\nuncomfortable in a multitude of ways. \u00a0It forces us to face questions
\nof security, consumption, capitalism, greed, and existential anxiety.
\n Which, as 21st<\/sup> century Americans, are things we spend a
\nwhole lot of energy avoiding as hard as we can.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/52f901c3f7c9ce508af29c866e3d434a\/57d3753957a26af5-cf\/s540x810\/24d5cb13663f7cf4a1ff6bb4660a9ed3e22ee790.jpg\")
<\/figure>\nOh, and it feels judgy. \u00a0That’s
\nuncomfortable too. \u00a0And quite often when we read it, we feel judgy,
\nand, well, judged. \u00a0I’m all for ignoring it, except that the degree
\nto which I want to look away from it suggests that I probably
\nshouldn’t.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I feel for the man in the parable.
\nHe’s worked hard, he happened to luck out and have a good harvest,
\nand he FINALLY feels like he can stop fighting for security and just
\nrelax a little. \u00a0He can live life and enjoy it, without
\nfear of hunger. \u00a0And then he gets slammed for it, and he dies
\nwithout being able to enjoy that security, and judged for doing it
\nall wrong.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And this, as my first response, is <\/p>\n But this initial, instinctual response <\/p>\n That is, he wasn’t lacking security to <\/p>\n By thinking there can always be more <\/p>\n The authors remind us that in that <\/p>\n So. \u00a0My first reading of this passage <\/p>\n I keep getting shocked by these <\/p>\n For those who believed that goods were <\/p>\n Now, let’s get to the REALLY hard part <\/p>\n While the poor people were worried <\/p>\n But, whenever people build bigger barns <\/p>\n I hate this narrative. \u00a0And I’m not at <\/p>\n But, anyway. \u00a0I’m most struck in this <\/p>\n In my 9 years with this church I’ve <\/p>\n But I don’t know how much of that <\/p>\n And I want to say again, I think this <\/p>\n Which is awful.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And, just to be clear, untrue. <\/p>\n Let me try to say this a different way. <\/p>\n Now, does it negate that action if it <\/p>\n Our church isn’t going to live forever, <\/p>\n But while it is here, and alive, I hope <\/p>\n And I hope we can remember, each of us <\/p>\n Friends, we are in a new season, one <\/p>\n And, then we get to do some wondering <\/p>\n Oh these parables. \u00a0They don’t ever 1<\/a>\u201cRich, 2<\/a>Luke 3<\/a>ibid<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rev. Sara E. Baron <\/p>\n July 31, 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nreal, and I suspect involves a whole lot of projection from the 21st<\/sup>
\ncentury to the 1st<\/sup>, and an awareness of the many, many
\npeople who struggle to have enough food to survive.<\/p>\n
\nto the parable also required that I ignore the actual details
\nof the parable. \u00a0Because the set up Jesus gives isn’t the one I
\nheard. \u00a0Jesus says, \u201cThe LAND of a rich man produced abundantly.\u201d
\n Which creates two immediate distinctions: \u00a0the man was ALREADY rich
\nwhen the story began, AND he didn’t actually do the labor for this
\nharvest. \u00a0In fact, I think maybe it is set up to make us aware that
\nOTHERS did the labor. \u00a0From the man’s perspective, maybe \u201cthe land\u201d
\nproduced, but land doesn’t farm itself. \u00a0The laborers do. \u00a0But the
\nrich man doesn’t even acknowledge them. \u00a0Nor, clearly, does he share
\nthe bounty their work produced with THEM. \u00a0Because he owns the land,
\nhe owns the harvest, and seeks to secure it, probably AGAINST the
\nlaborers themselves.<\/p>\n
\nbegin with, but he kept others from having enough to survive.
\nAccording to the Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels,
\nin ancient Mediterranean culture, \u00a0it was assumed that \u201call good
\nexisted in finite, limited supply and were already
\ndistributed…Because a pie could not grow larger, a larger piece for
\nanyone automatically meant a smaller piece for someone else.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a>
\n Now, we don’t share that assumption in the same way anymore. \u00a0We
\ntend to think of most goods as producible, so more can be produced if
\nmore is needed. \u00a0The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n
\nproduced, we end up taking unhealthy quantities of raw materials from
\nthe earth, and we also don’t pay as much attention to when some
\npeople acquire more than
\n<\/b>their fair share. \u00a0When the pie is assumed to be fixed, taking
\nthe biggest slice is UNFAIR. \u00a0But when there are several pies, even
\ntaking a whole one for one’s self doesn’t create the same outrage.<\/p>\n
\nculture, \u201cAn honorable man would thus be interested only in what
\nwas rightfully his, meaning what he already had. \u00a0He would not want
\n‘more.’ \u00a0Anyone with a surplus \u00a0would normally feel shame unless he
\ngave liberally to clients or the community.\u201d2<\/sup><\/a>
\n Furthermore, \u201cAnxiety about the future was not a peasant outlook;
\nanxiety about daily bread certainly was.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
\ninvolved identifying with and feeling compassion for the rich man
\nwho was taking an unfair share of the community’s resources, and
\nfeeling bad for him that he got judged for it. \u00a0Just in case anyone
\nwas wondering how \u201cinternalized capitalism\u201d is going with me. \u00a0\ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
\nparables. \u00a0I keep noticing, as I read the parables of Jesus, how much
\nthey illuminate the economic systems of TODAY, and how much I buy
\ninto them. John Dominic Crossan helps make sense of this by pointing
\nout that Jesus lived in a pre-industrial agricultural domination
\nsystem while we live in a post-industrial non-agricultural domination
\nsystem. I keep noticing that I don’t naturally have a 1st<\/sup>
\ncentury peasant outlook on life, which seems pretty obvious, but also
\nmaybe important.<\/p>\n
\nall limited resources, and a zero sum game, it was then really
\nobvious to conclude that those who take too much aren’t being good
\nneighbors, or fair participants in the game. \u00a0But in the USA in 2022,
\nthere are other narratives that counter that simple fact. \u00a0We live in
\na society that believes that winners have a right to take what they
\nwin, and that means that everyone else just has to deal with less.
\nWhich means that we have taken away the moral assumption that people
\nshouldn’t build bigger barns.<\/p>\n
\nof this story. \u00a0The rich man dies in the end. \u00a0A la Steve Jobs,
\nhaving all the money didn’t make him immune to death. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nabout if they could eat TODAY, the rich man was worried about the
\nfuture, and mortality was about come calling. \u00a0Not even the security
\nof wealth and abundance changed that outcome.<\/p>\n
\n(physically or metaphorically), I think they are doing so to try to
\ncreate more security, and in doing so prevent death from coming for
\nthem. \u00a0Or at least coming for them as soon. \u00a0Which
\nin our society is FAIR, because having more resources DOES
\nincrease a lifespan, until a certain point. \u00a0Because we live in a
\nsociety that says you have to fight with others for resources, and
\nsome will get them and some won’t, our shared narrative as a county
\nis that those who are poor \u201chaven’t worked hard enough\u201d and we
\nshouldn’t help them and take away their motivation for work. \u00a0Taken
\nto its logical end, our form of capitalism says some people \u201cwin\u201d
\na right to a longer life, and others… don’t.<\/p>\n
\nthis point very fond of this parable. \u00a0Why is Jesus always sticking
\nhis nose in stuff?<\/p>\n
\nstory by the ways it reflects our own existential angst, and I want
\nto talk about that today not just in the personal but also in the
\ncommunal.<\/p>\n
\nheard a lot about awareness of decline, and questions of
\nsustainability. \u00a0Looking back on old records and minutes, these
\n<\/b>are conversations that date back a few decades as well. \u00a0Because
\nthis church is attentive to numerical trends, there has long been
\nawareness that the trend is one of decline.<\/p>\n
\nawareness has happened along side the emotional and spiritual work
\nthat would make sense of it. \u00a0My fear is that for many in this
\ncommunity, it feels like if the church dies \u2013 OR CHANGES \u2013 it
\nmeans that the effort and energy they’ve given to the church didn’t
\nmatter. \u00a0And inside one’s emotional system that could easily
\ntranslate to, \u201cmy life didn’t matter because I gave my resources to
\na church and it didn’t matter.\u201d \u00a0(Internal emotional systems aren’t
\nknown for logic, nor for refusals to take flying leaps.)<\/p>\n
\napplies to EITHER the church DYING OR the church CHANGING. \u00a0For those
\nwho have given of time, energy, passion, prayers, presence, or money
\nin the past to see the parts of the church life they gave themselves
\nto CHANCE is HARD. \u00a0I believe it is often experienced as rejection.
\nI believe it is often experienced as a rejection of the person
\nthemselves. \u00a0\ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n
\nChurches are a lot like living organisms. \u00a0We need different things
\nat different times, and a ministry or group that is IMPERATIVE to the
\nwell-being of the church in one season will not necessarily be in
\nanother season. \u00a0But that doesn’t change the fact that it was
\nimperative in its own season. \u00a0And it doesn’t mean that the gifts a
\nperson gave to that ministry or group didn’t matter.<\/p>\n
\n If you would, think about a person who helped you along your way \u2013
\nsomeone who made a difference for you. \u00a0A teacher or mentor who
\nbelieved in you, or someone who helped you get a resource or
\nconnection you couldn’t have gotten, or someone who had the time to
\nlisten when you had something that needed to be heard. \u00a0Got it?
\nGreat.<\/p>\n
\ndidn’t continue forever? \u00a0Of course not! \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nbecause nothing ever does. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nwe will spend our energy enjoying ministry together and being a gift
\nto our communities. \u00a0I hope we won’t spend all of our energy trying
\nnot to die, at the expense of actually living while we can.<\/p>\n
\nwhen it applies to us, that the gifts we’ve given to make this church
\nwhat it is are of great value. \u00a0And, it is OK that seasons change.<\/p>\n
\nwe’ve never been in before. \u00a0As we let go of the past, I invite you
\ninto some reflection. \u00a0We aren’t going to build bigger barns (heavens
\nwe do not need a BIGGER barn), but we do have a choice of what to put
\nin the one we have. \u00a0When you think about the past, and what was
\nwonderful and life giving about it, what qualities should we keep?
\nWhat might they look like now, which is likely quite different from
\nhow they looked then? \u00a0What matters most from the past to find a new
\nway to have it in the present? \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nabout how we make sure those gifts we value immensely get to the
\n\u201cworkers in the field\u201d and not just the rich land owner. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\njust let things be, do they? \u00a0Thanks be to God! \u00a0Amen\n<\/p>\n
\n\tPoor, and Limited Good.\u201d \u00a0p. 400.<\/p>\n
\n\t12: 13-34 commentary, 278<\/p>\n
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she\/her\/hers
http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/<\/a>
https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/a><\/p>\n