"Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me," the man implores Jesus.
There is pain behind those words. It would be easy to dismiss the guy with an accusation of greediness saying, “He just wants to be rich, and he’s trying to get someone with power to side with him.” But, that ignores the reality that lie behind most inheritance disputes: memories.
“I don’t care about anything else in the house. The only thing that I want is Dad’s violin,” the woman said. The need in her eyes revealed a yearning for the days of dancing in the living room while her father sang, eyes on her, from behind the rhythmically vibrating strings.
Memories…those shared connections with those we love are what truly lie behind these inheritance disputes. When the man says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me,” he is really saying, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the memories. Tell my brother to share my Dad with me.”
That is what happens in death. We scream to the sky because we lost someone so special. And, since we cannot hold to them for comfort, we hold to their things to provide the peace we seek. This is a normal response to death.
The problems come when everyone desires to hold onto the same things. When that happens, relationships with things start to become more important than relationships with people. I know of too many brothers and sisters who have gained lots of violins, cast iron skillets, smoking pipes, and sewing machines, but lost each other.
That is the real problem with the rich man in Jesus’ parable after-all. The problem is not so much that he gained a lot of wealth due to the bounty of the earth that year, but that he amasses all of this stuff, alone.
Read closely the words of the man:
“I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'”
Did you notice the amount of times that the man says “I”? More than that, did you notice that there was only one person in his life whom he could have a conversation about this bountiful year? Himself! His own soul is the one with whom he chooses to talk!
The problem is not that the guy was given the gift of a bountiful harvest. The problem is that the guy does not have anyone else with whom to share those possessions. His love is pent up in himself, and his possessions are a symptom of the much larger problem of trading possessions for people; trading things for relationships.
If Luke has any message to give us, it is that God does not forget us or our neighbors. And, in the kingdom of God, love of God and neighbor prevails. In that kingdom, we do not seek build up barns, rather we build up our neighbor. In that kingdom, we do not become so wrapped up in ourselves that God’s love is forgotten.
Churches can have these same issues with possessions. Some hold onto the gift of their property for only their own use. In the same way, some church will also hold tight to the much less tangible gifts given to them such as baptism and ordination. Churches still decide who gets to be baptized and who does not. Some churches still decide that half of the population does not deserve to share their gifts from the pulpit or break bread with those gathered in Christ’s name.
We all have a way of taking the gifts given to us from God, and keeping them for ourselves. There are any number of reasons for this, but some of the most powerful reasons are the ones that surround memories of past times, past ways, and a past people.
This whole preservation of memory thing is a hard one. I have no problem giving up an old laptop that I used for work for a new one. Slaving away over the keyboard late at night is not the type of memory that I would like to keep and share with my great grandchildren.
But, I would have a problem giving up the first little purple dress that I bought for my granddaughter Trinity, even though there is no way she or either of the other girls in our family could now wear it. Those sort of memories are special, so the items also are special.
But, if your life is being asked of you this very night, and you have no one with whom to share those memories, of what use is the building up of barns or sheds or Rubbermaid containers to store the memories?
You see, the value of anything is not in the preservation of the past, but the value is in the potential for relationships now and in the future. The value is in their inherent “giftedness.”
Everything we have is a gift from God for the sake of the world.
Even Jesus’ very life ended up being a gift to redeem people, the whole word in fact. Jesus not only gave up all he had, but he gave his very self for us. The value Jesus saw in his life was in the potential for others to have a relationship with him then and in the future.
In the same way, all that we have from God, even our very lives, are gifts for our neighbor in some way. And, since we've been given the gift of Jesus, he too is a gift not only for us, but also for our neighbor. No hording allowed. No building of barns allowed. No loneliness allowed. No loneliness for the people of God. Jesus cannot be horded. All that we have from God, Jesus, our things, even our very lives, are gifts for our neighbor in some way.
My granddaughter Trinity is five now. Last Christmas she wanted to give our baby a gift. Of course, we take her shopping and she chooses Christmas gifts for the children in the family that we then buy on her behalf, but this year she was old enough to want to give something herself.
She had in her room one prized miniature doll, Elsa from the movie Frozen. Elsa came with two of those magic clip dresses that easily slip right onto the doll. As Trinity looked around her room at all of the gifts she had been given, she spotted that Elsa. She brought this prized possession out of her room and carefully put her in the gift wrapped box for the baby marked, “Ember.”
You see, the value of anything is not in the preservation of the past. The value is in the potential for future relationships.
In this case, a gift first shared with Trinity kept on giving in her new relationship with Ember. That new relationship was much more important than even the most prized possession that she had.
"Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me," the man implores Jesus. That, of course, is the wrong question.
“Teacher, help me draw closer to my brother and to you now that our Dad is gone,” asks the one who is rich toward God.
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