What’s In Your Barn?
A Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
July 31, 2022
The Rev. Robin Teasley
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "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."
Luke 12:13-21
There is something about a barn, especially an old barn, that I love. The sun streaming through the cracks, the scent of animals and hay, the muffled quiet, and the cool dirt floor, hard-packed from years of use. My great granddaddy was a tobacco farmer so I am especially fond of tobacco barns. I have been known to stop the car, get out, and take pictures of barns along the way. A barn, by definition, is an agricultural building used for storage; it houses livestock, or it stores farming equipment, grain or hay.
For the past few weeks, Jesus has been teaching and modeling for his disciples the kind of behaviors and practices that define a life of discipleship, a life that results from getting priorities straight, and learning the difference between wants and needs. As the crowd follows Jesus, someone asks him to settle a family inheritance dispute. Jesus uses the interruption to teach the disciples, and indeed any in the crowd who have ears to listen, that greed is not a characteristic of discipleship. In telling the story of the guy with the barns, Jesus makes it clear that life is not about money, possessions, or collections of stuff, but rather it is about God and about relationships.
One’s attitude toward possessions is an important theme in Luke, and it can make us uncomfortable to hear it over and over. Maybe this Gospel message is uncomfortable because we can identify with the rich man. God didn’t have anything good to say about his plans to pull down his barns to build larger ones. I imagine I’m not the only one here who is wondering, is upgrading so bad? Don’t we do this all the time? We upgrade houses, cars, phones, internet speed, it makes our lives better, right? And here we are, in this beautifully restored church each week.
God clearly wasn’t pleased that the barn guy was hoarding so much of his crop. God called the man a fool, and at first glance, it seems an unfair accusation. What had he done wrong, exactly? It doesn’t say he cheated anyone in acquiring his abundance, and maybe he was planning for his future, for his retirement, or for a bad economic downturn. Don’t we all do that? Could Jesus possibly be saying that we should not have possessions, should not save for retirement, should not enjoy the material world, should not restore our historic churches? I don’t think so.
Perhaps the rich man’s mistake doesn't have to do with his wealth so much as it has to do with the fact that he believes that his wealth can secure his future; that his wealth can make him self-sufficient and independent of God and his neighbors. We do this too, even if we do not have a barn, and we may not even realize we’re doing it. If I just had a little more in the bank, or if the mortgage was paid off, or if the car was newer, or if I plan my investments carefully, or well, you can fill in the blank. How much is enough? How much is too much?
We may have a false sense of security in what we hold onto, what we store up. We store things in garages, basements, and attics. We even rent storage units for all our stuff. Did you know that one in ten Americans have surplus possessions in paid storage? These storage units have become our modern day barns. Yet we still worry we might not have enough, and Amazon is all to ready to deliver anything we need in an instant. Their new facility on Meadowbridge Road is the biggest barn I've ever seen!
This Gospel challenges us about those treasures we store up, because what we store up can separate us from others, and it can separate us from God. The rich man moved from having enough to becoming obsessed with what he had, and that’s the difference. His focus was no longer on God or neighbor. He was consumed with his own possessions and his own desires. Notice the number of times he says “my.” My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, my soul. In truth it was God’s land and many laborers who produced the abundant crops. The rich man didn’t seem to grasp that it was only by God’s grace and the help of neighbors that he had more than enough treasure.
I want to stretch this parable just a little bit farther. Because I have a hunch that Jesus was talking about more than just crops and money here. After all he was teaching life lessons on his way to the cross for us. So, what’s in your barn these days? What are we storing up as our crops, our grain, our goods in an attempt to guard our souls? Yes, some of it is material stuff, or bank accounts, or investments. But what are some of the other crops that we hoard away in all the metaphorical barns we build to protect ourselves, our egos, or our way of being?
What about crops such as our assertions of how things must be done? Whether it’s loading the dishwasher the right way, or the best way to fix our nation’s many problems, or the way we’ve always done things in church, we want to store up those things because there can be a sense of security in being right. Once we are sure of our rightness, we can no longer hear another perspective.
Then there are the crops of our unhealthy attachments to things like shopping, social media, or being perfect. In church the crops we store may be worn out practices, or ways of ministry and evangelism that no longer work in today’s changing society. These crops can fill plenty of barns in a hurry, giving us an illusion of control and certainty.
Surrounded by a cultural mantra of “more, more, more,” we think we need more things to make us feel safe and protected. And then we need bigger barns in which to store our accumulations. It’s a never-ending cycle, and before we know it, we are not consuming stuff but our stuff is consuming us, or we come to realize that we are being controlled by our unhealthy behaviors.
No matter how many barns we build, no matter what it is we are storing inside of them, none of it will protect us from the many unexpected changes and chances of this life. No amount of stuff can assure our eternal future. At some point our lives will be demanded of us, and then what will become of all our stuff?
The caution for us in this parable is that we be careful not to become like the barn guy, storing up treasures for ourselves, thinking only of ourselves and forgetting about those in need around us. The challenge for us is to be rich toward God. What does that look like?
Being rich toward God looks like finding ways to share our abundance with others. It means inviting neighbors to come and see Jesus among us here. It also means going out into the neighborhood and finding Jesus there. Being rich toward God looks like recognizing God in community with others, because we are only truly rich when we are living in community, worshiping, studying, sharing fellowship, and serving others using all that God has given us. This beautiful church is not only a symbol of our history but a sign of God’s hope for our future.
What if we imagine a barn as a metaphor for Immanuel? It would by definition be a building used for storage, housing livestock and equipment, and grain or hay. Then imagine that we are the livestock, the living body of Christ in this place, lovingly fed and cared for here. Imagine the farming equipment to be all of the things we need to do the work of the kingdom, all those budget line items that make up Immanuel’s ministry and keep it healthy. Finally, imagine that the grain and hay are the gifts that we have been given, that God is inviting us to share with a hungry world.
Our barn is filled with God’s treasures, and now is the time for us to imagine all that we can do, all that we are called to become.
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