Hosea 11:1-11
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them,
the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
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.
The sword rages in their cities,
it consumes their oracle-priests,
and devours because of their schemes.
My people are bent on turning away from me.
To the Most High they call,
but he does not raise them up at all.
How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
They shall go after the Lord,
who roars like a lion;
when he roars,
his children shall come trembling from the west.
They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.
Luke 12:13-21
Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus,] “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
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It happened again last week, the way it happens most days.
I sat down to compose an email. It was an important one. One that needed to sound just right.
I started typing. And I’m not sure at what point it started happening, but about halfway through the email, I realized that I was reading it out loud as I was typing. My door was wide open. Food pantry clients and volunteers were walking by. And there I was, talking. To myself. Out loud.
The worst part?
Once I caught myself, I didn’t stop. And I didn’t close the door, either.
You’ve likely done this, too, or some version of it. Caught yourself talking to the cat as if it were a person. Gave yourself a pep talk in the hallway before an audition. Talked through your day’s schedule in the shower. Sang your heart out to the radio in your car before realizing the driver in the car next to you could see you. We all talk to ourselves. And feel a little foolish when we get caught.
In today’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable of a rich guy who amongst other problems, has a bad habit of talking to himself. It is such a bad habit that today, we catch him talking to himself about how he will talk to himself again in the future.
And I’m pretty sure that talking to himself is at the heart of the rich man’s foolishness in today’s gospel.
When we read this parable, we have to ask the question, “what has the rich man done wrong?” What is it about him that makes him an example for us of “what not to do?” What is it that makes him not just a rich man, but a rich fool?
Foolishness abounds in the story, if we really look for it.
The foolishness of a man taking credit for the surprise abundance of his land.
The foolishness of a man tearing down barns to build bigger ones, when he could just as easily have added onto his existing ones, or at least kept the old ones standing while the new ones were constructed.
The foolishness of a man who doesn’t need any more stuff getting more stuff and hoarding that stuff.
The foolishness of a man who cannot see past the eternal now.
The foolishness of a man who cannot see past his own self.
The foolishness of a man who talks to himself; a man who has spent years talking only to himself; a man who lives inside himself and his wealth; a man who has told himself a story, over and over again, until he believes it to be true: that wealth is his god, his savior, his protection, and his life.
Except that his wealth is none of that.
It is only at the end of his life that a second voice enters the conversation. “You fool,” God says, “tonight your life will be taken from you. And all of this foolishness of bigger barns, more possessions, self-congratulation - what of it now?”
The story could have ended any number of ways to the same effect - locusts eating through his stash of grain, a storm flooding his barns, disgruntled workers burning his silos to the ground.
And no matter what the outcome, the man’s foolishness would the same; not simply that he let greed and wealth become his idol, but that he closed himself off from any voices that might have changed his perspective. Voices that might have alerted him to the needs around him, voices that might have reminded him that everything in this world comes from and belongs to God, voices that might have called out his foolishness and led him instead to generosity.
This parable challenges us to confront the idolatry of believing that we are self-determining, that what we have belongs to us, and that ours is the only story that matters.
This parable challenges us to listen to voices outside of our own, voices that will be honest with us when we are being foolish, voices that will teach us about needs beyond our field of vision, and voices that will lead us from greed into generosity.
One of the great lessons to be learned in listening is to receive the stories and testimonies of others as they are offered, even when those stories challenge us or provoke us or expose us.
This is where this sermon gets hard.
Because when a 21-year old white man writes an anti-immigrant manifesto and then drives halfway across a state to gun down people of color in a Wal-Mart, we can’t simply keep telling ourselves that racism isn’t really a problem in our country, and we can’t keep listening to ourselves say, “but I’m not racist,” as if that absolves us from doing the work of dismantling white supremacy and prejudice and violence around us.
We need to keep listening to the stories of injustice, where white gunmen are apprehended by the police, while innocent black men are gunned down by the police, and we need to squirm and we need to feel uncomfortable and angry and helpless and accused, because then our hearts might start to change and our anger might start to launch us into doing the work of justice that God, for thousands of years, has put before us.
We need to keep listening to the economic sufferings of the working poor, and to the desperation of asylum seekers and refugees; we need to keep listening to people of color and to our LGBTQIA+ siblings, who daily face prejudice and hatred and unkindness; we need to listen to the voices of women being harassed or kept down in the workplace, the voices of the abused, the voices of assault survivors.
We need to keep listening to Jesus and the prophets before him, who say “woe to you who are rich, if you are not using your wealth in service of the poor,” and and “woe to you who are full, if you are not sharing your food with the hungry,” and “woe to you who are powerful, if you are not using your influence in service of the oppressed.”
We need to take all of these stories and warnings and admonitions as they are offered, and not try to rewrite them or retell them to make ourselves more comfortable; we need to keep listening, and listening, and listening.
It will break your heart.
It will crack you wide open.
It will hurt.
And it will save the world.
The voice of God will come to you through all of these voices outside of your own head, roaring like a lion, calling you back to God’s very heart, the heart of a parent who loves you, even when your heart is rebellious, dear children of God.
Jesus walked this earth to listen to the voices of the hurting and the scared and the outcast and the hungry and the poor. And Jesus spoke words of grace and healing and provision and life, replacing their old stories with new stories of hope and salvation.
Jesus calls us, his followers, to do the same. He gives us the grace and the humility and the power to do this work of listening, of breaking open, of giving ourselves in abundance to one another.
Whatever it is that you are stockpiling in your barns, my friends - money, food, success, tools of violence, tools of overwork, layers of indifference, old allegiances, entertainments, distractions - whatever you are storing up in order to stay inside your own head, let it go. Tear down the storehouses and don’t rebuild them. Measure what is enough by whether your neighbor also has enough. Let the voices of those wiser than you remind you of Christ’s all-sufficient grace and God’s rule of justice and mercy. Open your barn doors and open your ears.
Listen, that you might hear the cries of the distressed. Listen, that you might hear the call of the Spirit. Listen, that you might learn again the way of Christ. Listen, that you and all God’s children might live.