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Sermon August 5, 2007 |
A Sermon Preached at
A certain man was visited by the Devil and offered a contract. “I’ll increase your income ten-fold, make you the most desirable man in the world, make your clients love you and let you live to be 100. To get all this you just have to let your children’s souls and your grandchildren’s souls be damned to eternal torment.” The man thought for a minute, then replied: “I don’t get it. What’s the catch?”
Trouble is that concepts like souls and damnation and salvation are too distant and too abstract to carry much weight with us. I maintain that our souls are real and that the pain of separation from the Good is real enough that we can all feel it right now.
To help make that point, I’d like to contrast two stories. The first is from our Gospel this morning in which a man asks Jesus to settle his wrangling with his brother by making the brother give him half of the family inheritance. To this Jesus says, in effect, “Why would you be worried about amassing more stuff when you might die tonight? Don’t you and your brother have something more important to do?”
The second is an old rabbinical story: “Back when the world was young, there were two brothers who shared a field and a mill. Each night they divided equally the flour they produced. One brother lived alone; the other had a wife and children. One day, the single brother thought, “It isn’t fair for me to have as much as my brother. He has a family to feed.” So late at night he secretly took some of his flour to his brother’s storehouse. It happened that at the same time the other brother thought, “It isn’t fair for me to have as much as my brother. I have children to care for me in my old age. He has no one and needs to save for his future.” So late at night he secretly took some of his flour to his brother’s storehouse. Then one night the brothers met each other halfway between their houses, realized what had been happening, and embraced each other in love. The story goes that God witnessed their meeting and said, “This is a holy place—a place of love. Here my temple shall be built. And so it was. The holy place, the place where God is made known is the place where human beings discover each other in love.”
The first is a story about two brothers caught in hell, whose souls are defined by greed, envy and hate. The second is about two brothers whose love creates a heaven on earth and whose souls are defined by generosity, kindness and reconciliation. Leaving aside questions about eternity, I would maintain that both stories are real enough for us to figure out which brothers are in heaven and which in hell.
Our culture vaunts the good life, a life of having wonderful stuff, and suggests that the good life consists of having more and more stuff. I can’t preach against that vision of the good life. It is truly wonderful to live in safety in a beautiful place, free of want. However, I do think it is important to remember that in addition to the good life, there is a better life.
Our tradition consistently bears witness that God is a God of abundance who wants good things for us, and that therefore we have responsibilities: We are given much so that we might give to others. We are blessed, so that we might bless. We are loved so that we might give love. We are reconciled so that we might be a power for reconciliation. We are forgiven that we might forgive.
Two implications are obvious: First, we can experience the better life by living more simply. We can make ourselves sick with wanting things and with worrying about protecting what we have. We are richer by not having so much to worry about. Second, we can experience the better life by enjoying the harvest and by sharing it with others. A Haitian proverb runs, “God gives, but it is up to us to share.”
Jesus reminds us that we are not in this world to build bigger houses to store all our goodies. We are in this world to seek a better life: a life made rich with deeper joys, more shared blessings, and peace among brothers and sisters.
AMEN