31 July 2016 St. Athanasius Lutheran
Church
Pentecost 11
Vienna, VA
“Our Inheritance in
Christ”
Text: Ecclesiastes
1-2; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God
our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Solomon was not happy. He
had a vast and prosperous kingdom. He was one of the wealthiest men on earth.
By all standards today, he would considered a great
and successful man. But he looked around at it all and despaired. It
doesn’t mean anything. All is vanity, he said. I’m going to die
and someone after me is going to get it all. Someone who hasn’t
worked for it. Someone who may be a fool. What’s
the point?
There is some wisdom and
truth in what Solomon says here. I remember some 11 years ago, cleaning out
part the house I grew up in after my mother died, and then doing it again about
3 years ago after my father moved in with us. There was a lot of stuff in that house! All kinds of stuff. All useful in its time. All bought with the thought that
these things would be used and needed. And they probably were. But then in a
moment, from one day to the next, all that stuff was needed no more. In a
moment, its true value was revealed.
Set your minds on things
that are above, not on things that are on earth,
St. Paul said.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in
God.
You
have died, St. Paul says. Like my mother died and no longer
needed all the stuff she had accumulated over the years. You have
died, St. Paul says. That’s baptismal talk. Dying and rising with
Christ in those waters. You have died, St. Paul
says, so your life really isn’t here anymore, in the things of this world. It
is hidden with Christ in God.
So set you minds there,
he says. Yet how hard that is to do! How hard to do consistently. Maybe because the things of this world are so present, so always
before our eyes. So it’s so easy to focus on them, rather than on the
life given us by Christ.
But
not just that. St. Paul actually takes what Solomon says to another
level. For, he says, when we don’t set our minds on things above, but instead
set our minds on the things “here below,” the things of this world and life,
that is not just vanity but produces in man sexual immorality,
impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
And then he goes on to add to that list anger, wrath, malice, slander,
and obscene talk from your mouth. For these all come from trying to get
what we want here; trying to preserve what we have here. Which breeds competition instead of brotherhood, anger when someone
else gets what I want or think I deserve, and covetousness, which is
idolatry. Which is fearing, loving, or
trusting anyone or anything other that God.
Now contrast that to the
life of the world to come, the life of heaven. Where there are no haves and
have nots. No you and me. No against. [No] Greek
and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ
is all, and in all. Unity in Christ. That too is baptismal talk from Paul. And
that unity our Lord has begun and is ours here and now . . . just not yet in
its heavenly fullness. Sin disrupts and destroys this unity. Christ creates and
restores it.
Perhaps an example of
that might be the Malekzadeh family. When I moved
here some 14 years ago, we went out one day looking for a pizza place. We
stumbled upon Maleks and ate there. It was okay.
But there was no unity between us, between my family and theirs - we just ate
there. But a couple years later, the Malekzadehs came
to our church, and then we had a unity not present outside the church. God had
brought us together into the fellowship of His Son.
And
you, too. God has brought us together here, in this church, to
rejoice together, struggle together, live together. To be His blessing to one another. To
set our minds on things above together. Not that the things of
this world and life are unimportant. We need pizza, God created pizza for us,
and we should share and care and thank God for all that He has given us. But
the pizza is not what binds us together. It is secondary to Christ, His
fellowship, and His promises of life.
Which
is what Jesus was talking about in His parable today.
His parable of what Solomon was talking about, and a
summary of what St. Paul was writing about. Which Jesus concludes with the
warning: So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich
toward God. He, too, like the man in the parable, is a rich fool.
For the man in the
parable has been extraordinarily blessed by God. But he kept it all for
himself. He was not rich toward God, meaning to give and share
with those in need. Or as Jesus would later explain it: Truly, I say to
you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me (Matthew 25:40). It is to know and
believe that the things of this world serve a greater purpose. They are not
ends in themselves; trophies or rewards to hoard. It is not that the one who dies with the most toys wins. Life is more than that. Life
is greater than that. So set you minds on things above, in order to
see the things of this world aright; to see the things of this world through
the eyes of God.
Perhaps the difference
between how God sees things and how we often see things is the same as it is
between parents and children. A parent can walk into their child’s room and see
nothing but junk. And often ask: Why do you keep all this junk?! But the
child doesn’t see junk, but treasure! I need all this stuff. It’s
important to them. There are memories attached. So it’s kept.
God lets us keep our “junk”
too. It’s just when our junk becomes too important . . . When our stuff becomes
our gods - where we seek our life and meaning and value and importance and
pride. Then it’s no treasure, but an idol. Idols which may even cause us to go
to Jesus and plead (like in the Holy Gospel today): Jesus, tell my
brother to divide the inheritance with me! I need it.
[Face palm!]
It’s like after the
Feeding of the 5,000, when the people chased after Jesus the next day because
they thought free lunches were pretty cool. And Jesus tells them: I’m trying
to teach you about greater bread, not just sandwiches!
So here: Jesus is trying
to teach about true treasures, but too often we’re focused on other treasures. It’s
not fair, Jesus! He needs to divide the inheritance with me!
But here’s what Jesus is
all about. Here’s what He’s been teaching. Here’s the point of all these
readings today . . . What Jesus is all about is this: If you want an
inheritance, have mine! Jesus came not just to divide His
inheritance with you, but to give it to you. All of it! Or to put it in
Solomon’s words: I’m going to die and someone after me is going to get it
all. YES! YES! Jesus is going to die, and we’re going to get it all.
Is that foolish? No -
foolish is turning that down! Turning that down for the
things of this world. No, that’s God. That’s who He is. A giving God. A God that the world thinks
foolish in His mercy and grace.
For
you see, the same sin that disrupts and destroys our unity with one another in
this world, had first disrupted and destroyed our unity with God.
So God sent His Son to restore and recreate that unity. To give us back again
what we lost. So Jesus became cursed with our curse and disinherited
for us on the cross. No mercy, no kindness, no gifts on the cross - just
forsakenness and wrath. Yet in taking our place there, He gave us His place as
a son of the Father - a place of only love and mercy and
kindness. That in His death our sins be atoned for and forgiven, in
His resurrection we be raised once again to the life that we had lost, and in
His ascension we too ascend and receive His kingdom, His inheritance.
Jesus talked about that
with His disciples that night before His crucifixion. He said, In my Father's
house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to
prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:2-3). Now if that is so, why
bother building bigger barns for all your stuff? Why bother when we have what
Jesus is preparing for us in heaven? And why think like the rich fool - I will say to my
soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be
merry - when your Father in heaven has more for you
than that? When He has for you not just a feast that will last many years,
but the wedding feast of the Lamb which has no end?
So clinging to the things
here, of this world and life, really is pretty foolish, really is pretty
meaningless. When Jesus is saying to you: I have so much more for you.
Satan wants to seduce you away from Jesus and His more to the less of this
world and life. But Jesus comes with the truth, for you. With
His gifts, for you. With Himself, for you.
So come eat and drink now
at His Table, where He is for you - His Body and Blood, once cursed and
crucified for you, now risen and given to you for the
forgiveness of your sins and the feeding of your new life in Christ. This is
the new testament, Jesus says. His last will and testament. The inheritance He has
left behind for you.
So come eat and drink,
though maybe you do so not in merriness - for maybe you are under great burdens
right now; sadness and sorrow; troubles and trials. They are a reminder of the now
but not yet. The new life we have now, but not yet in its heavenly
fullness. The inheritance we have now, but not yet in its heavenly fullness.
The joy and peace and unity in Christ we have now, but not yet in its heavenly
fullness. But don’t, then, seek for the fullness elsewhere. Where is
cannot be found. Know that what you receive here is the foretaste of the full
feast to come. A foretaste of the feast. A foretaste of the life. A foretaste of
the joy. A foretaste of the unity. A foretaste of the rest. Of the fullness that is coming,
that is yours in Christ.
Set your minds on that.
And then when Christ who is your life appears, you also
will appear with him in [the fullness of
His] glory.
In the Name of the Father,
and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.