All Things Come of Thee

“How much Land Does a Man Need?” That is the title of a story by the nineteenth-century writer Leo Tolstoy. In the story a peasant makes a deal. He can buy all the land he can circle on foot in one day for only 1,000 rubles. However, if he doesn’t return to his starting place by sunset, he gets no land – and he loses his money. The greedy peasant frantically races the sun as he tries to cover as wide a circle as he can. Just short of his starting point, he drops dead of exhaustion. He is buried in an ordinary grave, only six feet long. In his death, Tolstoy thus gives us the ironic answer to the question posed in the title of the story.

How much is enough? What do we, as Jesus’ followers, truly need? What do we, as people called to seek the “things that are above,” truly require? Be warned: I am about to cross a great taboo. No, I’m not about to preach about sex or politics! I am about to talk about money, in the church – and maybe more than once between now and All Saints Day. We in the church are so reluctant to talk about money! Like most Americans, we think of our use of money as strictly our own affair – not something a preacher should be addressing. Many of us might even secretly agree with Gordon Gekko, the corporate raider in Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street,” who told a group of stockholders that greed is good. Alan Greenspan, the billionaire Koch brothers, and other influential business and political leaders openly follow the philosophy of author Ayn Rand, who titled one of her books The Virtue of Selfishness. You may not be a follower of Rand. Even so, Jesus’ talk about money might still make you uncomfortable, especially his decided preference for the poor in Luke’s Gospel. But we’d better listen to Jesus, because our use of our money is at least as much an expression of our faith as anything else we do. Show me your checkbook, and I’ll know what you really believe!

Indeed, our lessons today offer sobering perspectives on wealth and possessions. In our gospel reading, Jesus minces no words as he explicitly inveighs against greed and the stockpiling of possessions. “Be on your guard,” he thunders, “against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he tells the neat parable of the rich fool. Does the rich man in the parable remind you of anyone you know? Make no mistake: Jesus reminds us that, because death strips us of all our possessions, we must instead be “rich toward God.”

The writer of the letter to the Christians at Colossae couldn’t agree more. Here too we hear a caution against greed – as well as other behaviors that attach us to this world. I wonder. As you heard the catalogue of sins, did you also hear that greed is idolatry? And did you remember that idolatry – worship of false gods – is just what the Israelites were doing to anger God in our reading from Hosea? What is more important, the writer to the Colossians reminds us that, as Jesus’ disciples, as people who have been dressed in the new clothes of baptism, we are to live a new and different kind of life from that which we lived previously. We are to direct our lives toward God, and we are to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is….”

How are we to do this? What does it mean to be “rich toward God,” or to set our minds on “things that are above?” The reading from Hosea reminds us of God’s great love and compassion for us, but offers us no alternative to a life of idolatry and fleeting pursuits. Jesus, in our Gospel reading, implicitly condemns the rich man for his self-centered intent to build bigger barns and live a life of ease. However, Jesus does not tell us what the rich man should have done instead, nor does he tell us what being “rich toward God” means. The writer to the Colossians lists the bad habits we need to give up. However, other than suggesting that Christ has overcome all ethnic divisions, he does not tell us what habits and virtues we need to cultivate. How shall we give up our attachment to earthly things and seek the “things that are above?”

Beginning in the fourth century, women and men sought to follow Jesus’ teachings about possessions by withdrawing from society and living in isolated communities. In Egypt and North Africa, communities sprang up in the desert, dedicated to the simple life. In the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia wrote his famous Rule for monastic communities that stressed living the simple life in common, forsaking most pleasures of the flesh, respecting the needs of others, and committing oneself to remaining in community. Benedict’s Rule proved to be so influential that it still provides the template for the rule of almost every Roman Catholic and Anglican vowed community. Most of us are not prepared to join monastic communities. Even so, there are ways to create a “monastery of the heart,” to use the phrase of Benedictine sister Joan Chittister. And as her commentary on Benedict’s Rule so insightfully suggests, it is possible for Benedict to guide even us secular twenty-first century followers of Jesus.

What are some ways we might begin becoming “rich toward God” and seeking “things that are above?” For starters, we can be honest about the source of our wealth. The rich man in Jesus’ parable behaved as if he alone were responsible for the abundant produce of the land. In truth, it was the fertile soil, good weather, hard work of his farmhands, and domestic support of his womenfolk that produced the abundance. The same is true for us – all of us. None of us is self-made. If you are sitting here, you have been gifted – even if you received no inheritance from your parents, even if you struggled to finish school with scholarships and loans, even if you’ve worked hard every day of your life. Many of us were fortunate to have had supportive families, enough food, and an education provided by other people’s taxes. Our parents took us to the doctor and dentist. We’ve had roads, and street lights, police and fire protection, hospitals and churches. We’ve been fortunate to live in a web – a village if you will – that has helped make us what we are and enabled us to enjoy much good fortune and comparative wealth. None of us lives on the streets, and all of us have a good idea of where our next meal is coming from. Understanding that it is by good fortune that we have our houses, clothing, food, Kindles, Ipads, and whatever, and that we are alive and able to do God’s work, is the first step towards being “rich towards God.”

Second, we can look at our checkbook. Where are we actually using our resources? Do we have a balanced life? Or are we tied down by possessions? Can we simplify our lives? In her commentary on the Benedictine Rule, Chittister reminds us that our possessions tie us to the earth. “They clutter our space; they crimp our hearts; they sour our souls. Benedict says that the answer is that we not allow ourselves to have anything beyond life’s simple staples….” What areas of our lives can we declutter and simplify? What are we no longer using that we can give to others?

And then we need to actively consider how we might share our wealth with others. In the first half of life, that may mean especially providing for the needs of our own families. However, in the second half of life, sharing our wealth should mean considering the needs of others outside our families. In both halves of life, we need to be intentional in our use of our resources. We need to be intentional in our gifts to the church, as well as to other institutions that we support. John Wesley is reported to have admonished his followers, “Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?” Ultimately, being “rich toward God” and using our wealth to seek the “things that are above” mean using our resources to benefit others. If we want to leave a lasting legacy, if we want to ensure that our lives are more than “vanity,” then we must have a plan for how that is to be done – a will. The Book of Common explicitly directs me to instruct you to make wills, younger people to ensure that their dependents are properly provided for, and older people to ensure that their legacy honors God.

Finally, we need to remember that concern for possessions – of any kind – makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, to be open to God. Ultimately, we are all naked and empty-handed before God. We begin our lives naked and empty-handed, and we end them that way. In between our birth and death we thank God for God’s great love and compassion. We seek to learn how we can become rich toward God. We ask God to help us to travel light, to help us to let go of all that gets in between ourselves and God. Then we pray to know how to intentionally use our possessions to further God’s agenda in the world. Truly blessed are those who can say, “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”