Truly Rich

“Truly Rich”

Luke 12:13-21[1]

I think it’s fair to say that we as a people are obsessed with our possessions. We continually occupy ourselves with getting more—a better computer, a nicer TV, a newer phone, just to mention a few of the “hotter” items on the market. Experts recognize that this consumption of consumer goods is the engine that drives our economy. And this isn’t just about “the one who finishes with the most toys wins.” It’s ingrained into much of our decision-making. In a society where we seek to secure our future by our own efforts, we are constantly calculating ways of ensuring that our account balances are heading upward. And for us, that just makes good sense. It’s hard not to think that our lives consist in “the abundance of possessions.”

Part of this is simply a matter of living in a market economy. But there are many aspects of the way we live in this economy that betray the power of wealth over us. For example, many of us play the lottery. We see it as essentially “free money.” But we fail to recognize the bigger picture: “jackpots” are filled with money from people who buy lottery tickets. And many of them cannot afford to be spending their money that way. So those who “win” get rich at the expense of others. The fact that we rarely stop to consider this bigger picture betrays the way our wealth can influence us to neglect the welfare of others.

In part, that’s one of the reasons that Jesus criticized the rich farmer in our parable from Luke’s Gospel for today. Again, we might think his actions were prudent. Who wouldn’t store up a bumper crop in order to wait to sell for a better price in a lean year? We would see that as simply “good business sense.” But Jesus rather bluntly calls it “greed.” In our world, planning for the future is essential, because we are all aware that there will come a day when we can no longer provide for ourselves. But seeking to secure our own future this way implies that we believe our lives consist in “the abundance of possessions.”

That’s what the farmer in this parable believed. He says to himself, “Self, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19). This might sound like a good thing. Who among us doesn’t want to be able to retire comfortably?^[2] Who among us doesn’t worry at least a little about having “ample goods” to provide for our needs? Like the farmer in the parable, it would seem that many of us believe we can secure our own future through our wealth. And so we occupy ourselves, as he did, with storing up “ample goods” so that we can “relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”

In the parable, there is a background that plays a role here, but it may not be obvious. As in many of Jesus’ parables, the excessive wealth of some meant that others had to do without basic necessities. And one of the flaws in this farmer’s thinking is that he’s thinking all about himself, not about anybody else.^[3] Although he has a bumper crop, he’s obviously wealthy enough that he doesn’t even have to sell his crop to cover his expenses. More than that, given his extensive landholdings, hoarding his crop will very likely adversely affect the food supply of the many others who are his neighbors. But he’s obviously not even thinking about the welfare of these “neighbors.”

The real problem with this outlook on life is that it neglects the dangers of wealth that Jesus so often warns against. Seeking an “abundance of possessions” has a way of turning into hoarding everything we can get our hands on. Finding our security in our wealth can lead us to ignore the source of our true security. It can motivate us to “store up treasures for ourselves” but to ignore what it means to be “rich toward God.” In other settings, Jesus explains that true riches are those that cannot wear out or disappear. Being truly rich comes from knowing God’s unconditional love for us, and sharing that love with those around us.

Although some of us may disagree, in the Bible our faith affects our attitude towards our possessions. When we encounter God’s love in Jesus Christ, it’s supposed to change the way we live our lives. And Jesus makes it abundantly clear throughout the Gospels that this extends to what we do with our possessions. As he pointed out so clearly, we cannot “serve God and wealth” (Luke 16:13). I think at least a part of what he was trying to say to us is that our wealth has a way of mastering us if we’re not wise in the way we use it. That’s why St. Paul warns us that we must “put to death … greed (which is idolatry)” (Col. 3:5). Wealth has a way of going from a simple means of exchange to a golden calf that we serve in place of God.

I think most of us would hear Jesus’ warning, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed” (Luke 12:15) and think that applies to someone else, someone who is “really” rich. But in reality, it addresses us all with a choice as to which master we will serve. Choosing to serve “the abundance of our possessions” will rob us of the opportunity to be “truly rich.” When we become so consumed by our wealth that we ignore others, we are living in direct contradiction to the will of God. Being “truly rich” comes only as we find our lives in the new life that God offers us all.  It is a life of learning that becoming content with God’s love turns whatever we have into everything we could ever need. It is a life of loving God in return and therefore serving those around us in love—especially by sharing what we have with them.  Jesus calls this “being rich toward God” (Lk 12:21), or truly rich.

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[1] ©2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/4/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreters Bible IX: 257: “the rich man’s vision of the future sounds uncomfortably like one that most of us have for our retirement years. Are we really planning prudently? What gives our life meaning now, and what will give it meaning then?”

[3] Cf. Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 490-91.

Reflecting the Face of Jesus

Reflecting the Face of Jesus

1 John 3:16-24[1]

Mirrors have an interesting place in our world. It seems that as long as human beings have been aware of their appearance, there have been some kind of mirrors. And yet, the mirrors we have used to look at ourselves have always to some degree distorted the image they reflect. For example, the image we see is opposite from what others see; right and left are reversed. But as most of the ladies will doubtless know, and perhaps some of the guys too, the kind of lighting can make a huge difference in the way we appear in a mirror. If the lighting is too harsh, we can look pale, washed out, almost ghostly—or some might say ghastly. Yellow lighting softens our features, but if there’s too much yellow it can make us look ill. The plain truth is that mirrors do lie!

But more than the simple mechanics of reflection and lighting is involved here. Because the image we “see” in the mirror is significantly influence by the assumptions we make about our appearance. The same person may look young or old, depending on what details you notice. At the same time, some may see themselves as overweight, while others see themselves as too thin, and there may be very little difference in their actual body shape. Mirrors tend to reflect back what we believe about ourselves. Those assumptions we make about ourselves make all the difference in the world in what we see in the mirror and whether we like what we see or not.[2] Mirrors don’t give us a true image.

In a very real sense, I think our Scripture lesson from 1 John addresses the issue of the way we present the image of Christ to those around us. Earlier in this passage, the Elder says, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 Jn. 3:11). It seems very clear that the way we reflect our faith is by showing the love of Jesus to those around us.  I think that’s his point in our lesson for today: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 Jn. 3:16). Loving others in the same way Jesus loved us is the way we reflect our faith. It is the way we reflect the face of Jesus to others.

Now, love can be something hard to define. Think about it: how do you really describe love? The Scripture lesson describes the kind of love that we are to show one another in terms of “laying down our lives for one another.” That’s getting specific. But I find it particularly interesting that the Scripture lesson goes even further. Reflecting God’s love to others takes place when we have the means to help someone in need and we help them. As the Elder puts it: “ How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” (1 Jn. 3:17). And so he concludes, “ let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 Jn. 3:18).[3]

We may find this kind of language shocking. We’re much more used to talking about loving others in terms that are feeling-oriented. Love is equated with being nice, or having a kind way of relating to others. I’m not sure we’re used to the very tangible way in which the Scripture speaks of loving others—actually sharing what we have with those in need. And in fact, having the ability to share and refusing to do so raises the question as to whether we have truly experienced God’s love. Now, of course, in our world we have to use good judgment in this. We have to discern whether what we are doing is actually helping someone or hurting them. But it seems very clear that reflecting the face of Jesus to the world around us has specific implications for how we relate to those around us.

If this is the case, I have to wonder whether we truly reflect the face of Jesus for the people in our world. Do we truly reflect Jesus’ mercy and compassion for those who are hurting, who perhaps have fallen through the cracks, or have done something terrible that they regret?  It has become almost a cliché to say that we are the only face of the Christian faith that some people will ever have.  We are the only ones who can show them God’s love and mercy and grace. But since that may not be natural or even comfortable for us to do, how can we learn to reflect the face of Jesus?

I think we start by learning to love one another the way Jesus loves us all.[4] That can be pretty hard to do sometimes. But I’m not talking about how we feel towards one another. I’m talking about making a commitment to relate to one another with the love that Christ has shown us.  I think this kind of love begins in the family of faith.[5]  One of the reasons why we’re called to community is so we can learn to “lay down our lives” for one another just as Jesus laid down his life for us. And so loving one another means making a commitment to live the Christian life in this community with one another. Making that kind of commitment to love one another is how we learn to reflect the face of Jesus to those around us.

I think this kind of love takes the same kind of commitment that we bring to a marriage or to a family.  In a family, we love one another through thick and thin, through joy and pain, through fighting and hugging.  We stick with each other, we forgive each other, we let each other off the hook, we work at seeing things from the other point of view, we support and respect and treat one another with dignity.[6] When we can look at one another from that perspective, then we can share the love of Christ with one another. Then we can reflect the face of Jesus to those around us.

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[1] ©2015 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/26/2015 at Hickman Presbyterian Church in Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Here and Now: Life in the Spirit, 17, where he points out that the “oughts” we cling to “keep us feeling guilty about the past” and the “what ifs” keep us worried about the future, and both keep us from fully experiencing life in the present moment. Cf. also Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 34-35: “All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered.” But he also points out that such a “false self” cannot help but be an illusion, which leads to our disillusionment with ourselves and with life. Cf. also Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, 64-67, where he discusses this phenomenon in terms of what the Buddhist tradition calls “internal formations.”  He says (p. 65), “Our conscious, reasoning mind knows that negative feelings such as anger, fear, and regret are not wholly acceptable to ourselves or our society, so it finds ways to repress them.” Instead, he encourages us to become aware of them and simply observe them with kindness.

[3] Cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Epistles of John, 474. He makes it clear that this is the definition of “laying down our lives” for each other. In this, he says that the Elder “is not holding up a new moral demand; rather he is reaching into the heart of Christianity’s Jewish heritage” (cf. Deut. 15:7; cf. Lk. 10:25–37; Jas. 2:15–16). Contrast I. Howard Marshall, The Epistles of John, 195, and Stephen Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, 195, both of whom claim that it is unclear what the Elder means by this. Brown points out that the reason this sharing of goods was so important is because the New Testament suggests that the churches of the First Century were for the most part relatively poor and depended on the charity of members with means to supply basic necessities of life (cf. Lk. 6:20–22; Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–37; 1 Cor. 1:26–29; 11:17–22; Jas. 1:9; 2:3, 6, 15–16). 

[4] Cf. G. C. Berkouwer, The Church, 96, where he says that the expression of Christian fellowship both in spiritual and material terms is “a plain understanding of the gospel—in other words, an understanding of the Church as the one body of Christ. … Because He laid down His life, we have come to know love (1 John 3:16), and everything is founded in that.” Therefore he concludes that it is impossible for the heart to “be closed to our brother’s need if it is open to the love of God.”

[5] Cf. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing, 83: “the community is the place where we continue to let the world know there is something to rejoice about in this new life together.” Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 263, where he says that love that “spends itself and surrenders itself” is the “immanent power of the resurrection” in our lives here and now.

[6] Cf. Paul Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice, 84-86, where he articulates that love’s “first task” in relationships is to listen; then it is to give, whether respect or self-sacrifice; then it is to forgive.  Cf. also Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing, 75: “Your love for others can be unconditional, without a condition that your needs are gratified, when you have the experience of being loved,” i.e., by God.

Send Lazarus!

1 Tim. 6:6-19; Lk. 16:19-31[1]

I think most of what the Bible has to say about money falls on deaf ears with us. Money is so much a part of our existence, it seems impossible not to place at least some degree of trust in it. For me, I began learning to trust in money when I was a boy. My parents and grandparents went through the great depression, so they had a lot to say about money. Mainly, money is what keeps you from going destitute. They kept gold coins and jewelry in their safety deposit boxes as security against another catastrophic deflation of currency. My Aunt Ruth gave me a $2 to keep in my wallet at all times so that I would never be “broke.” My grandfather taught me about compound interest and about the importance of putting your money to work before I became a teenager. In a wide variety of ways they reinforced the notion that money is what keeps you from going destitute. They taught me to trust in money.

But I suspect I’m not the only one who has a hard time with our Scripture lessons for today. I think St. Paul’s advice that we who have this world’s goods not set our hopes on “money, which is here today and gone tomorrow” (1 Tim. 6:17, MSG) comes across to us like a Latin mass. We hear the words, and we understand that they’re supposed to be important, but we don’t have a clue what they mean.[2] Our whole way of life is oriented around setting your hopes on money. Which one of us can say that we are not setting our hopes on money—at the very least when it comes to retirement? To some extent, that may not be a bad thing. It’s simply a feature of what it means to live in an economy where currency is the primary means of exchange.

But from another perspective, that can be disastrous.[3] St. Paul said it most plainly (though he is mostly misquoted!): “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10). Of course, this opens the door to recognizing that it is we who are the problem. Money is just one among many means of exchange in the various economic systems that have come and gone in the world. As such, it can be neutral. But it is our desire for money, and what it represents to us, that is the problem. We look to money as if it were a genie who can make all our wishes come true. In a very real sense, St. Paul wants to warn us that having money is not what gives us true life; rather it is “godliness with contentment” (1 Tim. 6:6). Trusting in God who supplies our needs and being satisfied with what we have is what leads us to the life that is truly worth living.

That’s all well and good, but we still live in this culture where “money makes the world go around!” How can we learn to be satisfied, to be truly content with what we have, given the fact that we live in a world that is so completely oriented around buying and getting more? Perhaps St. Paul gives us a clue here when he instructs those of us who have this world’s goods to “do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share” (1 Tim. 6:18). Sharing generously is a means of learning to be content with what we have. I’m not talking about the token charity that we use to salve our guilty conscience—I’m talking about real generosity. It is a matter of solidarity: letting ourselves “be affected by the suffering of other human beings”; it is a matter of “sharing their pain and tragedy.”[4]

You may be thinking that we’ve gone from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak: How can we have the confidence, the courage, and the faith to do as Paul says—to share what we have generously? Father Abraham tells the rich man that his brothers should listen to Moses and the prophets. We still have Moses and the prophets, but I’m not sure we do any better job hearing them than the rich man or his brothers.[5] We also have Jesus, the apostles, and the saints through the ages, but I think it’s all too easy for us to “bracket” them out of our reality. So what do we have, or perhaps better, whom do we have who can teach us to share what we have generously? Who do we have who can be prophets to us, who can convict us and rebuke us and instruct us and point us toward the life that is truly worth living?

We do have Lazarus. In fact, we have many Lazaruses all around us: the poor, the oppressed and the disenfranchised. But I guess the question we have to ask ourselves is whether they can help us. In the parable from our Gospel lesson, in spite of the fact that the rich man begged for Abraham to “send Lazarus” to help him, Abraham explained that he could not help. We might say that the rich man already had his chance to learn from Lazarus, and he refused. But we still have a chance to learn from the Lazaruses of our world.

So how can the poor, those who suffer injustice and oppression, and those who have been cast out in our world teach us how to share ourselves generously? Well, it seems to me that if we take Jesus seriously when he says, “I was hungry,” then we have to reckon seriously with the possibility that the Lazaruses of our day are the very ones in whom Jesus, the crucified Lord is present.[6] In a very real sense, they become our prophets and apostles, because they bear witness to us about the good news of a God who is present with us in our suffering.[7] They are our prophets and apostles because they teach us that the life that is truly worth living always has been and always will be characterized by compassion and generosity.[8] Although Lazarus could not help the rich man who ignored his plight, I think perhaps he might help us. I think he can point us to the Lazaruses all around us, poor and oppressed and outcast people who represent the God who shares our suffering. And when we take to heart this good news that the “crucified people” around us proclaim, we have the chance to be converted to a life of sharing the suffering of others. When that happens, we have the chance to live the life that is truly worth living.

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[1] © 2010 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/26/10 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. Wade P. Huie, Jr., “The Poverty of Abundance,” Interpretation 22 (Oct 1968): 403, where he observes, “the biblical word about the poor and the rich can pass by me, for I am not poor and do not feel rich.”

[3] Ralph Wood, “A Passion for Lesser Things (1 Timothy 6:6-19),” The Christian Century (Sept 13-20,1995), 843: “few desires corrupt our hearts more than the desire for financial security.” Cf. also J. D. G. Dunn, “The First and Second Letters to Timothy and the Letter to Titus,” New Interpreter’s Bible XI:828

[4] Jon Sobrino, Where is God?, 19.

[5] Cf. Fred Craddock, Luke, 192-98, where he explains the theological framework that the Pharisees used to justify a “gospel of wealth.” It illustrates the ease with which any of us can turn Scripture into a justification for whatever we want.

[6] Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 127, 129.

[7] Sobrino, Where is God?, 23.

[8] Cf. The Study Catechism: Full Version with Biblical References Approved by the 210th General Assembly (1998), question 16, , which puts this into the framework of the reason for our creation: “God created us to live together in love and freedom” and “to be loving companions of others so that something of God’s goodness may be reflected in our lives.” Cf. also Cf. Huie, “Poverty of Abundance,” 409, where he points out that while Lazarus needed the rich man to provide food and clothing and medicine, the rich man needed Lazarus to teach him “what it means to be human.”

Sharing Everything

Acts 4:32-35[1]

The theme of our lessons from the book of Acts during the Easter season is the story of the early church’s witness—the witness to the resurrection of Jesus and the new life that comes out of it. What they proclaimed was that in Jesus the Christ God was fulfilling all the great promises of restoration and renewal. Specifically, they declared the “wonderful times of refreshment” that were coming “from the presence of the Lord” and “the final restoration of all things” that “God promised long ago through his prophets” (Acts 3:20-21, NLT).

But what made their witness so effective was the combination of their proclamation and their life. One of the most important ways in which the early church lived out this good news was by sharing their possessions with one another. It seems that the early church understood God to be in the process of fulfilling the promise to restore all things and to establish a kingdom of peace and freedom where there would be no need.[2] Like Jesus, they were looking with joy beyond this world to God’s future, where the sorrowing would be comforted, the poor would be supplied with all their needs, and the oppressed would be set free to live the lives they were meant to live.[3] And as a result, the early church were enabled to do something we might think quite radical: they share their possessions so that “there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34).

I wonder if that was not a significant factor in the fact that they bore witness to the resurrection of Jesus “with great power” (Acts 4:33). Of course, they had specifically asked God to empower them to speak boldly, and the fact that the place where they met was shaken is meant to indicate that God answered their prayer by filling them with the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:29, 31).[4] But it also seems to me to be no coincidence that in virtually the same breath as Luke tells us that the early church shared their possessions, he also says that “great grace” was upon them and that they bore witness to the resurrection of Jesus with “great power”![5]

We live in a time when many are arguing over the language of the Book of Order. In the midst of our “wrangling about words,” however, it seems to me that we have missed the big picture. In the Book of Order we say that we believe we are called to be “Christ’s faithful evangelists” and that one way in which we are to accomplish this task is by “giving [ourselves] and [our] substance to the service of those who suffer.”[6] That part of the book is not under any kind of debate. But I would venture to say that this is much more central to our calling to be the church than the vast majority of our debates over the constitution of our church. In light of today’s Scripture lesson, I think we would do better to ask how we can fulfill our calling to be “a sign in and for the world of the new reality which God has made available to people in Jesus Christ”[7] with reference to our possessions.

There is a sense in which we do that already. We work to help the needy around us by holding clothing drives and distributing Christmas baskets. But I wonder why we do those good things. If it’s just to try to get something, even new members, we’ve got it backwards. Do those projects come from a compassionate desire to share “ourselves and our substance” or are they just tokens to make us feel better about ourselves.[8] Make no mistake—we are called to “lay down our lives” for one another just as Jesus laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16-24). And that means that we are to “go beyond mere requirements in serving and helping our neighbor, to treat our neighbor's needs as our own, to care passionately for the other's good, and to share what we have.”[9]

We have all kinds of excuses for not practicing the kind of radical sharing that the early church did. Part of the problem is that we’re essentially selfish people, interested in our own welfare.[10] Part of the problem is that we are simply afraid. But the fear that clings and grasps and holds on to everything for dear life is part of the darkness that holds the human race in a death grip. If we’re going to orient our lives toward the welfare of others we have to make a fundamental, radical change. Or perhaps it would be better to say, we have to let ourselves be changed. Like Peter, perhaps we need to be converted–we need to be converted from the fear that wrings its hands over budgets to the joyful compassion that sells possessions and gives the proceeds to help the needy.[11] Only then will compassion for the needy become a way of life for us. Then we can follow the early church points in “a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, … and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good.”[12]

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/19/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. Anthony B. Robinson and Robert W. Wall, Called to be Church: The Book of Acts for a New Day, 74.

[3] Paul Tillich, “The Meaning of Joy,” in The New Being, 150; cf. J. Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 152-53

[4] Cf. Robinson and Wall, Called to be Church, 72-73, where they point out that “power” in the book of Acts is normally connected with the Holy Spirit.

[5] Cf. Robinson and Wall, Called to be Church, 82, where they say that “this sharing of goods is [not] born our of a command or obligation so much as it is a response to the ‘great grace upon them all’ and to the experience of the living Christ.”

[6] The Book of Order 2007-2009, G-3.0300c3(d).

[7] The Book of Order 2007-2009, G-3.0200, 3.0300(c).

[8] Cf. Jon Sobrino, Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarity, and Hope, 18-20, where he contrasts “aid,” which can be “a way of soothing the conscience” with “solidarity,” which “means not only giving but self-giving” and which “means letting oneself be affected by the suffering of other human beings.”

[9] A Declaration of Faith, PCUS, 1977.

[10] Cf. Jon Sobrino, Where is God?, xxix-xxx; he equates mercy with “‘the other’ is … central” not “myself”; he contrasts this with the “structural selfishness” that seeks “the good life.”

[11] Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out, reprinted in Ministry and Spirituality, 242: “When we say, ‘Please enter—my house is your house, …’ … we have nothing to lose but all to give.”

[12] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 49.