Amos 7: 7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1: 1-14
Luke 10: 25-37

One day a friend of mine was driving along the highway somewhere in Nova Scotia. Her car broke down and she pulled over to the side of the road. It was before the days of cell-phones. She decided to flag down a passing car and ask the driver to call the auto club. Now you should know that my friend was only in her 50's at the time, even though her hair was snow white, but she didn’t look like she could hurt a fly. She still doesn’t!

After a long time a well-dressed middle aged couple in a big fancy car pulled over to the side of the road. She gave them .25cents and asked them to call the CAA. She waited a long time, but no tow truck arrived.

By and by a unsavoury looking character in tattered jeans who reeked of alcohol pulled over and she talked to him through the almost closed window of her car. She gave him .25cents and the number for CAA.

Time passed and then a set of yellow flashing lights signalled that the CAA tow truck had arrived. He secured her car to the hitch and they headed for the garage. He said, “Ma’am, I almost didn’t come. The woman at the call centre said it was my choice. They guy who called it in was drunk and she was sure it was a prank, but he kept insisting that this old lady needed help. I decided to come just in case. I wouldn’t want my grandmother stranded on the side of the road.

He didn’t know anything about another phone call. The middle aged couple in the fancy car had not called; the one she would have said was the least trustworthy was the one who had carried through on his promise.

(You may remember that) last week I gave everyone a pop quiz. This week it’s Jesus who is given the pop quiz; except that he turns the question around and presses the lawyer into answering his own query. -5-

We need to be careful about motives here. We are told that the lawyer was trying to justify himself. He wanted Jesus to tell him what he already thought he knew. He wanted Jesus to tell him that he was already doing what was necessary to inherit eternal life. From the first set of questions and responses it is obvious that he already knew the answers to the questions he was asking. Lawyers in Jesus day were experts in both civil and religious law,; there was not any division between them!

Yet the answer to the question, “Who is my neighbour” was not expected. You see as the story of the guy who had become the victim of robbers unfolded, it went pretty much as expected. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notoriously dangerous. It was steep and hilly and a perfect place for robbers, yet many people found it necessary to travel it. When both the priest and the Levite did not stop, everyone in the audience, including the lawyer, would have been assuming that the ‘good guy’ would be an ordinary Israelite. All of those stories went like that! The people would have been saying, “You go Jesus! Take that lawyer down a peg or two. Show him that we ordinary folks are just as good as he is.”

But Jesus was not trying to trick this man or to ‘put him in his place’; he was trying to show him the way of the kingdom. His story destroyed all of their preconceived notions about Samaritans. Suffice to say, Samaritans were people of Jewish ancestry who had intermarried with local non-Israelites many generations before and who has some significant theological differences with Jewish people. I guess it would be something like telling this story in a Roman Catholic community in Northern Ireland and having the good guy turn out to be a member of the Orange Lodge.

Actually, as we interpret this story and seek to apply it to our own lives, we need to be a little careful. An image often used for Jesus is that of a physician. As we know, modern physicians write prescriptions, to promote the health and address the particular ailments of specific people. Prescriptions can be for tests, or lifestyle changes or for drugs. We’re warned not to take someone else’s drugs because we think we have the same symptoms.

When I was a kid we had a neighbour who always took Dodd’s Kidney Pills. I guess that they are designed to cure whatever ails you, or at least what ever is wrong with your kidneys.

I think many doctors would regard them as “snake oil”, and I don’t recall seeing them advertised lately. I went on the net yesterday, looking for them but all I found was an ad for an antique poster advertising Dodds Kidney Pills and warning people to accept no imitations. Actually, it was an ad sponsoring a song sheet featuring “My Country Tis of Thee” in English and German. I also found a reference to “Dr Williams Pink Pills for Pale People” . I don’t think they are available anymore either.

The lawyer’s question is ours: What is the measure of a good and faithful life? Amos used the plumb line, to show how God’s law was like the straight line needed by a carpenter and in this instance from the gospels, Jesus is asked to define the latter part of the so-called ‘great commandment’.

The first thing we need to be aware of is that Jesus really didn’t answer the lawyer’s question. He didn’t say, “Samaritans are our neighbours!” The story said, in part, “this Samaritan was a neighbour.” The seemingly obvious ending of the story is, “go and do likewise. Let us stop worrying about who we are to love and just go and show love.”

We need to be careful because while it is true that Jesus’ answer to lawyer was, “go and do”, in the next few verses Jesus’ answer to Martha is to, “sit and be”.

We have to pay careful attention to the whole context because Jesus request of or answer to one person does not necessarily apply to someone with a different problem.

One of the problems with this parable is that it is so familiar we run the risk of enabling complacency. We may need to push it in another direction otherwise we will hear a nice story about a man who helped a guy who was hurt. The fact is, Jesus didn’t tell parables in order to be nice; he used parables as an indictment against the prevailing consciousness of the time. He pointed a finger at the status quo and, in so doing, asked everyone to take a closer look at themselves.

If we begin by asking questions whose real motive is to ‘let us off the hook’, then we may find that our encounters with the gospel story to be very disappointing.

The lawyer beings by asking the question” “who is my neighbour”, seeking to find out how far he had to go to show God’s love. He wanted to be told that he didn’t have to love or care for the people from various ethnic groups. It was practically assumed that this law did not apply to non-Israelites but he seemed to want Jesus to draw the line somewhere. The fact that Jesus drew a circle that included everyone would have been very shocking.

Do we come to the Bible and to our faith seeking to limit our commitment? Do we come seeking affirmation, or have we crossed over that thin line and come seeking ‘loopholes’.

Our society as a whole is very focussed on ‘the self’ and the ‘family’ (our own family, that is) and on fulfilling our own needs and hopes and desires, that the church is bucking some very hard trends, but that’s nothing new.

The Christian faith has always called people to a broader vision; to embrace everyone as a child of God. It has called us to charity and to sharing and to radical caring. Yet, the church teaches that eternal life, which is simply life lived in God’s way, in the here and now AND in the life to come, is an matter of grace, not of works.

So how do we hold those two seemingly opposites together? I think the commandment itself does it. In receiving God’s unconditional love we are changed and transformed so that we can love others in the same way.

Do we seek minimum requirements? Do we want a mere pass on our exam, or do we strive for the best we can offer? Because it isn’t a test; it’s a life of comment. The man who came to Jesus was looking for minimums but Jesus tried to get in to look at God’s bigger dream. In order for our lives to be good and meaningful and a blessing; in order for our lives to benefit the Kingdom of God we must build them with the plan that God sets for us and doing that we find that the eternal finds us. We are called to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We can love ourselves because God has such great love for us.

This parable is not a one size fits all; but rather challenges us to think about our own life of faithfulness and commitment. It challenges our views of who can minister in Christ’s name and who can give and receive ministry.

I was reading a story the other day in Aha! Magazine, published by Wood Lake Books about a student minister who was hit by a car in Toronto and no one helped her. Well dressed businesspeople stepped around her. No one helped, except a homeless man who made the driver of the car stick around, and then even offered to go to the hospital with this student so she wouldn’t be alone.

If you live in Toronto or any big city that is the last thing you’d expect! Yet that is what happened.

This is what this parable does. It turns around our expectations. Who are our neighbours? If you have a list with an “except” at the end then this parable may well be your challenge.

Yet the challenge in the gospel is always, always, much more invitation than test. Come, experience the fullness of life in God’s kingdom. Come and accept God’s love. Come and love your neighbour as yourself.

Amen.

Amos 8: 1-12
Psalm
Colossians 1: 15-28
Luke 10: 38-42

Over the years I have belonged to several groups that met at member’s homes for dinner meetings. The most pleasant visits really had very little to do with how fancy the meal or how well decorated and arranged the house, but much more to do with how relaxed the hosts were. If they were obviously distraught and overly concerned with having things ‘just so’, we knew that they were not able to enjoy the meeting and would likely collapse in an exhausted heap after we had all gone out the door. If however, they were more relaxed and less concerned about the many details sometimes necessary, sometimes not, of hosting a group of people, they too were able to have a good time and able to focus on the purpose of the meeting. Of course, some people can pull off a five course meal without any seeming effort, but many cannot.

There is a wonderful story told about the actor Paul Newman who also happens to be an accomplished race car driver. One day, after a race, he was sitting in an outside café enjoying the early evening with a friend. A woman who regarded herself as ‘his biggest fan’ , and who had travelled to the race for the specific purpose of catching a glimpse of him, pulled up in her car and proceeded to walk toward the ice cream stand that was located at the side of the café. Half way there she noticed Newman. She half wanted him to notice her so tried to smile at him and then she tried to act nonchalant. She ordered a large ice cream cone, paid for it and then went back to her car. All the way she was looking at Newman while trying to look as if she hadn’t noticed him at all. When she got back to her car she discovered that one of her hands held the car keys and the other the change she had received, but there was no ice cream in either hand. Retracing her steps she went back to the ice cream vendor and asked if she had left her ice cream on the counter. The clerk insisted that she had taken the triple decker ice cream with her. She was quite distressed as to what has happened to her Chocolate Chip, Rocky Road, Peanut Butter Cup Swirl Delight, because she had so looked forward to enjoying it. At this point Mr Newman, whose table was near enough to hear this conversation with the clerk, and who knew exactly what was going on, broke into a mischievous smile and spoke up, “Excuse me Ma’am, if you are looking for your ice cream cone, I think you’ll find it in your purse!”

This woman had become so distracted at the sight of her favourite famous movie star that she had not paid any attention to what she was doing and she ended up, not with egg on her face, but just the same, with gooey and sticky, melted ice cream in her purse.

Today’s gospel passage tells us of the time that Jesus was being entertained at the home of a woman named Martha. As the story goes, Mary, Martha’s sister is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to him, and Martha who is busy with the preparations for the meal, asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her. Surprisingly, Jesus tells Martha that she is too distracted and not to worry so much, and that Mary has chosen the better part.

This is an interesting passage for several reasons.

First of all: last week our passage was the story of the Good Samaritan. The message to the expert in the law who asked about inheriting eternal life was: “Go and do; Stop talking and reflecting on who qualifies as your neighbour, and just BE a neighbour”. Here, just a few verses later, the message seems to contradict the earlier teaching. Today it is: “sit and listen to, and reflect on and contemplate the questions of faith.”

Second: This account, as well as the story of the Good Samaritan, is about crossing boundaries that society has erected to control or limit people’s lives. The crossing of these boundaries opens us to new modes of faithfulness and new opportunities for ministry.

Third: It is in the holding the two of these two stories in balance and tension that we find their real message for our lives and for our discipleship.

When we look at these passages in relation to each other, we realize that the contexts are quite different. In the first one, a man is coming to Jesus to at the worst, test him , to trip him up on the law and possibly to get him in trouble with the authorities. Or giving him the benefit of the doubt, he simply wants to be told he is doing everything he needs to in order to be granted eternal life. He wants his prejudices reaffirmed and certainly does not want his blinders removed. Jesus sees that he is seeking to limit his faithfulness, rather than allow the call of God to expand it and he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to provide the challenge that this man needs, but certainly does not want.

The Mary and Martha situation is somewhat different. Mary is earnestly seeking to know God’s word and Martha is wanting to serve Jesus as best she can, as the hostess and cook; after all, it is a woman’s role. All evidence points to the fact that Jesus was a frequent visitor at their home, and, as these things normally go, even the visiting minister is treated more and more like regular people as the time goes on!

Jesus doesn’t want to have Martha fuss and try and ‘put on the dog’ as the good ole Maritime saying goes.

However, this is not ordinary rabbi visiting members of his congregation. This is Jesus, visiting some of his most inner and trusted circle. His time is getting very short; he needs and wants as many people as possible to know what the Kingdom of God is about. He doesn’t care about the first century equivalent of fancy china and linen and four course meals.

In visiting Mary and Martha he is living out his message of radical inclusion; of crossing long held social boundaries and ignoring age old taboos. In associating with women, presumably un-married or widowed ones, Jesus is breaking many written and unwritten rules about rabbis associating with women. In allowing them to sit at his feet as students, he was breaking even more rules about how people were expected to behave in his time and place.

You see, while rabbis were encouraged to teach and discuss the Torah, but they were forbidden to teach it to women. That’s just the way things were. Jesus however, does not seem to think that these ‘ways things are’ were valid faith positions and through his behaviour, calls his followers to broaden their horizons.

Jesus sees these boundaries as human creations, not as things created and mandated by God. He sees them as things which prevent God’s love from bing shown and proclaimed. He saw them being used as excuses for not acting in loving and caring ways.

Whenever we let human barriers come between ourselves and God’s mission, we have not been listening to the gospel which draws circles around people rather than lines between them.

Taken together these two passages call the faithful to thoughtful reflection, prayer and learning about the faith and radical and courageous acting out of God’s love. Discussion and reflection is not to be seen as a way to limit commitment, or even to replace it, but to broaden it, to allow it to be examined, but always to result in it being acted upon.

Perhaps Jesus’ message for us is that we spend a great deal of time in the church, and in our culture, being busied with things which are, in the long run, of little worth. Our desire to “keep up with the Joneses” in terms of the houses we own, the gardens and lawns we keep and the vehicles we drive, all things which can distract us from our real task as Jesus disciples. Providing all of these things for our children, because we didn’t have them, can even replace what is most important, time spent with our children and showing them true love and care.

While the gospel tells us that Jesus loved to eat and to enjoy himself, he also wanted to teach people about the priorities of God’s kingdom.

So we have two examples that we must hold in balance. Loving God by spending time in worship and prayer and study and then going out and living that faith by being a neighbour. One cannot exist without the other. It’s a classic chicken and egg type of argument. We cant love neighbour without loving God and we can’t love God withour completing it in love of neighbour. And we can’t arbitrarily decided whom to love and whom not to.

We are called, sometimes in the most surprising of ways, and we are called to respond. Let us respond in love of God and love of neighbour.

Amen.

Hosea 1: 2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2: 6-19
Luke 11: 1-13

“Teach Us to Pray”

There was once a man who lived on a flood plain. He ignored the warnings about the possible flooding and stayed in his home. Not only did the flood waters rise above the 2 foot dike he had constructed out of sandbags, but they rose to the eaves of his home. As he sat on his roof shivering in the rain, he prayed, “God please help me. Please rescue me.”

The very next instant he heard a man shouting. The man was a police officer and he was rowing a boat and offered to take him to higher ground. The stranded man refused and the policeman shook his head and rowed away. Again the man on the roof prayed! Just then a helicopter came along and a soldier was let down on a rope. He offered to strap the man into a harness and hoist him into the helicopter. Again the man refused and the helicopter flew away. Again the man prayed for God to make the flood go away. Just then a power boat came along and the person piloting the boat said, “You look like you need help. The waters are rising fast and the dam is about to break.” Again the man refused help.

A few minutes later, the dam broke and the man and most of his house were carried away by the raging torrent. Of course, the man was drowned. When he arrived in heaven he demanded an audience with God. When he talked to God face to face, he was very angry and said, “see here God, I was always taught that you answer prayer and I prayed and you did not answer me.”

God replied, “What are you talking about. You prayed and I sent two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want?”

On a bright and sunny morning an elderly minister and a middle aged New York City taxi driver arrived at the ‘pearly gates’ at the same time.

St. Peter bowed to the cab driver and an angel ushered him in. The minister had to take a number and wait. He protested, "Why should I have to wait. I have preached the gospel faithfully for over 60 years. I have done 1000 weddings and 5000 funerals and maybe 100,000 pastoral visits not to mention all those meetings. That cab driver has done nothing but drive people around town all his life.

“But", St. Peter said, "he has driven more people to prayer by his driving than you have with your sermons.

There are many other jokes about prayer and the answers to prayer. Yet, prayer is not a joke, it is a crucial part of the Christian life.

In Luke’s version of events ,the disciples, after seeing Jesus at prayer asked, "Lord, teach us to pray. John taught his disciples". At that time it was the practice for Jewish people to say set prayers both at morning and at night and John may have taught his disciples such a set prayer.

Many people have some funny ideas about prayer. Whether we want to admit it or not many of our prayers sound a great deal like the 1960's Janis Joplin song:

“Oh Lord, wont you buy me a Mercedez Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.”

When we begin a discussion of what prayer is it is much easier to start off by saying what it isn't! Prayer is NOTabout asking for stuff so that we can "keep up with the Jonses." Prayer is NOT asking God to do things that we have forgotten to do, or are not motivated to do. Prayer is NOT about God getting us off of the hook. Prayer is NOT about making bargains with God when we are in a tight fix.

The writer of Luke's gospel has gathered together an interesting assortment of Jesus' teachings on prayer. We have a version of the Lord's prayer, a story about a persistent neighbour and a set of rhetorical questions on the trustworthiness of God.

Let’s look at the story of the persistent neighbor. We make a mistake when we interpret this parable to mean that we can change God's mind by a barrage of pestering prayer. You see we have to interpret this parable in the context of a first-century Galilean village. Hospitality was of primary importance. When someone came to your home, you had to take them in and you had to feed them. The listeners are asked to imagine a situation where one of them received a late night guest and with no bread in the house were obliged to go to the neighbours to borrow it. Since it would have brought shame on the house not to feed a guest the home owner would indeed have been obligated to go next door seeking bread. Knowing this, the person who was awakened by knocking in the middle of the night would have done what was asked. There was no question about this.

Jesus’ argument is this: EVEN if the sleeping householder was inclined to refuse he would comply because of the persistent request. NOW, using a device Jesus often employed, and arguing from the lesser to the greater -“ if you can hardly imagine a neighbor refusing you, you can count on God to come through willingly.

Now, that being said, I will ask a rhetorical question: "Do we pray persistently so that we will change God's mind?" Are we asked to be like a pesky child who nags and nags and nags until our tired parents will buy that pair of name brand jeans or let us go to the concert at the arena – just to get rid of our nagging. NO! That is not how we are to pray and that is not how God answers prayer. The movie Shadowlands is the touching story of an American divorcee named Joy Gresham and a British author and theologian CS Lewis. Joy is stricken with cancer and as Lewis arrives at the college where he teaches he is met by a minister who says: "I know how hard you've been praying ... Now God is answering your prayer."

Lewis shoots back, "That's not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God; it changes me."

Prayer is about fostering a relationship with God. If we do not spend time and effort on our personal and human relationships they suffer. This is true of couples both young and old, of parents and children and of friends. It is true of our relationship with God. Prayer is an essential part of this relationship.

Thomas Long quoted in Willamon's Pulpit Resource. says, "Prayer is not a message scribbled on a note, jammed into a bottle and tossed into the sea in hopes that it will wash up someday on God's shoreline. Prayer is relationship with God. We speak to God, but God touches, embraces, shapes, and changes us. Whether we pray for rain or pray for sunshine our prayer is answered, because in the act of praying we receive the gift we really seek - intimacy with God."

In 1984 the Rt. Rev. Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Capetown received a Nobel Peace Prize. This was a lonely and scary time for non-white South Africans. The Boers were still in full power and Nelson Mandela's release was only a pipe dream. On his way to Oslo to receive his prize he spoke to a standing room only crowd of church people and peace activists. He stood and after many minutes of spontaneous cheering he spoke:, "I'm going to tell you all what you most need to hear, the single most important thing you can do for South Africa." The sanctuary fell silent with everyone there waiting to be told what to do for this pain- filled country. He continued softly, "Pray. Pray for my people. Pray for us and with us, daily. Pray. That's what you can do. It will change the world." From Willamon's pulpit Resource quoting Peter J Groomes' Sunday's at Harvard: Sermons for the Academic Year, 1995. Fred Morris was a missionary. This story is found in Jim Taylor's book ‘An Everyday God' and again is from memory. and he worked in Brazil. One day the secret police came for him and took him to prison. They tortured him and tried to get him to admit to serious crimes. One day one of his torturers gave him an un-expected gift. He said, "Fred, all of your friends are over at the church, praying for you!" He meant it as a criticism, to prove that prayer was useless but Fred took it a different way. Fred realized that those people were risking their lives for him and then, more than ever before he felt the presence of God and knew that his faith was real. As a result of diplomatic pressure Fred was released but he found himself grateful to his captors for, quite unintentionally, strengthening his faith.

Prayer is about seeking what we need rather than what we want. This is often a hard thing for us to discern. While it may be easy for us to discern that we don't need either a Mercedez or a Porsche many other things we pray for are not really needs, only wants! Often it is only after some time has passed that we realize it was a good thing we didn't always end up getting what we asked for.

One of the things that is affirmed in this passage is the abiding goodness of God. Again Jesus uses a rhetorical question to show how much greater God's goodness is than that of humans. Only a real stinker would give his child a scorpion when asked for an egg. Only a terrible person would give her child a snake when they needed a fish. Of course no one there would admit to being such a parent. How much more then can we count on God to give us what we need! We are not protected from tragedy but what I do believe is that God never leaves us and God gives us strength to deal with what comes our way and God gives us the strength to cope, to rise above it, to become better people because of it. Through prayer we can become in tune with this power and this strength.

I subscribe to an email sermon list. A bunch of us mail sermons and ideas back and forth to one another. One minister tells the story of holding a bible study in the room of a person dying with AIDS. The young man often would respond with great insight and conviction even though it was difficult for him to talk. As the illness neared the end he was barely able to speak. On their last day with him they entered his room and thinking that he was in a coma decided to join hands around his bed and say the Lord's Prayer. Part way through the prayer they realized that he was praying it with them. I have had the same experience with patients suffering from Alzheimer. This prayer is hard-wired in many of us, but we need to know more than the words, we need to know it with our hearts.

As a model for our own praying the prayer of Jesus captures important themes and attitudes: Praise of God.; Seeking God's reign; Seeking God's will; Asking for what we need and Seeking harmony in human relationships.

For in the Lord's prayer we acknowledge our place in the community and in creation. We seek the guidance of the God who has created and who seeks to make us new through the power of the Spirit. We acknowledge that God gives us daily what we need and that we are to think of the children of Israel in the wilderness who had to gather the manna on a daily basis. We are not to forget God in the good times and then come running in the bad. Going to God in prayer is to be a regular and necessary part of our day.

So today, when we pray the Lord’s’s Prayer, let us really listen to ourselves as we pray today. Let us listen to one another as we pray this prayer this morning. Above all let us listen for God as we pray this prayer this morning.

Amen

Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 109: 1-8, 43
Colossians 3: 1-11
Luke 12: 13-21

Riches Toward God

“MOM”, whined the five year old, “Bobby took the biggest piece!” “Aw! It’s not fair, when Sally was twelve, she could stay up later!” “Mom! Tell Johnny to share.” Many parents spend at least some time mediating these kinds of disputes and seeming injustices among their children.

Jesus was teaching and preaching the Good News of God and he was seen by many as a breath of fresh air, blowing through a stale and inflexible culture. He stretched many people to think of the old laws in new ways. In many cases he called people to look at the purpose of the law rather than the letter. In today’s story a man comes to him with an inheritance dispute.

I can see two possibilities here: FIRST: and most likely this man was unhappy with the ancient rules in regard to family inheritances and he wanted Jesus to give a new teaching. There WERE firm rules about inheritances. If there were two bothers the older of the two received TWO-THIRDS and the younger, ONE-THIRD. If there were three brothers the older received HALF and the other two ONE-QUARTER each. As I understand it, the oldest bother always received double what each of the others received. This could have been seen as unfair by this man and he saw Jesus as a man who also saw it as an injustice and would “fix it” for him. .

The SECOND option is that this man was unhappy with the details of the division. Perhaps the brother had kept all of the better animals and gave him only the second rate ones, or the best land, or all of the best stuff and had given him the junk. He wanted the distribution to be fairer! Jesus, the man of justice, would see it his way.

Regardless, Jesus discerned that this man’s motive was not justice, but greed. He first gave a ‘one liner’ as an answer: your value as a person does not hinge on how much stuff you have. Then, just as he had in the story of the man who wanted to be let off the hook, in terms of who was and who was not, his neighbour, Jesus tells a story.

The 19th century Russian social commentator and author, Leo Tolstoy, wrote a short story in which a farmer, who can never seem to have enough land, takes part in a gruelling race to acquire a large parcel of land. Despite obvious medical problems which become increasingly serious, he continues on despite his difficulties, only to drop dead at the finish line. The story concludes that all the land he really needs is what is required for his grave.

The story Jesus tells is of a rich man, a farmer, who enjoys a bumper crop. His problem is that his barns are not big enough to store the harvest so he tears them down and builds bigger ones. THEN he sits back and assures himself of long life, happiness and wealth. Many parties will no doubt follow. “Relax, eat, drink and be merry; I’ve got it made”, says the man.

NOT SO FAST warns Jesus. Death will come to him, then his large cache of food and abundant possessions will belong to someone else.

The problem, as I see it, was NOT his wealth or his store of possessions. The problem was that he thought that his real security lay in that wealth. It is as if he equated spiritual security with material security. There are some passages in the Bible which do see wealth as a sign of God’s favour; the flip side of this way of thinking is that poverty is a sign of God’s punishment. This way of thinking prompts some rich people to act in such a way that shows they don’t see that they have any responsibility toward the poor whatsoever. This attitude goes something like this, “If you were not lazy and wasteful, or a sinner of some other kind, you would be well off too. Why should I go against God’s punishment by giving you food or clothing.”

While Jesus sought to show that God was concerned for justice, he also sought to teach them of God’s mercy and God’s call to be merciful. Thus, while wealth may be a blessing from God, it is not given to the rich for their own use alone, but in order that the wealth can bless others. Jesus also sought to teach people to trust in God and not in their possessions, or in their heritage.

As the parable goes, the rich man does not even entertain the idea of giving away a portion of his crop. It is all for himself; you may notice that he uses the word “my” a great deal: my crops, my barns, my goods and even my soul! Not only does he revel in his present good fortune but in his future security. There is no one else in the story, not those who have helped him to plant, cultivate and harvest those crops. There is no family. The man is alone and while, like King Midas, everything he touches seems to turn to gold, but he is completely alone.

Then we are warned that death will call him from this self centred revelry and we are given the impression that his soul will be found, not rich, but sadly lacking.

We’ve all watched the Beverly Hillbillies! It’s a crazy show from the 60's about these mountain folks who discover oil on their land and end up in Beverly Hills in a mansion with a “SEE-MENT pond” and millions of dollars in the bank. Yet, Jed’s generosity combined with his cavalier attitude toward the true amount of his net wealth is in stark and comical contrast to the greed of Milburn Drysdale, their ever solicitous and greedy banker.

In the 1950's there were numerous oil strikes in Green County Kentucky. Many people had oil wells in back yards and side yards and front yards and vacant lots, including one small church which had 15 oil wells on their 5 acre property. Their share added up to a very large sum over time so they had a congregational meeting to decide what to do with the money. They decided to: 1- pay off their debts. 2-put a tidy sum in the bank and then distribute the rest of the money among the members. 3- NOT allow any new members to join for the time being. John Temple Bristow, as posted on the Midrash preaching list. It would seem that the congregation had no thought for mission or outreach at all. It would seem that they had fallen into the trap of the rich fool in today’s passage and that their wealth had begun to possess them and to deprive them of their soul, of their real reason for being.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement and eventually the Methodist Church, a founding denomination of the United Church of Canada, included in each ‘class meeting’ an offering to help the poor. He is quoted as having taught, “Earn as much as you can, save as much as you can, GIVE as much as you can”.

This parable calls us all, as individuals, as a culture, AND as a church community to look at this passage as if it were a mirror in which we see ourselves and to ask the question, “How am I like that foolish man?”

First we need to ask: What is that man’s folly? I am relying on the summary in the New Interpreter’s Bible (Luke) for these points. The analysis is mine

First: It does not seem that it was his wealth, per se, that was the problem, it was his preoccupation with it.

People who are far less well off can also have a similar preoccupation, though for them it is a goal for which to strive rather than something they have already achieved. This fool is secure in his store of stuff; the poorer ones may say, “If only I had another $10,000 in the bank, or another $100 a week in take-home pay, I’d be secure. Or when we can get the additional car, or the pleasure boat, or a new set of ATVs for summer and snowmobiles for winter, then we’ll be satisfied. The problem is not the stuff, in and of itself, but the belief that the stuff will bring security or happiness.

Second: This man does not seem to need anyone, nor does he see the need to help anyone else. He does not need other people and he certainly does not seem to need God. He has food in his fridge and money in the bank. What more could a person need? Yet Jesus was always talking about the community of faith, which cares for one another and which supports and builds up one another. In his self sufficiency he is both greedy and short-sighted. He does not seem to realize that material possessions are only a part, albeit a necessary part, of life but that in refusing to share, he has cut himself off from the benefits of that kind of community.

Fourth: This man’s dream is to sit back, relax and enjoy the fruits of his labours. This man has all he needs. Jesus’ challenge is that this is a hollow existence indeed. Again the problem is not so much his living off of his accumulated wealth but his attitude that this is the meaning of life.

Fifth: Whether he thinks he is or not, this man might as well be an atheist. He has no real need for God; he can look after himself just fine thank you!

So as individuals and as a community of faith we are left with the questions: Whom or what do we really trust? And, How are we like that rich fool. In this part of the world we have accumulated great wealth. We have also allowed ourselves to develop a lifestyle which has great needs. Yet, in much of the world the issue is not having another car and the newest gadgets, but it is having enough to eat and safe water to drink.

When I was in university one of the catch phrases of the church had to do with the call to “live more simply so that others can simply live”. The gospel as a whole makes it abundantly clear that generosity is part of the Christian life. As a culture we need to take a hard look, from a faith perspective, at how much we consume and how much we seem to need, in comparison with the real need of those who have next to nothing. The real irony of the situation becomes clear when one visits a Christian community in a place like Haiti or Guatemala. These people have next to nothing but they will give their next meal, perhaps the last food in the house, to a guest because they are a people of faith and a people who trust that somehow God will provide for those who live in faithfulness and love.

They respond in love with what they have and we can walk with them and support them with what we have and we have so much more. We have the means to buy fairly traded coffee and other products and we also have the means to advocate for better conditions for all people who live in poverty despite being surrounded by great wealth.

As we gather (for this memorial service) (on this hot and muggy Sunday) we are called to reflect on the call of Christ to this community. Some of us are only guests, and some are returning for this service, to make connections with a church community from our past or our parents past. What a perfect time to reflect on the purpose of our faith community which is to be a witness of God’s abundant love in Jesus the Christ and to enable the members of the community to live out this witness in our daily living. The Church was never meant to be an end in itself; we have our buildings and our programs and our resources so that we can proclaim the God of Jesus, the Christ- - so that we can proclaim in word and deed that God is with us. When we reflect on the faith of our fathers and mothers we need to look at how that faith informs our lives today. We need to ask how that foundation supports the life of faith we seek, by God’s grace, to live, wherever it is that we live, in the year 2004. We need to take a look at our priorities. We need to look at what it is that we really strive for. We need to ask ourselves the question: Whom or what do I really trust?

We are a people on a journey. This church community, has been a part of that journey in various ways. May the strength of the food received in this place and in this time give us what we need to go from here and be God’s people in the days and weeks to come. We are called to open our hearts in love to God and to those around us. Let us trust in God as we live God’s love out in our living.

Amen.