Last week’s sermon was about how overwhelmingly generous our God is with His gifts. His greatest gifts are the many eternal gifts He gives us, like our Savior Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. But He also gives us many temporal gifts as well, such as food, clothing, a place to live, money, possessions. In today’s Gospel text Jesus teaches us that God even gives these temporal gifts to the unbelievers, to the pagans, atheists, and agnostics, who all enjoy such gifts, but fail to acknowledge that they come from Him. Worse still, they turn these gifts into idols, fearing, loving, and trusting in them above all things, to the point where, because they find their security in such things, they hoard them all for themselves, and thus fail to use them to help their neighbor in need. Perhaps you’ve seen the bumper sticker that says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” This is a fitting motto for such people.
Unfortunately, this same bumper sticker might be applied to our lives, too, given the way we act sometimes towards our temporal possessions. We may deny it now when all is well for us, but if someday all such possessions were suddenly taken away from us, we’d show just how much we’d really grown dependent on them and how much our life actually did consist in the abundance of them. Jesus puts His finger on a sore spot in all of our lives, and that is our unhealthy attitude towards the temporal things that He has graciously given us in this life. Gone unrepented and unchecked, this attitude will in the end separate us from the Giver of every good and perfect gift, as we will have worshipped creation rather than the Creator. According to Jesus, he whose life consists in his possessions, even though he might die with the most toys, still dies, and that without the true and eternal treasure that God gives in Christ.
Now, it’s not that being rich or having lots of “toys” in this world is inherently evil. There are many saints in the Scriptures who had lots of earthly treasure - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Kings David and Solomon, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, just to name a few. In the parable that Jesus speaks here, He says that the land of the rich man produced plentifully. Who causes the land to produce plentifully but God? God had not only blessed this man in his life so that he had become wealthy, but He continued to bless him by giving him a bumper crop. The problem is not that the man was rich, but that he did not acknowledge that God was the source of his riches. Even though the man may have been the one who “laid up treasure for himself” through his hard work and effort, it was God who was behind his success, giving him both life and the ability to gain such possessions for himself. Had God not blessed the earth, the man’s efforts would have all been in vain. But we, too, often operate with the same kind of attitude as this rich man did towards his stuff. We often take our possessions for granted, we fail to recognize that they’ve all been given to us by God, and therefore, we forget to give Him thanks for them. It’s not having the stuff that’s sin; it’s failing to recognize that God has given that stuff to you and instead making that stuff itself into your god.
By the way, the Scripture is often misquoted as saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” This is not what St. Paul says. What he says is, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” He goes on to say that “it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” And so, he gives this counsel to those who are rich and says, “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” The problem with the rich man in today’s parable is that he was arrogant about his future, having set his hopes on his riches. He believed his riches to be so stabile and firm, that his future was secure. But he had built his house on the wrong foundation. His riches were not as certain or permanent as he thought they were, and when the One who gave them to him threatened to take his very life away, they could not save him. He would die with nothing, having forgotten about the true treasure that God gives, which lasts forever.
So, neither having money nor planning for retirement is a bad thing. You’re not foolish, if you have a retirement plan and are wisely saving up for the day when you can no longer work. You’re not foolish, if you’re saving up for a house or wisely putting away a certain amount of income a month in case of emergencies. That’s not the attitude towards wealth that Jesus is talking about here. A Christian may save for his retirement, but ultimately he confesses that God is the source of all blessings. God gives us each day our daily bread, even through the jobs He’s given us, and He will provide us all that we need for our bodies and lives. And if someday the Christian loses his earthly treasures, he will still confess that he has the true and eternal treasure that God has given Him in Christ - the forgiveness of his sins, life, and salvation. And so, a Christian will not trust in his money, even if he has it, but in God alone.
The rich man in the parable trusts in himself and in his riches. He betrays this when in his conversation he mentions “I” and “my” eleven different times. “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” he says. “I will do this: I will tear 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.” Nowhere is there any mention of God or the man’s neighbors. In fact, he is so isolated and alone, that he has no one to talk to but himself. It reminds me of Dickens’ A Christmas Carroll. Scrooge was very wealthy, but look where it left him in his relationship to God and his fellow man.
But Dickens gives us the wrong solution to the problem. The man’s problem is that though he is rich in the world he is not rich before God. He is spiritually poor. He does not fear, love, or trust in God above all things. Instead, he worships his money. Dickens’ advice on how to get rich before God is to do good things with your money for your neighbor. Then you’ll be sure to go to heaven when you die. Well, the Lord certainly wants us to use our possessions to help one another, but that’s not what makes you rich before Him and ultimately keeps you out of hell. What makes you rich before God are the riches of Christ, which God gives to you, apart from your works or efforts. The riches of Christ are Christ Himself, crucified for your sins and risen from the dead for your justification. Given for you on the cross, where His blood atoned for your sins, He was given to you in your Baptism, where He clothed you with Himself. Today He continues to give you Himself through His Word and in His Holy Supper, where He gives you more forgiveness, more of the gifts He won for you with His life, death, and resurrection.
Jesus is the only treasure that makes you truly rich before God, because according to the Apostle Paul God has made Him alone to be your wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification, and your redemption. No amount of earthly treasure can do that for you. No amount of gold or precious jewels can remove your sin from you and make you appear righteous before God. You can’t stand before Him in any garments made by you, no matter how beautifully ornate they appear to be. The blood of Jesus Christ alone cleanses you from all unrighteousness. No amount of money or temporal possessions can give you life or save you from death. But Jesus does. It’s in Him and the abundance of His possessions given to you that your life does indeed consist. It’s those alone who die with Jesus who “win.” He and His gifts make it possible for you to relax, eat, drink, and be merry, not only in this present evil age, but also in the new age to come, where you’ll be doing all these with Him at His heavenly feast in glory.
In Jesus you can now relax; you don’t have to work for your salvation. Jesus has done it all for you. In Him you now enjoy a perpetual Sabbath day’s rest from your work and receive the benefits of His. You get to eat and drink now at His Table, where He feeds you on His body and blood, the currency that He used to purchase you for Himself. And you get to be truly merry, even when the cross weighs heavily upon you, because you have His sure and certain promise of the resurrection of your bodies and the life of the world to come. You are now at peace with God for Christ’s sake, and no amount of poverty or tribulation in this life will ever be able to snatch you out of His hand. Nothing will ever be able to take your true treasure from you. And someday you will rejoice with all the saints face to face in the presence of Jesus in His kingdom of glory, where you’ll enjoy the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness towards you in His Son. The Holy Spirit is the down-payment and deposit of this inheritance to come. Given to you at your Baptism He continues to pour the wealth of Christ into you through the Word and the Sacraments, causing the harvest of your righteousness to abound before God, so that even though by nature you are poor in spirit, yours is the kingdom of heaven.
“What,” then, “is the world to me, with all its vaunted pleasure, when you, and you alone, Lord Jesus, are my treasure?” What, then, should our attitude be towards our earthly possessions, when “All we have is Thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from Thee?” In today’s epistle lesson the Apostle Paul writes, “If then 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 appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, and your heart won’t find its peace and security in the temporary treasures of this world, but in the eternal treasure of Christ and His salvation. The more you do this, the more it will lead to giving God thanks and praise for His gifts, the more you’ll be willing to part with them to help your neighbor in need when necessary.
When you have Christ, you have everything you need; no amount of giving on your part will deplete the gifts of Christ to you. He is a treasure that won’t ever wear out or be depleted nor can He ever be stolen from you. He is an eternal treasure, He is your true treasure, and He alone grants you the forgiveness of all your sins, His righteousness, and eternal life with God the Father Almighty, the giver of every good and perfect gift. Amen.