"the Spirit Of Generosity"

“The Spirit of Generosity”

Luke 12:13-21

When I try and get my head around what the poor people in the Ukraine must be enduring and dealing with it is more than I can comprehend.

I can’t imagine having a foreign power invade my country, shooting missiles into my neighborhood, blowing up the buildings in my city, killing my neighbors, colleagues, family members and friends.

What would it be like to have my electricity cut off by bombs, my access to drinking water destroyed by missiles?

What would it be like to watch my children starve, and to see my friends suffer in ways that are unimaginable?

It must be absolutely horrific.

But it is happening to people just like me and you right now--at this very moment in the year 2022.

And then I think about what we have in America.

We are not being invaded by a ruthless dictator who cares nothing about our lives—who actually wants us out of his way so that he can have our land, our resources, whatever it is that drives him to do what he is doing.

Most of us have running water, electricity, food to eat and even air conditioning that provides us an escape from actually having to endure the sweltering summer heat.

And yet, so many of us continue to be very stressed and upset about many things.

We complain about the price of gasoline or not being able to find our favorite brand of whatever we want on the grocery store shelves due to some supply chain issue.

But for most of us—these things don’t really make much of—if any difference to our overall quality of life.

We complain about things which would mean nothing to us if we didn’t have so much.

We spend our time stressing out about First World Problems while others go without the basic necessities of what people need in order to simply live.

I am guilty of this, how about you?

An interesting thing happened during the time we were all living in basically complete quarantine due to fear of the Covid-19 virus.

We stopped arguing about some of the sideline issues that used to take up so much our time and resources.

But now that things have gotten back to a more comfortable place, the divisions and arguments have returned.

Why do we seem to need to find things to fight about, be miserable about, be stressed about?

I don’t know.

One thing seems to be for sure: money, comfort and ease don’t get to the root cause of our problems.

They don’t fill whatever void or voids we have in our lives.

They don’t fix our brokenness.

They don’t save us from unhappiness and from want for something more, something else.

In our Gospel Lesson for this morning Jesus is in the middle of a serious discussion in front of what we are told is a huge “crowd” that had “gathered.”

There were so many people scrambling after Jesus that it says they were “trampling on one another.”

And in the middle of this important lesson Jesus is giving “someone in the crowd” interrupts Him with something that is, shall we say, “way off topic.”

He says: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

This one is really way out of left field.

But Jesus uses it for a teaching opportunity because at its core it is about SOMETHING DEEPER that we all struggle with.

It’s about something that puts a wedge between us, and our ability to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

It’s about something that moves in the opposite direction of how we are to live our lives.

It’s about something that is more dangerous, perhaps, than almost anything else in all the world.

It is the cause of wars.

Family disputes.

Murder.

Divorce.

And a general coldness toward the rest of humanity…and much, much more.

And that “something” is called GREED!

And greed is one of those words that by definition simply has no positive meaning.

I mean, most of us will agree that this is true—at least on the surface of things—right?

But when we walk out the doors of this church building, our lives tell a different story, do they not?

I mean, to some extent, we are all preoccupied by the pursuit of stuff.

So, when Jesus says “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions,” how many of us really live as if we believe this?

I mean, we will most likely nod our heads in agreement and none of us will probably go so far as to say “greed is healthy,” but as a people we seem to spend much of our time trying to get more and more and more!

By the way we live our lives, what we focus our time and energy on…it would actually seem as if we really do believe that our lives consist in the abundance of our possessions!