What You Can Bring With You
“What You Can Bring With You”
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, August 4, 2019
Hosea 11:1-11 Psalm 107:1-9, 43 Luke 12:13-21
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
Have you ever seen movies that have suspenseful situations? Like a bomb that will explode in 10 minutes, and the clock is ticking! Or the astronauts in a space capsule that are running out of air? How can the characters in those dramas deal with these things? Can they diffuse the bomb? Can ground-control figure out a solution and talk the astronauts through, before time runs out?
People facing frightening situations are easily dismayed, caught up with feelings of hopelessness or despair, or paralyzed by a fatalistic attitude. Yet I also remember an interview featuring of a group of students from MIT, and when most people, for example, look at 10 minutes they think it is such a limited amount and not possibly enough time to solve complex emergencies. But the MIT students viewed 10 minutes as a very long time, a tremendous asset, an incredible help in the problem-solving-process. 10 minutes, for them, was a gift which helped them do what they needed to do. No panic, no dilemma, just taking the problem as it comes, working the variables, and giving each member of the team something they can focus on, some aspect they are uniquely gifted in doing, so then the group is lifted up.
This is one dynamic involved in these scriptures this morning: examining human nature and learning what types of focus are more beneficial than others. Like Hosea pointing out, as prophets do, that when the people turn their attention away from God, the very God who loves them so much, things don’t work out too well and they suffer. God shows compassion, not only that, but God is affected by the people experiencing this self-inflicted pain. God says, “My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” This grace is amazingly abundant, caring, and restorative.
The Psalmist also talks about people facing troubles, wandering the deserts wastes, feeling lost, hungry, and thirsty to the point their “soul fainted within them.” They cry out and God delivers; God’s love is described as “steadfast.”
In Luke, “someone in the crowd” comes up to Jesus and wants Jesus to tell this guy’s brother to divide the inheritance. “Someone in the crowd” meaning it can be anybody, it’s a general human nature story.
Rather than get sucked into a family squabble, Jesus tells them a story about rich man. The person in the story is confusing abundant life with abundant possessions, equating their life with their stuff. But Jesus says, “…One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” In the story the rich man says, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years…” But in dying that night, we see his soul can’t take his goods with him when his life is taken away.
What you can take with you is not contained in material things. These scriptures are more than technical stories or moralistic lessons. They share about God’s very nature, and how we are called to reflect this through our life. Like Hosea mentions, as God says, “I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.” Cords and bands are used to attach or hold things together. Kindness and love are involved in things being reconciled, put right, rather than in disarray. The Psalm is similar, saying “…the LORD is good,…steadfast love endures forever. It uses words like delivered, redeemed, gathered in, satisfied and wise.
These are more than words on a page, and the characters and authors are not static or lost in the past. We sometimes use the description, the Great Cloud of Witnesses as we claim God’s faithful presence in the lives of people throughout the ages. These stories are just as relevant for us as they were for the people of ancient Israel. We too, are called to put our trust in God, to anchor our faith in steadfast love, to recognize the divine presence within, and to shed the distractions which often complicate life and fool us into some other value system or identity that seems good but ultimately not only comes up short, but becomes destructive to us and the world.
To explore a bit more, lets turn to modern mystic Dr. Diana L. Hayes, an author and professor emerita of systematic theology at Georgetown University and the first African American woman to earn a Pontifical Doctorate in Theology. In her book, No Crystal Stair: Womanist Spirituality, she writes about the never-ending dance of giving and receiving, saying,
“We are not alone in this world, nor have we ever been, no matter how much we may feel otherwise. Many have come before us and will come after us feeling the same way, seeking as we are, searching for the “light.” And it is in coming together—one by one, two by two, and on and on—that we form the converging tributaries that make up the mighty stream of just and righteous people flowing home to God. We are and can be that justice that “rolls down like water,” and that righteousness that “flows like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24). This is our calling as Christian faithful: to recognize the Christ in everyone. And to reach out a hand of hope, to speak a word of love, to sing a song of happiness, to share a tear of joy or pain, to speak a word of praise, to murmur a prayer, to stand together against those forces that would divide us, isolate us, and block our flow toward home. We must seek to become the righteous of God, recognizing that the path is neither short nor easy, but rock-strewn, obstacle-laden, sometimes even seeming to flow backwards and uphill! But as the prophet Micah proclaims:
You have been told . . . what is good
And what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do the right and to love goodness,
And to walk humbly with your God. (6:8)
This is the Christian vocation of the laity in the world. Today and every day.”
(Center for Action and Contemplation, Daily Devotional, https://cac.org/the-river-flows-2019-08-02/).
One other way of describing what Jesus is trying to express and Luke is structuring this writing to illustrate involves the unitive consciousness (a link to James Finley video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OG9jWz87GM). The what? The Unitive Consciousness (a link to Richard Rohr’s exploration in a daily devotional, https://cac.org/unitive-consciousness-2016-03-08/), God’s goodness, the Spirit’s deep Wisdom, Love, that Great Cloud of Witnesses forming streams of justice and rivers of righteousness, that energy which pervades creation and has always been and will always be.
So easy to look at these passages through our dualistic screening, our judging mind, and categorize things and people as good or bad, as foolish or wise, as rich or poor. Seeing the world through filters which categorize and constantly judge is a survival skill and has it’s place, but will not lead to fulfillment or spiritual grounding. Like the man coming to Jesus, calling him “Teacher,” and asking him to “tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Jesus doesn’t starting quoting laws or stating cultural traditions to point out the absurdity of this particular request, but rather calls into question the very mentality involved. He says, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” The man calls Jesus “Teacher,” which is a title given to someone with authority, above the student. But Jesus calls the man, “friend,” which is a unifying term that skips the hierarchy and puts everyone on the same level. Jesus even questions the man’s assumption that Jesus is above him, asking “who set me to be [a judge or arbitrator] over you?” He also gives a lesson, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
In other words, Jesus is coming from a non-dual perspective, not either-or, but through the unitive consciousness which sees a larger picture of connection and inclusion. While one man talks about dividing, Jesus calls him friend. While one man recognizes his brother but doesn’t want to treat him like a brother because of inheritance issues, Jesus gives a warning about greed of all kinds, saying, “Take care.” It’s the care, the relationship, the friendship that are the focus of Christ. All other things fall away.
Like the story that follows about big barns, we are quite good at rationalizing our attitudes, assumptions, and practices, but also good at deceiving ourselves and getting sucked into scarcity mentalities, the dualistic operating system which divides the field of reality. Jesus Christ, the Holy One in our midst, draws us into our Truer Self, our Larger Self, our created in the image of God Self. Jesus shows us how to be “rich toward God.” So in that sense, this passage has nothing to do with money, and everything with mystical union, of living grounded lives based on abundant grace, of trusting the caring Presence of God in all circumstances, and keeping our focus on divine love, which is the only thing we can take with us, the only thing which truly satisfies.
May the Living Christ continue to teach us the openness of mystical faith and contemplative union with God’s life-giving Spirit that transcends our categories and limitations. May God help us grow, like Jesus, beyond judgmental living into wholeness, unity, and peace. By God’s all-vulnerable love, may we humbly give thanks, NOW, even as forever. Amen.