Becoming Rich Toward God
Reflections for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost
RCL Proper 18C [i]
3 August 2025
Saint Michael’s Multicultural Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Introduction
As a child I was fed with many stories, including those from a collection of fables known as ‘Aesop’s Fables’. Aesop was a Greek storyteller who lived more than five hundred years before the birth of Jesus. Perhaps because Aesop was held as a slave by another person, most of his stories supported the status quothat valued knowing your place in society and staying within it.
One of his fables is the fable of the grasshopper and the ant. During a wonderful warm and productive summer, the grasshopper and its friends are busy eating, drinking and making merry, while the ant and its friends are collecting food for the long winter they know is coming. When that winter comes, the grasshopper comes begging for food, but the ant turns the grasshopper away with harsh words and no food. The moral of the story: Work hard. Save all you can. No one will take care of you if you don’t. Compassion and care for others is not as important as taking care of yourself and your immediate community and family. Bad planning on your part does not create an emergency or an obligation on my part.
It’s not too difficult to hear echoes of Aesop’s story in today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke. The rich farmer is indeed an ‘ant’ who has had a good year and is now storing up all that his land has produced. He even quotes a verse from the prophet Isaiah, when the farmer talks about resting, eating, drinking and being merry, but forgets that the verse ends with ‘for tomorrow we die’. [ii] And the farmer of Jesus’ parable does indeed die despite having barns that are full to overflowing.
Both the ant of Aesop’s fable and the farmer of Jesus’ parable can be praised for their hard work and their careful planning for the future. But what they both lack is compassion and a recognition of their obligations to those who have not planned well or who have not benefitted from a successful harvest. Neither the ant nor the farmer have been ‘rich toward God’ as the evangelist Luke exhorts us to be.
Archbishop John is fond of saying that the church is not dying but changing. It is no secret that fewer people choose to commit themselves to being part of a community of faith. Every congregation in this Diocese faces difficult decisions about how we use the treasure of our lands and our buildings in such a time as this. We can be grateful that the generations of Christians who have come before us in this place have bequeathed to us the valuable resource of this building and this property. How we tend this gift is perhaps the most important question facing us.
We are a people with a mission.
God is at work in the world and we, as baptized disciples of Jesus, are co-workers with God in this urgent work of re-creation, reconciliation and renewal. This Parish and the many others throughout the Diocese who are discerning how best to be faithful stewards of their resources begin by asking important questions:
· What is the most urgent work God is doing in the world today?
· What is our role, both as individuals and as a community, in that urgent work?
· What resources do we bring to this work?
· What resourced do we need for this work?
· Who are our partners in this urgent work? [iii]
We do not ask these questions in an abstract or theoretical way. You may know the saying, ‘Think globally, then act locally.’ The great American theologian and writer, Frederick Buechner, put it this way: “(When) you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are.” [iv]
You have been called by God to serve this neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant where many roads come together, and many people dwell. How does this Parish take care of this neighbourhood and make God’s re-creating, reconciling and renewing love present?
We need to be clear-headed.
There is nothing wrong about and much to say about dreaming. As Bishop Gordon Light writes in his hymn ‘Draw the Circle Wide’: “Let the dreams we dream be larger, than we’ve ever dreamed before; let the dream of Christ be in us, open every door.” [v] Dreams show us possibilities that excite us and give us hope.
But we also need to be clear-headed about our ability to make our dreams come true. A few chapters later from today’s parable, Jesus will remind those who want to be his disciples that they need to make sure that they can both lay the foundation and finish the work: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?” [vi]
Because we love this community and desire its well-being, we would not be faithful to our role in God’s mission if we cannot finish the work we have begun.
We are in this for the long-haul.
I think that one of the strengths of the Anglican way of discipleship is that we have a long-term vision of what we believe God is doing and how we participate in that work. Sharing God’s dream is important; finishing what we start is important; but perhaps even more important, committing to the on-going, sometimes difficult and unexciting work that follows the realization of our plans.
The Fifth Mark of Mission of the Anglican Communion is the commitment “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth”. [vii] Remember what I mentioned earlier – ‘Think globally, then act locally.’ We are here to sustain the integrity of this local embodiment of creation we call Mount Pleasant. That is not a one-year commitment or a five-year commitment. That is a commitment that extends beyond the life-times of many of us who are here this morning.
Conclusion
By the time that my wife Paula and I were both moving towards retirement, we were uncertain what the future held for us. But our uncertainty was relieved by the careful stewardship Paula’s father had exercised of her family’s resources. With the guidance of some wise advisors, Paula and I have been able to map out the coming years with hopefulness for a new and creative time in our lives and in gratitude for the care that Paula’s father took for so many years. Even more importantly, we’ve been able to see how we might benefit not only our children but the wider community when our time on this earth comes to an end.
Friends, we are not like the ant with no compassion for the grasshopper. We are not like the farmer who thinks only of himself. We have another world in view. So, let us be a people who give thanks daily for the stewardship of the resources that help us dream larger dreams than we’ve ever had before. Let us be a people who plan well to make those dreams become reality. Let us be a people who are committed to a care for this neighbourhood and its people that reaches beyond our own times and into the future.
May it be so.
[i] Hosea 11.1-11; Psalm 107.1-9, 43 (BAS); Colossians 3.1-11; Luke 12.13-21.
[ii] Isaiah 22.13b (NRSVue).
[iii] Adapted from Kathleen Henderson Staudt, “Annunciations in Daily Life”, Sewanee Theological Review (Easter 2001).
[iv] https://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day/2019/4/1/where-your-feet-take-you accessed on 1 August 2025.
[v] Hymn #418 in Common Praise (1998).
[vi] Luke 14.28 (NRSVue).
[vii] https://www.anglican.ca/ask/faq/marks-of-mission accessed on 1 August 2025.
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