance until you get it.  That’s still sound advice for any of us today.

Then, in his masterful way, Jesus uses the question of dividing the inheritance as a teaching moment; he tells a parable, this one about a rich and successful farmer, whose crops produce so much that he can’t store them all.  What to do?  Why not tear down the existing barns and build bigger ones?  That way there would be plenty of room to store all the crops, and think how successful his farm would look to passersby on the interstate!

Now we know nothing of the rich and successful farmer in this parable.  Did he give a tithe of his harvest to his church or temple?  Did he contribute to the alumni fund of his college, or endow a chair at the university?  Did he respond to the pledge drives for KUSC or KCET?  Did he give generously to the Memorial Medical Center Foundation, Cancer Society, the Long Beach Symphony? 

None of those personal insights into his finances are known to us.  All we know is that on a particular night God said his life would be demanded of him.  At the moment of his death—as it will be for any of us—all his careful stewardship of his material resources becomes irrelevant.  His goods will obviously be passed on to someone, whether his sons, or to other specific bequests he may have made, but they will no longer help him, for he can’t take them with him.  Luke suggests that he will presumably suffer in eternal regret for his exclusive attention to worldly wealth, just like the rich man who feasted lavishly but was oblivious to the poor man Lazarus who lay sick and hungry at his gate.  (Luke 16:19-31)

Last Sunday, I mentioned two points in the lesson that I connected with, or caused me discomfort.  And I’m sure that nearly two thousand years after he lived and taught, Jesus would be glad for that.  The discomfort I have today is wondering what the balance is.  How much is enough to live and retire on, and how much is too much?

For each of the 34 years that I have been a parish pastor, the three churches I’ve served have contributed toward my retirement through the Pension Fund of the United Church of Christ.  I too, for the last 15 or so years, had a portion of my salary directed each year as a tax-sheltered investment in the Pension Fund.  Each quarter, I receive this print-out, telling me the total invested in each fund, and their (hopeful) growth over that quarter.  To emphasize the value of compounding interest, it also details how much the churches initially contributed and how much I put in, and how each has grown.  And sometime each spring I receive a year-end report, telling me if I chose various retirement options for my wife and myself, what our monthly retirement income would be.

Of course, after 34 years of investments, this sum total looks pretty healthy to me!  But will it be enough to live on in retirement . . . or is it too much?

I guess that is a question any of us can ask ourselves.  How do we tend to the possessions we have, especially our investments?  Do we hoard our money at the expense of others’ needs?  Have we made provisions to provide for others, both in this life and after our death when we have no more control of that which belonged to us while living?  Have we made prudent decisions about our investments, and have we made bequests that will be helpful to the recipients and charities when they are distributed?

In the early 1990s, Robert Wuthnow, director of the Center for the Study of American Religion at Princeton University, amassed data from over 2,000 lengthy questionnaires, inquiring into the relationship between religious convictions and economic issues.  Wuthnow wanted to know how ordinary Americans think about their faith, work, and finances.  In 1994, he published his findings in his book, God and Mammon in America.

The study demonstrates that, while American religious values seem to be widespread and important to us, our religious convictions have little impact on material and economic matters.

When asked, most Americans have no idea what the word stewardship means.  Even among Christians who recognize the term, they define it broadly enough to effectively render the practice of faithful stewardship “so bland that it means very little.”

Wuthnow uses one word to describe the relationship between religious faith and economic practice:  compartmentalization.  For most Americans, religious convictions and money matters belong to two distinct realms that rarely overlap.

Prayer, scripture reading, religious values and convictions belong to the private world of religious devotion.  Spirituality functions therapeutically, but has little power to address our daily lives, and our lifestyle choices, prophetically.  Wuthnow says:

“We have domesticated [the spiritual realm], stripping the sacred of moral authority and allowing it to break through only occasionally and for good purposes, such as helping us out of a jam or salving our conscience when we succumb to the appeals of Madison Avenue.”

G. K. Chesterton once said, “Now we could have quite a good debate over whether or not Jesus believed in fairies.  That would be a matter of which we could have endless speculative discussion.  However, there is no debate to be had over whether or not Jesus believed that rich people were in big trouble.  The evidence in scripture is just too great, there are too many stories.  Jesus said too much on the subject.”

Including this morning’s scripture.

Maybe the good news is that some of you have already gotten Jesus’ point.  You didn’t come here this morning seeking advice from me on shrewd investments.  You have not arrived at this place of worship thinking that here you would receive a program on how to make yourself healthy, wealthy, and wise.  There are those who have tried to make Jesus do that sort of thing.  Yet according to the Gospels, Jesus just doesn’t play that game.  And you know it.

You have come here to be with Jesus.  You have come here, not primarily to get something out of him, but rather because you love him.  Lots of folk are at a really nice resort on this August Sunday morning, sunning themselves by the pool or getting a spa treatment or, perhaps, still sleeping in!  But you are here.  You are the sort who risks hearing what Jesus has to say, even when his words are tough.  You have been willing to listen to him, to examine your life, to bend yourself to his will.

We never again hear from this unnamed man, worried about his inheritance, after Jesus brushes him off.  He wanders off, presumably, in search of some other teacher who will tell him what he wants to hear, or will tell his brother to divvy up the inheritance.  You are different.  You’re willing to listen, to risk the truth, to change your life if you have to.

And the good news is, that’s all Jesus expects of those whom he would save.  He told these stories to his disciples, those who stuck with him, despite the things he taught.  He will answer our questions that are worth asking.  He will refuse to answer our questions that trivialize and demean the lives we are meant to live.

Through his wisdom, and his grace, he will give us lives worth living and take from us the stuff that’s not worth dying for.  He will give us those gifts that we need and tell us the truth. The good news is, we have a Savior who loves to teach, to save, even folks like us.

 

Resources:

Robert Wuthnow, God and Mammon in America (New York:  The Free Press, 1994), p. 138.

William H. Willimon:  concluding paragraphs adapted from his sermon on this text, “Majoring in the Minors”, Pulpit Resource, August 1, 2004, pp. 23-24.