PROPER 13 (18) Pentecost 8C Year C July 31, 2022
Is there
anything uglier than a family fighting over an inheritance? Relationships are broken, and the only winner
is the solicitor, whose power to make judgements, will still be deemed unsatisfactory
to all involved. It is a sure sign we’ve
fallen a long way from God’s image. In our Gospel reading a man asks Jesus to
intervene in what seems to be an unfair divide in a family inheritance. reminiscent of the story of where Martha asks
Jesus to tell her sister to help, Jesus does not do what he requests.
Last week we
had the Gospel on how to pray. Prayer
often takes the form of asking God for something, but our experience tells us
that many times our prayers are not answered.
Perhaps it is, that we are making requests similar to Martha and this
man, where there is a problem with our request.
Why is it
that these things, which seem like straightforward and just requests, are given
a less than expected response? Please
note that God does care about every little thing that concerns us, so Jesus’
refusal to act as arbitrator is something to ponder and realize that there is more
going on here. Each of us has free will
and God does always respect our free will and the free will of others, which
means that sometimes our prayers can’t be answered because it relies on the
free will of others.
In our
Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of a rich man who, rather than act generously
with his excess grain, builds bigger barns.
I wonder if the brother of the man who made the request, was in the
crowd to which Jesus was speaking. What
do you think would be more effective, telling someone what they must do, or
telling a story that shows the foolishness of their actions? If the man was in the crowd, Jesus was in
fact answering the man’s request more effectively and intervening in the matter
of the inheritance, by showing the foolishness of hoarding wealth – But he was
respecting free will.
However,
there is a deeper issue that I think this week’s readings bring into focus, and
it is important that we don’t miss it.
For God to answer prayer, it is obvious that we need to be willing to
bend our will to God’s Kingship and authority.
For us to be the answer to each other’s prayers we need to understand
the heart of God and trust in His supremacy.
I believe
the key verse in our readings today is that one about greed in the letter to
the Colossians. It reads; “Put to
death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion,
evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).”
The part of
this that caught my attention, is the part which is repeated in the Gospel
about being on our guard against all kinds of greed; “for one's life does
not consist in the abundance of possessions”. I am also keen to explore the part in our
Colossians reading that appears in brackets as an explanation, where it says,
“which is idolatry”. How is greed
idolatry?
Firstly, what
is idolatry? In exploring this, I went
to commentaries on the commandments. I especially
like to check out Hebrew commentaries on topics, as the Bible is primarily a
Hebrew book (at least the Old Testament is), written for Hebrews. So, I found a site that had this comment; “The
first commandment reminds us that everything in the Torah flows from the love
we have for God, which in turn is a response to the love he has for us. This
love was demonstrated by God’s deliverance of Israel “out of the house of
slavery” in Egypt (Exod. 20:2). Nothing else in life should concern us more
than our desire to love and be loved by God. If we do have some other concern
stronger to us than our love for God, it is not so much that we are breaking
God’s rules, but that we are not really in relationship with God.”
https://www.theologyofwork.org/old-testament/exodus-and-work/israel-at-mount-sinai-exodus-191-4038/instructions-about-work-exodus-201-17-and-211-239/the-ten-commandments-exodus-201-17/you-shall-have-no-other-gods-before-me-exodus-203
What I
notice here, is that the commandment is all about love and our relationship
with God. It makes a lot of sense then,
when we reflect on the first reading from Hosea where God speaks so
passionately of His love for his people.
In Hosea 11:4 and 5 we see both the love of God and God’s respect for
free will where it says, “ I led them with cords of human kindness, with
bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I
bent down to them and fed them. They
shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because
they have refused to return to me.”
Things went
badly for the Israelites because they let things break their relationship with
God, by trusting in other sources. Those
other sources became their Gods. Do we
do the same? Of course, we do! It is
only human, but it breaks God’s heart because he desires to be our only God –
our benevolent father and ultimate authority, but an authority that is borne
out of our trust in God’s love and a rightful acknowledgement of God’s superiority.
Our
relationship with God was first broken back in the garden of Eden when the choice
was made to trust in something other than God.
In fact, there is more to the story of the Garden of Eden, which is
pertinent to our reflection for today. In
my research I discovered that the meaning of tree of the knowledge of good and
evil is actually about having the authority to pronounce judgment.
Adam and Eve
were already given everything. God had
put everything under Adam’s stewardship.
The temptation of the serpent was about replacing God by becoming like
God, therefore having the authority to pronounce judgement. You might recall the words of the serpent, “You
will not certainly die,” …. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes
will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” When questioned, Adam pronounced Judgement
… It was the woman’s fault…. And God’s.
There is a
great old country song; each verse has questions like, why are children
starving? Why is there war? Why is
there heart ache?…etc.. The chorus says - “When the man said, “this way to
heaven”, fools knew a better way to go and when the man said, “this way to
heaven”, this mad, crazy world said “No”!
We may have eaten from that tree, but we sure don’t have the wisdom to
get it right.
In today’s
world, we stray from God’s word by judging that our ways are better than
his and that we know better than him. In
the church we are struggling to keep up with our modern society laws which seem
in contradiction to the word of God and we re-look at the scriptures and try to
re-jig them to see how we can get them to fit.
Does that seem crazy to you? It
is simply what has been happening since the beginning of time -a pattern of
human behaviour. We want the authority
ourselves to pronounce judgement. In
doing this we proclaim ourselves to have the ultimate authority -God’s authority. We’ve made an idol…. and the idol is
ourselves.
We can all
tell horror stories about someone dying and the children fighting over the
inheritance, but Jesus knew what he was doing in refusing to take sides. When people are grieving, they misplace the
grief by being angry at others and they may try to hold on to the person who
died by desiring their possessions. It
is ugly, but there is a deeper problem and it is often simply heartache
manifested as greed. Sometimes it is
simple greed also.
The greed
that becomes idolatry is the desire to be more important than the next person,
making ourselves God. This is a greed for
authority. Not just any authority, but
God’s authority to judge what is good and what is evil. Have you experienced those who, because of
their influential status, dictated beliefs and values? These
values are not allowed to be argued about, even though they may be clearly
wrong. They proclaim fiction as fact, and
pronounce judgement on anyone who dares disagree with them.
Rather than
pronounce judgement, it is vital to seek God’s heart in matters. Colossians tells us how we should live. We must get rid of things like malice, slander
and abusive language, because we are clothed with Christ and our mind is being
renewed as we grow more into the image of God.
The irony of
all of this, is that we have everything. We are created in the image of God and His
desire is to give us everything. Why
would we step outside his authority and claim it for our own? In the world God made, none are above another….
As it says; there is no Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,
barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! Christ in us is the hope of glory. With the heart of God living in us which,
instead of judging, shows us an example of laying down our lives for each other,
is the hope of glory… and a much better way.
The only way!
To end with,
there is a story that explains this better way – it isn’t in the Bible, but is
believed to be Hebrew and is certainly well known. My shortened version goes like this; https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/toolbox/session13/two-brothers
In the land
of Israel lived two brothers who worked the land together. The crops were abundant, and each reflected
on this at night. One thought, “I have
more than what I need, I am single and alone, but my brother has a family to
provide for”. So, he decided on a
plan. In the night he would sneak some of
his share of the crops to his brother’s barn.
Mean while
the other brother was also reflecting at night and thinking, “My brother is alone
with no family to care for him when he is old and frail. I will give him some of my crop so that he
has wealth to assure him help in his old age.”
Each brother
was a little perplexed that, though they were giving, their store of the crop
continued to grow. For many nights the brothers each secretly
stocked each other’s barns until one night they ran into each other… in the moonlight they recognised each other
and realized what was happening and laughed and hugged each other.
The legend
goes on to say that this spot where they met, is where king Solomon built his
temple. King Solomon who, as King had
authority to pronounce judgment and was known for his wisdom as a gift from God. I like the idea, though it might only be myth,
as the spirit of love, compassion and generosity, is the foundation for true
judgement. This is what we have in God. We who should be judged, quite rightly by
God, instead find love, compassion and generosity and a renewed relationship
with our creator. May we continue to grow in his image as we set
our minds to be renewed by the knowledge of His love and all His ways.
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