Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Faith is often understood as something heavenly, personal, invisible, hard to pin down. Money is concrete, earthly, neutral and absolute: you either got it, or you don’t. Even with credit, which to many of us just looks like a number on a statement, even credit translates into a real, often uphill, battle to pay off debts. It may be obvious that faith and money themselves are in opposite categories, neither has anything in common with the other. Money by itself can do absolutely nothing to your faith—Martin Luther said buying indulgences does nothing for your salvation, and he was right. However, the Bible speaks in many places about a certain relationship, a relationship between faith and money that uses a third thing as a bridge between them.

Jesus once told a disciple to cast out a hook and catch a fish, and then that disciple discovered a temple tax coin in the fish’s mouth. He asked someone in the crowd for a coin with Caesar’s picture on it, a coin that you and I might see as a hundred dollar bill, and then said “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.” So what does Jesus say is that bridge, that third item that links your faith and what you own? The wisdom of King Solomon as it stands recorded in Ecclesiastes is the same wisdom spoken from the mouth of God Himself, Jesus, the One Greater than Solomon: the issue is the attitude of your heart toward money and earthly things. Your faith in Christ either is in control of your attitude toward money, or that attitude follows your sinful human desires and becomes a love of money, which St. Paul said is a root of all kinds of faith-destroying evil. Money itself is lifeless, merely a representation of energy and work. Most importantly, it is a gift.

So, what is your attitude toward money and possessing things? Is it true that you just can’t wait till Christmas or your birthday so you can get all kinds of stuff? Perhaps you’re like that man who confronted Jesus and you have your heart set on an inheritance or some other windfall to get you where you want to go in life. Are you lured in by the possibility of taking advantage of your dependence upon others? Ask yourself if deep down you have dreamed of having all your problems solved, plus a little extra to keep, if you just go to the casino resorts or Las Vegas or play a lottery ticket. Again, things that are neutral and harmless by themselves, become deadly weapons against your faith when these inert things are combined with your lust after wealth. Do you get depressed at the low figures in the church announcements, or do you carefully search for the minimum requirements or the least you gotta do to receive certain perquisites?

Then this is why Jesus tells this parable. He’s not condemning bigger barns or huge grain elevators; the real issue lies in how the man in His story used two types of gifts that he received from God. The first gift is the combination of the land, which God made, and its abundance on one occasion, which He alone gave. As Jesus said, the man laid up treasure for himself and was not rich toward God. His greed and covetousness turned him inward so that, miserable miser that he was, all whom he could talk to was himself! The second gift from the Lord was the man’s own life. It was a gift that he also wrongfully assumed was his to do with as he pleased. “I can make my own choice with what belongs to me. No one has any say over what I think is right!” Does that sound familiar to you? And the combination of hoarding the extra gifts that were beyond what he needed, turning away from others and focusing on himself, and taking for granted the years of his life, leads this story character to the terrifying sentence of the almighty Judge over heaven and earth.

Jesus is a judge, a judge over heavy matters of faith; He’s not a mere arbiter of small claims, as He Himself objects. He will render a verdict and require an accounting of all of us as to how we used the gifts God the Father gave to us. And your sins and covetous attitudes of your heart are convincing evidence that you deserve punishment now and forever. You don’t know when it will happen, when it will be when your Creator will require your soul from you. You will not be able to escape it or argue your way out of the sentencing; when the end of the world comes, this one’s for keeps. No appeals.

But the Almighty Lord is not only a judge, most of all, He is a giver. That is God the Father’s true disposition and attitude: to give and to provide. The greatest of His provisions was the precious gift of His only Son Jesus. He was the only one living who was perfectly rich toward God. He put up His own life even to the point of death on the cross as collateral to pay the debt you owed because of your disobedience. As Jesus said on Good Friday, “It is finished,” your debt was erased, paid in full by the Son of God who paid the price. The judgment is still imminent, you will appear before that Great Throne on the Last Day, but from that Baptismal font, you have already heard your verdict, and it’s a favorable one, as God promises you in His Word. When He rose from the dead on Easter, He declared that the riches of His forgiveness are your eternal, permanent possession. Thanks to your Savior alone, you have treasure in heaven laid up, where thief cannot steal and moth or rust cannot destroy.

Your heavenly Father forgives you, you are His baptized child. He recreates you into the image of His Son and gives you a new spiritual and physical life day after day. Every time you confess your sins, you return to Baptism, when you first crossed over from death to life, out of the clutches of the devil and into the embrace of the Father, out from under the staggering debt of sin and into the riches of His kingdom. And while you are here on this earth, God the Holy Spirit plants within you the Christian desire to help your neighbor out of your surplus gifts. After rescuing you constantly with His liberating Gospel, He places you within a community of believers so that together you may receive God’s gifts, and by grace alone do God’s work, not merely with your money, but also in worship and prayer together, in serving side-by-side, and sharing all joys and sorrows as a family.

It would be too easy to cast blame on the neutral, material objects themselves—as if it would be the barn’s fault or the dollar bill’s the culprit—when the real problem is in your heart, in your attitude toward those material things. And that is what often happens. But be not afraid, your sinful heart is drowned every day in remembrance of your Baptism and you rise anew, ready and willing to give, in whatever way God has blessed you. You are already rich toward God, because of one simple thing: you believe in Jesus, without doing anything. Just remember, your giving, your coming to church, your love for your family and neighbor, these are not meant to please God or anyone else, but you are living out naturally what God has created and re-created you to be and do while you live in this earthly kingdom; as you prepare for and partake of the gifts of Christ’s heavenly kingdom which will have no end.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Eccl. 1:2, 12–14; 2:18–26 all is vanity and grasping for wind
Psalm 100 We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Col. 3:1–11 neither Greek nor Jew…but Christ is all and in all.
Luke 12:13–21 take heed and beware of covetousness