Bigger isn't Better

8-4-19

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Currently I’m addicted to a show on Netflix called “Living Mortgage Free.” Doesn’t that sound nice? People go to some pretty creative lengths to either pay off their mortgages quickly, or forgo living with a mortgage altogether…… and often it involved a large dose of downsizing. One woman converted an old rusty barge into a nice one-person flat (this is a British show, by the way). Another couple got creative with a two shipping containers and reclaimed wood, and still another family completely gutted a double-decker bus to create the perfect handicap-accessible home on a small budget.

While most of the families featured in “Living Mortgage Free” are choosing to scale back, pare down, and simplify, this farmer in the story that Jesus tells SUPER-SIZING. The land he owns is producing the bumper crop to end all bumper crop, and his current barns are filled to the brim. So, he consulted himself – this guy seems to talk to himself a lot! – and came up with a great idea! Built bigger barns! Store the bumper crop away, save it for another day. What a great plan.

Except that this farmer forgot about something. He seemed to forget the rest of that saying we all know… you know, the one that goes, “Eat, drink, and be merry for….. (Tomorrow we die.)” And that’s exactly what happens. God comes to visit him in the night, not necessary to TAKE the life of this man… but to inform him of his own death that very night.

This is a parable of warning. Don’t be like the farmer. But… I think many of us would like to be in the farmer’s shoes… except for the end, of course. We would love to see a windfall come our way, perhaps in the form of a tax refund, a raise, or a Christmas bonus, and build “bigger barns” in the form of the newest iPhone or smart phone gadget, the latest Fitbit or video game system… Or a larger house in order to fit all of our stuff and our kids’ stuff…..  or a bigger garage, because we can’t even fit our car in there anymore….. or paying the monthly fee for one of those new storage units that are being built just down the road on 611.

But more and more, I think, our “bigger barns” look like your innocent-looking, common, everyday credit card. Because nowadays we don’t even have wait for that windfall to come in before building bigger barns. Everything around us tells us to spend, spend, spend…”just pay the minimum”…  

It wants you to think they’re helping you. But they are actually digging you a hole. Finance charges and high interest rates, digging deeper and deeper into debt. Our credit score tanks, and the collection agencies come calling, and suddenly our lives become bound to our stuff, to this little piece of plastic, stick in this hole. And this hole just so happens to be six feet deep. Which is exactly where that farmer ended up finding himself.

This farmer was on top of the world, with everything going for him, and so he forgot all about God. He only consults with himself, is only concerned with himself and his own future comfort. He made plans to secure his future without any reference to God… or to other people. He was only rich toward himself. And so, his fate became “death by stuffication.”

This farmer could be a poster child of Luther’s definition of sin- to gaze at one’s belly-button, to be curved in on oneself, until that becomes all we can see, so that we not only miss out on sharing God’s gifts with others, but completely miss the fact that all things come from God in the first place.

Life is not about our belongings and what inheritance is “due” to us, Jesus said to crowd. Instead, life is about WHO we belong TO. We belong to God, who claimed us in our baptisms as beloved children…all siblings in the family of God, who gave us a peek of our true inheritance when Jesus defeated death and was raised from the tomb on the third day.

Our own money, our “real” money, ironically enough, constantly reminds us, “In God we trust.” Not in money. Not in stuff. Not in bigger barns. Not is securing our own future. But we trust in God. Fear, love, AND trust, to be exact, at least according to Luther’s explanation of the first commandment. And God does not demand our life in an unfillable hole of debt and death. God is the source of all life, the giver of OUR lives and all that we have.

I know a little girl who once was deeply passionate about saving her pennies for the St. Jude’s children’s hospital, so when she had her first communion, instead of buying her a gift, I made a donation to St. Jude’s in her name, and she was thrilled.  We grownups forget, as the farmer forgot, the message you sometimes see floating around Facebook the saying you might have heard: “If you are more fortunate than others, it is better to build a longer table than a taller fence.” Or, as Jesus might have added, it is better to build a longer table than to build bigger barns.

As always, Jesus leaves us with some hard things to think about – how we downsize or divest our barns that block our generosity - and instead elongate our tables for welcome and hospitality. We as a nation and we as the people of God have a long way yet to go in the realm of table-building and inclusion instead of fence building.

In the case of the church, our windfall bumper crop was a prominent but unearned place in cultural suburban fabric, balanced budgets and overpopulated Sunday Schools. And what did many churches do in the face of such abundance? We built bigger barns, in the form of education wings and sanctuary expansions, perhaps to the detriment of expanding our “welcome table.”

After all, that’s what you do when the family of God grows, when the building is full… get a bigger building, right? Only we know all too well that growth is not linear or guaranteed. As a result, we, like many churches, are far from “living mortgage free” - burdened under the weight of maintenance projects to keep the building going, draining our time, energy, and our ministry resources…. All so our building can stand mostly unused much of the week. In good faith, we added to the Church Building, but perhaps neglected to add to the CHURCH BODY - the body of Christ. Big difference.

And even pastors make this mistake. Nearly every week at our pastors’ Bible study, the dean of our conference catches at least one of us saying “Church” when we really mean “the church building.” Every time, he reminds us there is a big different between the church – the body of Christ, the people, and the church campus – the location, the building.

As the ELCA we are about to illustrate that difference between church building and church Body, by gathering as voting members on the city of Milwaukee for a week of BEING the church. The theme for our week is “We are Church.” Not a in church building, but church together in our diversity of languages and cultures. Who just all happen to be hanging out in my home state for a week, doing important business of the church. We’ll do more than pass budgets, hear reports, and make amendments to amendments. We’ll do more than lament the state of our buildings. We’ll celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the ordination of women, the 40^th anniversary of the ordination of women of color, and the 10^th anniversary of the ordination of LGBTQ pastor in partnered relationships. We will eat together and have hard conversations together. We will worship together and break bread together. And then we’ll come back home, but we’ll be reminded that we are not in this alone.

THAT’S what it means when we say, WE are church. We are church who expands our tables and not our buildings. We are church who expands our hearts and open our hands. We are church, free despite our mortgage. We are church, a body not a building. Thanks be to God. Amen.

(Children's sermon: cards from game IN A PICKLE, with a "Barn" card)