The Heart of Generosity

The Sermon can be found at 21:15

​Luke 12:13-21  -  What is the purpose of life? It is the searching question asked by the writer of Ecclesiastes (our Old Testament reading for today). Where do we find our meaning? 

A few years ago, I heard that a person I went to school with took his own life. The story behind his suicide was tragic.  On leaving school, he had set his sights on becoming financially wealthy. His whole life had been focused on building up his financial wealth so that he could retire early and live the good life.  And by all accounts he was actually very successful. By his 30’s he had more money than most people would have over a life-time.  But then something when wrong. It was around 2008, and within a very short period of time, with the financial crash he lost almost all of his money.  The shock of it was too much to bare. He could not conceive of his life apart from the abundance of his accumulated wealth. His whole life purpose up to that point had crumbled away into nothingness. With his dream and his sense of purpose completely crushed, he took his own life. What is the meaning of life? And how much money does one need to live a life of meaning? 

Our passage today opens with a man asking Jesus to settle a family dispute over inheritance. It reminds us of the saying ‘where there is a will, there is a family feud’, or as expressed in an African proverb, ‘when a father dies, brothers become enemies’. Sayings like this are sad commentary on how money, inheritance and greed can destroy relationships.  Jesus refuses to play the role of arbitrator. Instead, he turns the question into a deeper teaching about greed, which gets to the heart of most financial dispute. 

And so Jesus tells a parable about a wealthy landowner whose fields yield a plentiful harvest. So plentiful, in fact, that the man has nowhere to store it all. His solution? Build bigger barns. Store up more. Settle into a life of comfort: “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

But then comes the rude awakening: in vere 20 we read the Voice of the Divine:
“You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared — whose will they be?”

Jesus ends with the moral: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Two Sundays ago Wendy and I went to the All Souls Pride Service. I realise that not everyone would hold the same views as me on LGBT+ issues and I am not hereby expecting you to change your mind.  Outside the service, across the road was a group of street preachers with a sound system. And throughout the service, the group of preachers took turns condemning what they spoke of as immorality. They also played loud songs and hymns in between trying to disrupt the service. Inside the church, those who were leading kept reminding us that our love needs to extend even to the street preachers outside who were doing everything in their power to disturb and disrupt the service. 

After reading this parable of Jesus, I find it interesting that street preachers often condemn particularly homosexuality, but I don’t think I have heard a street preacher condemning greed (despite the fact that the sin of greed is spoken of repeatedly in the New Testament). I have never heard of a street preachers setting up their sound-systems trying to interrupt major investment coroporations or the gatherings of the super wealthy.  

The parable itself is quite an arresting parable… especially in a culture in which to have lots of money and stored up wealth in barns was interpreted in Jesus day as a sign of God’s blessing.  In this parable Jesus clearly sees greed and the hoarding of money as a failing and a short coming. The word traditionally used in Christian circles is sin? (And in the New Testament that is exactly what the word sin means – simply means shortcoming. The Greek word ‘harmatia’ refers to an arrow that falls short of it’s target.) Why is it that many Christians today are very quick to identify homosexuality as a sin, and yet do not follow the example of Jesus is calling greed a sin?  Isn’t that interesting? Why is that? Is it possible that in our culture a certain level of greed is simply accepted as normal. (And in talking of sin I should add that I personally don’t believe that homosexuality is a sin – that would be my personal belief that I have held for the last +-20 years).

The attitude of the man in the parable in fact summarises the great capitalist aspiration of most western people.  We are schooled by our culture in the belief that our greatest happiness in life will come when we have stored up enough grain in our storehouses so that we too can relax, eat, drink and be merry in a long and extended retirement.  This parable deeply challenges our cultural values and assumptions...

In recent years it seems that there is a growing number of voices beginning to question our current value system that places the accumulation of money as the highest value in life, voices that are beginning in small ways to echo the sentiment of Jesus when he reminds us in this passage that Life does not consist in the abundance of our money or possessions’.  Some of those voices that are questioning our current economic value system approach it from an ecological angle recognizing that our current economic model of endless growth accumulation and consumption are not sustainable – destroying the very basis not just of life – our economic system in destroying the earth is destroying the goose that lays the golden egg.  

But in recent years, its seems more and more people are also beginning to realise that financial wealth is not the only or the defining measure of what it means to lead a rich and a full life.  Wendy was listening to a podcast with Dr. Chatterjee, a doctor from England who no longer practices in medicine but who has started a podcast to help people explore what health and wellness means in a wider more holistic sense. He interviewed an author who called Sohil Bloom who describes 5 dimensions of true wealth, only one of which is financial: to be truly wealthy he suggests you need a balance of the following: Time Wealth, Social Wealth, Mental Wealth, Physical Wealth, and Financial Wealth.  He suggests for example that you can have all the money in the world, but if you do not have enough time, then you are in fact not wealthy at all. 

By the same token if you work yourself to death, destroying your health in order to have a large bank account how wealthy are you really. 

Again, if you sacrifice your mental health and your social connections and family relationships in the pursuit of financial wealth, then how rich are you really? 

Robin Sharma is another author who expresses very similar ideas in a book he wrote called: The Wealth Money Can’t Buy.  

He expands the idea of other kinds of wealth to 8 categories, only one of which is financial. 

He speaks of Spiritual Wealth, the wealth of an inner life of connection to Spirit, and inner life that is alive and growing with deeper self-understanding and deeper connection to a greater wisdom. 

He speaks of the wealth of Physicial Health and vitality, the wealth of having a Career or a Craft that is meaningful, The richness or wealth or family and social connections, the wealth of what he calls a circle of genius, having people around you that inspire you to grow, Also what he calls Adventure Wealth, expanding one’s horizons through rich and meaningful experiences, meeting new people, having rich and interesting conversations, reading rich and interesting books. He also speaks of Service Wealth,  living for something greater than yourself, helping others, inspiring others, and finding fulfilment in giving back.   And the 8th kind of wealth is financial wealth. 

It is only one spoke on the wheel of a truly rich and meaningful life and the truth is that the other seven spokes of the wheel of a truly rich and meaningful life do not depend huge quantities of excess financial wealth. 

What neither Robin Sharma, nor Sohil Bloom mention is the wealth or the richness of generosity… although perhaps it is implied. 

And this seems to be the point of Jesus in this parable. The man in the parable has stored up his wealth in building bigger barns, but he has neither been rich towards God nor to his neighbours, remembering that for Jesus the life of faith includes three dimensions, Love for God, Love of Neighbour (which includes the stranger) and love and care for self. 

The judgement of the parable is that he has been rich in the abundance of his possessions, but he has not been rich and generous in heart and spirit.  He has thought only about himself and his own comfort and thus he has lived with a closed heart.  He has robbed himself of the joy that comes from giving.  He has closed himself off to the flow of God’s Spirit of Love and generosity. 

The question we might ask ourselves is where is the good news in all of this?  In the Buddhist tradition, greed is spoken of as one of the three fundamental poisons.  Greed poisons our hearts, it poisons our relationships, it poisons the earth, it fuels wars between countries.  The good news however is generosity itself.  If greed is the poison, generosity is the anti-dote.  Behind the warning against greed, Jesus is inviting us to the richness of spirit that comes through generosity. 

I end with two quotes on generosity that capture some very important dimensions of our passage today: 

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.  Winston Churchill

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. - Albert Pike