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A Worthwile Life; (sermon 8/1/10)
Topic Started: Jul 30 2010, 10:39 AM (207 Views)
Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Colossians 3:1-11

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.

But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

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Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: 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.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”


=====

Oscar was a guy who understood the potential of computers, and later on the internet, long before most people did. He was in on the ground floor of several technology ventures, made some money, worked harder, reinvested. Before long, he was devoting almost every waking hour to making even more money, even though by that time he already had more money than he could spend in three lifetimes. Eventually, after years of a combination of intelligence, hard work, and some luck, Oscar gave up that solitary, laser-like focus of building up wealth, and took on the new solitary focus of enjoying it all. Oscar Jones and his wife Emilie retired to a palatial estate in Palm Beach. They dined on the finest foods at the most exclusive clubs and restaurants. Anything they wanted, they bought without a moment’s hesitation. They lived in a kind of opulence that in past centuries could only have been pulled off by royalty. Emilie spent her days reading by the pool, or strolling their private beach collecting interesting shells. Oscar would go out almost every afternoon on his yacht, fishing for a while until he got bored with it, or just lying in a deck chair under a sky so bright and blue that it hurt to look at, or gazing down into the almost glass-clear water below. For years, this was his goal. He’d spent years working to get here. He’d earned every penny of his vast fortune, and now he was spending it all on himself.

What a wasted life.

That’s Jesus’ judgment of Oscar in this passage from Luke that we read today. His parable was the exact same story except Jesus’ man made his money from wheat stalks instead of tech stocks; he kept his wealth in bigger barns instead of municipal bonds. The man in Jesus’ story was basically living the dream. He’d worked hard and prospered. He was set for years to come, maybe forever. Now it was time for him to kick back and enjoy the good life. I think most of us would admire this man. In fact, if we’d never read this story before, we’d probably say “Yes! You go, buddy; job well done!”

But we have read this story before, and we know Jesus’ tag line to the story. God calls this man a fool. A fool.

Now, to be clear, Jesus isn’t saying here, and in the verses that follow this passage, that there’s anything inherently wrong with saving up something for a rainy day, or retirement. What he’s talking about here is greed. Remember that this story started with two brothers arguing over whether, or how, to split up an inheritance, and Jesus cautions us against the kind of greed seen in their dispute. Jesus was condemning the man with bigger barns because of his greed. He had more than he needed, and instead of using his wealth in a way that would please God – instead of helping others out of his abundance – he hoarded it. It was his; he had a right to do with it as he pleased. And legally, he did.

God called him a fool.

God blessed him with material resources, but the man had forgotten that when God blesses us with something, that blessing comes with strings attached. That might sound odd; maybe you’re thinking “Oh, he shouldn’t say something like that,” but it’s true. God’s blessings always come with strings attached. The strings I’m talking about are the expectations that we well use those blessings in ways that the scriptures tell us are pleasing to God. Our blessings aren’t just the things we’re given, but the trust that comes attached to those things, the trust that we’ll act as God’s hands, God’s coworkers, in sharing those blessings with others is part of the blessing itself.

So Jesus isn’t condemning all saving, but greed, and we don’t have to feel totally uncomfortable with his words here. On the other hand, we probably shouldn’t feel all that comfortable, either, since I suspect what most of us, myself included, would consider a list of the basic needs in life is something very different from the list Jesus would come up with. And we can see how the perception of the basic needs of God’s children in, say, Manhattan differs from the perception of basic needs of God’s children in Frankfort differs from the perception of the basic needs of God’s children in Nitro, West Virginia differs from the perception of the basic needs of God’s children in Pyongyang, North Korea differs from the perception of the basic needs of God’s children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

We also need to remember that in this lesson, Jesus is talking about money, but he isn’t talking only about money. He’s talking about the greed of hoarding any of our blessings, our resources, in a way that we aren’t using them in ways that please God – in ways that help others. God calls us to live worthwhile lives – to be trustworthy stewards of all of our blessings, because as Jesus pointed out, none of us knows whether we’ll live another fifty years or fifty minutes, and after either of those, we will be expected to account for how we used what God gave to us, and expected us to use to advance God’s will on earth.

So use your money wisely, saving for the future, but also saving others. If you don’t, God calls you a fool.

Use your talents and skills to your own benefit, but also to benefit others who don’t have those same abilities and need them. If you don’t, God calls you a fool.

Use your time for your own wants, but also to benefit your loved ones, your family, and to establish and maintain a loving, healthy, strong home that knows God's love and lives Christ’s message. If you don’t, God calls you a fool.

Take the entire package of blessings that God has given you, and use them to do God’s work in a world that needs it so very badly. If you don’t….

There was another Oscar. This Oscar was a conniver, a schemer, almost a con man. Always looking for the fastest buck and the easiest life. He had a knack for understanding how the so-called real world actually worked, and he quickly learned how to flatter, and bribe, and work his way into the good graces of powerful people. He used all of his street smarts, connections, and his flair for showmanship to gain fat government and military contracts for his business that made him wealthy beyond even his own wildest dreams. He burned through vast amounts of money on lavish parties and entertaining. He continually cheated on his wife, Emilie. He was, by any moral standard, not a person to be admired. He was actually the kind of man we'd all love to hate. He was living life full-throttle, and looking out only himself.

But one day, Oscar saw with his own eyes the brutal, shocking reality that all the ugly talk he’d heard from his government buddies in Nazi Germany wasn’t just talk. They weren’t just doling out sound bytes of political red meat for the evening news. They were serious – they were really trying to rid all of Europe of every single Jew, once and for all. And in pursuing his own greed, he’d realized that he'd made his fortune helping them achieve that goal.

So Oscar Schindler began to use all of his money and all of his connections to save at least some of them, as many as he could, identifying them as essential factory workers for the war effort. The old, the infirm, the children, the sick, were all listed in official records as being healthy adults in the peak of their productive working lives. Professors, rabbis, artists, musicians, and other “non-essentials” were listed in the records as skilled machinists and metalworkers.

Before it was all over, Oscar Schindler spent nearly everything he had, to buy safety, food, and medical care for some 1,200 Jews, saving them from death in the nearby camps.

Before WWII, there were some 3.5 million Jews living in Poland. The Nazi’s “final solution” was so nearly successful, that there are only about 4,000 Jew in Poland, even today. But also today, around the world there are some 7,000 survivors and descendants of the Jews that Oscar Schindler managed to buy and save with his fortune.

His story was almost entirely forgotten until years later, when a book, and later, of course, a movie, told the world about him. His life didn’t have the storybook ending we’d want it to have. His marriage to Emilie was doomed to failure through his continued infidelity. He tried to start three different businesses after the war, and they all failed. After years of being supported by generous donations from the Jews he’d saved – and after spending that same money almost as quickly as he got it in his hands – Oscar Schindler died in 1974, almost unknown, and without a penny to his name.

What a worthwhile life.

Complex blend of saint and sinner, just like us, Schindler’s story shows us what could be possible for any one of us – what kind of difference any of us might be capable of making – if we really hear Jesus’ words in this passage, and we use all the different kinds of blessings that God entrusts us with – using them in ways that will cause God to tell us, “Yes - well done.”

Thanks be to God.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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brenda
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..............
Somebody got their sermon ready early this week. ;)
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Heh. I've got some other irons in the fire most of tomorrow...
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Quote:
 
I think most of us would admire this man. In fact, if we’d never read this story before, we’d probably say “Yes! You go, buddy; job well done!”


I for one nodded to myself when I got to the part about this being a wasted life. I've never, ever understood the dream of "putting in your time" doing something you hate just so that you can amass the capital necessary to do nothing at all for the rest of your days.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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