Looking for Goodness
Luke 12:22-40[1]
I think it’s getting
harder to find goodness in this world. The way things work these days makes it
necessary to assume that people have some hidden motive, and to be constantly
on our guard. It used to be scam phone calls. So many of us cancelled our land
lines to avoid them. Then it was the emails. So we have “spam filters” to
protect us. Now it’s our cell phones and even text messaging. All of that just
reinforces the idea that it’s better to go through life suspicious of everyone
and everything. These days, it’s not only the “buyer” who needs to “beware.” We
all have to beware constantly of the bad actors who are out there trying to take
advantage of us.
Good judgment is
always a virtue. But I wonder whether the suspicion all the scams out there
provokes in us doesn’t skew our attitude toward life in general. When we’re
always on our guard against falling for a trick, always suspicious of people we
don’t know, always skeptical about whether we can trust anyone, it changes us.
Instead of being open-hearted, open-handed people who freely share God’s love
and grace, we become fearful people who put up all kinds of walls to protect
ourselves. As I’ve said before, fear blocks us from a lot of things. It keeps
us from seeing God’s goodness all around us. It’s hard to shine the warmth of
God’s unfailing love when we’re always worried about whether people are trying
to exploit us somehow.
Our Gospel lesson for
today reminds us to base our lives on our trust in God, not other people, and
not even our own resources. As I’ve mentioned before, this is a major theme in
this section of Luke’s Gospel. We’re not just to pray in the confident trust
that God knows our needs, cares about us, and delights in providing what is
good for us all. Jesus calls us to live our whole lives based on confidence in
God’s goodness. And it’s based on that confidence that Jesus addresses what
faithful discipleship looks like. Living from this bottom-line confidence in
God’s goodness not only frees us from our fears, it also enables us to practice
the mercy that the parable of the Good Samaritan calls for: being a neighbor to
everyone we meet.
Part of the backdrop
for our Scripture reading today is the Parable of the “Rich Fool.” There Jesus
warned against thinking that our lives depend on our own ability to provide for
ourselves. I believe he knew that the more we think our lives are secured by
what we have, the more subject to fear we are. So we’re constantly trying to
get our hands on more, because fear makes what we have seem to be never enough.
That’s what Jesus called “greed,” or as older translations call it,
“covetousness.” Throughout the ages, as St. Paul said so long ago, many have
agreed that this desire for more “causes
all kinds of trouble” (1 Tim 6:10, CEV).
Instead of operating
on the belief that your life “consists of the sum total of your possessions”
(Lk 12:15, The New Testament for Everyone), in our lesson for today
Jesus calls us all to trust in God’s goodness to provide for our needs. That we
can trust in God’s goodness is something that Jesus reinforces with common
sense and with what anyone can see in nature. First, it’s just common sense
that “Life is much more important than food, and the body much more important
than clothes” (Lk 12:23, Good News Translation). It also makes sense when
Jesus asks the question, “Can worry make you live longer?” (Lk 12:25, CEV). If
worrying can’t make us live longer, neither can it put food on the table or
clothes on our back. Only God can do that!
Second, we can see
evidence in nature that helps us trust in God’s goodness to provide for our
needs. Jesus pointed to the birds in the air and the wildflowers in the fields.
While ravens might not seem all that important to us, and may even be a
nuisance to some, they’re God’s creatures, and God “gives them food when they
need it” (Ps 145:15, GNT), just like he does for all creatures. Jesus
also pointed to the beauty of wildflowers, that are more beautiful even than
“Solomon in his royal robes” (Lk 12:27, NIrV). Again, his point is that
if God provides such beauty for a field of wildflowers, how much more will he
provide our needs.
As I’ve said before, the
underlying foundation for all of this is a way of looking at who God is. Just
as with prayer, so also with all our needs, we’re not looking to a God who is
too far above us to care, or to God who gives only grudgingly. So instead of
storing up treasures for ourselves while ignoring those around us, which Jesus
makes clear is an “unwise” way to live, we can choose a different path. We can
devote our lives to “seeking the kingdom” by showing love for our “neighbors,”
all our neighbors. As we share what God has given us with those in need, we not
only store up an “unfailing treasure in heaven” (Lk 12:33), we also become a
community of whom people can say they see the warmth of God’s love shining
through us.
I think it’s important
to recognize that we really don’t have to look all that far to see signs of
God’s goodness among us. It’s as close to us as the birds and the wildflowers
that are always around us. But it’s also there when someone gives a neighbor a
helping hand. Like when a farmer is injured, and his friends work his family’s
crops. Or when a group of people get together to put on a rummage sale, a bake
sale, and grill some burgers, brats, and dogs, all for a good cause. It’s there. We can see it all around us, all
the time. We just have to learn to look for it, and to trust that God’s
goodness will always be there to support us.
[1] ©
2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, PhD on 8/7/2022 for Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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