Sowing
What We Reap
Reflections
on Luke 12.13-21
The
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
31 July
2016
Saint
Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver
BC
I
grew up where the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains. Although I grew up a city boy, I knew that my
home was surrounded by people who were either ranchers or farmers or both. Most of the produce we bought came from local
farms and there is no sweeter melon in the world than a Rocky Ford cantaloupe
fresh from the farm. My childhood left
in me a deep appreciation for farmers and an awareness of the hopes that
farmers have for each season and for the risks that they take.
Today
Jesus tells us a story about a farmer who has won the agricultural
lottery. His crops have prospered and
neither the Roman nor Jewish authorities have seized his produce for their
purposes. He has more than he needs, but
he knows how things can change in a moment.
So what does he do? He prudently
builds bigger barns and looks forward to the comfort of having more than enough
to face the months ahead.
Let’s
be honest. We all want to make sure that
our futures are secure. In few months’
time our banks and other financial institutions will begin their annual
campaign to encourage us to put more money into our RRSP’s. At least once a week you and I are likely to
see an advertising message from a company that promises to help us with our
debts. Do you remember the last time you
saw a television message about ‘reverse mortgages’ or life insurance policies
that require no health examination?
Recently even I’ve been quietly reminding my own children about the
importance of saving for retirement! And
there are moments when I quietly accuse myself of not having done enough for my
own family.
. . . the man in the parable is not a bad man. He doesn’t make generous decisions, but he
has what he does because his farm was very productive that year . . . . A
successful person or a financially successful congregation isn’t made evil by
their success. [1]
So
why is this farmer a fool? Why does
Jesus, probably speaking to an audience with plenty of successful farmers and
merchants present, paint this man as having lost the plot of life? I think Jesus knows the farmer for a fool
because the man has given into the fear that consumes many of us: the fear of scarcity. We all are prey to this fear, that there will
not be enough. But to his audience and
to us Jesus says, in so many words, that ‘to be anxious about money and power
is to give them an authority they don’t deserve’. [2]
Now
don’t get me wrong. Exercising good
stewardship of the resources God entrusts to us is not the same as
anxiety. Good stewardship is
characterized by generosity rather than hoarding, thoughtful planning rather
than frivolity, a preference for sowing what we have reaped in order to help
God’s reign of justice, compassion and humility to grow wherever we live as
disciples of Christ.
This
attitude of stewardship rather than anxiety runs throughout the gospel
according to Luke. Luke doesn’t often
fall into the stereotype of ‘poor equals good and rich equals bad’. Rather Luke is constant in asking those who
have resources to consider how they use these resources in God’s service and
the obligation that the possession of resources places upon any individual
disciple or Christian community.
We
here at Saint Faith’s are just this sort of community to whom Jesus is
speaking. We have been fortunate to sell
the rectory at a time when housing values and interest rates were high. Over the last year and in the months ahead we
will be the recipients of the generosity of beloved members of our congregation
who have left bequests to the Parish.
Our
task, in the months and years ahead, will be to discern how we are to use these
resources wisely and generously to continue the work of ministry God has
entrusted to us, whether in our neighbourhoods, our Diocese and our world. We have a history of just such wisdom and
generosity.
There
are times when I ponder the future of the way you and I have chose to follow Jesus
as his disciples. I am sure that each
one of us knows or has known someone, whether friend or family member, who has
questioned us about our commitment to this way of life. And I doubt not that each one of us, from
time to time, has asked that question of ourselves. And then I think that we have been raised
with Christ and seek the things that are above.
We have set our minds on God’s justice, compassion and humility. Our life is hidden with Christ in God and
each day a bit more of that hidden life is revealed in us. And when that life is revealed in us, we
transform the lives of others, whether they acknowledge this or not.
So
let us sow what we have reaped wisely and generously, confident that the One who
has given us seed to sow will bring forth the fruit of justice, compassion and
humility in the fields of our lives.
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