Sunday Worship 3 August | Lectionary Proper 13: "Life is not measured by how much you own”

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”

 I, the Teacher, was king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind.

I came to hate all my hard work here on earth, for I must leave to others everything I have earned. And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless! So I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world. Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn’t worked for it. This, too, is meaningless, a great tragedy. So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? Their days of labour are filled with pain and grief; even at night their minds cannot rest. It is all meaningless.

Luke 12:13-21

Then someone called from the crowd, “Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me.” Jesus replied, “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?” Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”

Then he told them a story: “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. And I’ll sit back and say to myself: My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

After a couple of weeks off for guest preachers, we are back with the lectionary this morning. I chose the alternate Old Testament reading because it pairs better with the gospel reading, with their common motif of futility. I then discovered that this is because the lectionary originally grouped readings thematically, but then at the last revision it was decided that during ordinary time - which is basically any time in the year that isn’t a fast or a feast - the Old Testament readings would follow their own separate track, with the readings linked to the gospel maintained as an alternate track. It’s not essential to know that to engage with this morning’s readings, but hopefully now we all know a little more about the liturgical year and the lectionary.

We won’t come back to Ecclesiastes in the coming weeks, so it may be helpful to take an overview of the book while we can. (And if this piques your interest, you’ll find a previous reflection on Ecclesiastes here on the blog.) It is attributed to Qohelet, often translated as the Teacher, and seems to be the written account of one man’s existential crisis. Perhaps the most familiar passage is the one that begins “to everything there is a season” - not least because it was set to music by Pete Seeger and made famous by The Byrds - but even that does not seem to hold much meaning for Qoholet, who believes that those times are beyond our understanding, and so instead of trying to ascertain the meaning of life, we will do better just to seek happiness and experience pleasure as gifts from God. There are worse philosophies, but the ultimate emptiness of it is evident in the writer’s self-pitying dissatisfaction. And to add to the sense of futility, we read that life has a chaotic and uneven quality, so that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise...but time and chance happen to them all”.

It hardly makes for a motivational sermon, but it is so important that scripture makes space for these feelings, and that our worship makes space for these feelings, because such moments of despair are experienced by so many of us. If the world never feels unkind or unfair, we're either incredibly lucky or we're not paying enough attention, and we need somewhere we can express those feelings so that we can process them. Scripture and worship should take us beyond such despair, and I hope we will be moving in that direction by the end of this morning, but part of their gift is that they take our experiences seriously enough not to rush us through them with cheap or easy answers.

Before we leave Ecclesiastes, let's look a little more closely at the specific passage we heard this morning. Qohelet's chief concern in these verses is for what will happen to the life he has built when he has left it. He fears that his hard work will not ultimately benefit him, but others who do not deserve it. This isn't just about his legacy, or even how he relates to future generations, but about how he sees society. He seems to think everyone should be responsible for themselves. Indeed we might suggest that he thinks there is no such thing as society. But over and over again in scripture we see that life is meant to be lived in relationship. God sets the lonely in families (Psalm 68:6). The law sets out obligations to provide for the most vulnerable (Leviticus 23:22). Jesus tells us to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:44). Qohelet seems to have forgotten what we owe to each other, and perhaps his sense of despair comes most of all from this disconnection from the relationships that are meant to sustain him.

Whatever the source of Qohelet’s despair, he like so many is in great need of respair, which thanks to Susie Dent’s word of the day tweets I have learned means ‘fresh hope or recovery from despair’. That is where our reading from Luke comes in. It follows on from an exhortation not to worry so much about earthly things: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” It is also followed by similar teaching: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

Coming in the middle of that, a member of the crowd calling out to ask Jesus to tell his brother to divide their father's estate almost feels like a staged interruption, but it was common practice to ask rabbis to solve disputes like this. It is a demonstration of the high regard in which Jesus was held by many of the time, and a reminder of how easily we miss the point. It is as though this man has heard Jesus talking about material possessions, and instead of hearing what he has actually said, has gone off on a tangent of his own. Sometimes God will follow us on our wandering thought trails, but this time Jesus says no. 

It is reminiscent of the passage where Martha asks Jesus to tell her sister Mary to help her, and he likewise refuses to intervene in a personal disagreement, but instead uses it as a teaching moment,  redirecting Martha’s attention and surely shifting something in her attitude towards her sister without him stepping in between them. It's not that Jesus doesn't care about our relationships, but that he wants to help us work them out for ourselves. If Jesus had ruled in favour of the man who approached him, he might have got the share of his father’s estate that he wanted, but it may also have destroyed his relationship with his brother for good. On the other hand, being guided to rethink his attitude towards the estate may have been the crucial difference in this sibling rivalry.

And so Jesus responds with what minister and activist Simon Cross calls a one sentence (in this translation, three sentence!) sermon: “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” Perhaps the man was being greedy in wanting a share of his father’s estate, like the prodigal son, or perhaps he had a fair claim and his brother was unfairly withholding what was rightfully his, like Jacob stealing Esau's blessings. Jesus doesn’t ask to find out, and again it's not that he doesn't care about fairness, it's that he always prioritises people over possessions, because to do otherwise is always a kind of greed. No amount of wealth, no matter how deserved, is worth jeopardising a relationship for, because that is not how a life is measured. So what about the brother? Isn’t his refusal to share a kind of greed, whether or not he may be justified in doing so? Perhaps, and I'm sure Jesus would have a sermon and a story for him too, but that's not really the point, because the man in the crowd needs to do what is right regardless of his brother's actions. 

The story Jesus tells is interesting, because it doesn’t correspond exactly to the man's situation. It does however show him a picture of the kind of life that lies ahead of him if he prioritises inheritance over family, a lonely and futile life spent deliberating and celebrating alone. I suspect the intention was to lead the man to reconsider his approach, while also allowing Jesus to make some broader points about wealth. Unlike the encounter with the rich ruler who wants to inherit eternal life, there is no suggestion in this parable that the rich farmer with more than he can handle should sell everything, but there is certainly a criticism of his hoarding mentality. Taken as a whole, Jesus' attitude towards wealth doesn’t seem to be one of outright rejection, but it does pose a challenge for us to consider what we do with it, with a clear steer that it should not come at the expense of others, but rather be for the benefit of everyone. It has been said that if we have more than we need, we should build a longer table not a higher fence - we should share it not protect it - and we might say to the farmer in the story that he should have built a longer table not a bigger barn.

So far I've spoken about what this morning’s passages have to say about our relationships with one another, but the relationship in view at the end of the gospel reading is the rich farmer's relationship with God, because it is our relationship to God that puts us in relationship to everyone else, and so ultimately that is how a life is measured and where we find the meaning Qohelet was seeking after. That’s not to say that it is impossible to find any meaning without faith, but that it is through faith that we find the deepest ground of meaning, a sense of things being connected and our lives having purpose beyond ourselves. And so it is through faith that we find respair, that fresh hope and recovery from despair that we all need when the world is unkind and unfair.

I want to end by taking us in a slightly different direction, because there are questions here about what we perceive as worthy, and they are bound up with questions about how we understand our own worth. In reflecting on the parable of the rich fool, Eric Fistler and Robb McCoy - the hosts of the lectionary based podcast Pulpit Fiction - have this to say: “If we see ourselves as inherently unworthy in the eyes of God, then we are easily seduced and tempted to look to other things for our worth.” We try to prove ourselves with money and power, but they are not where our worth lies and they will not satisfy our desire for meaning. Fortunately there is an answer, and it is found in that rich relationship with God, for as Fistler and McCoy say: “Worship, baptism and eucharist do not reveal our unworthiness, but our incredible worthiness as beloved children of God and recipients of grace.” When we are secure in our inherent worth, we can better understand what is worthy of our time and our attention, so may we come to a fuller sense of our own belovedness, and may that be the respair we need in the moments we feel that everything is meaningless.