Dana Reardon - Affluence vs. being rich toward God

Affluence vs. being rich toward God

"So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."
-- Luke 12: 21

I was off the week this was read in church and got to hear it from the pews. I had already been struggling with what it meant. Of course it is the story of the man who builds the big barns to hold all his possessions and then God comes and says, "Tonight your life is being demanded of you."

So I have been trying to figure out what it means to be rich toward God. Jesus makes it a contrast to the man with the big barns so is it being poor? Sometimes we idolize the poor as if the state of poverty in and of itself makes one spiritually rich.

And I have discovered that this is not necessarily true. I know some people who are poor who think about having things as much as rich people. Their focus is on what they do not have rather than as the man with the barns who focused on what he did have. Of course lots of rich people focus on what they do not have also.

That is some of what I think spiritual poverty is about. Not being rich toward God is about needing things or more things. Do you ever think, "If I just had this much more or made this much more a year, then I would have enough." Do you ever say, "When I get to this point financially then I can help out my church or give to world hunger."

The man with the big barns had finally gotten to that point which we hardly ever do. The big barns are a symbol of what we think we need. And when we get to what we thought we needed we build bigger needs to fill. But even so this man was actually farther along than we are because he had actually gotten to the point where he though he had enough. Just in time to die.

In a sense he was farther along spiritually than most of us even if he only reached that point at the end of his life. We are less rich toward God because we never get to the point where we are truly grateful for what we have and say, "Soul you have ample goods for many years."

What would it take for each of us to have enough to truly share? What would it take to have enough to not need bigger barns for our expanding need? What would it be like to be content with what God has given and really see the truth that most of us have more than we need so that we can share?

I have heard the way of the cross called the way of downward mobility. But the first step of that is to see that we truly have enough.

Lord,
Help me today to survey what I have and see that you have given me abundantly. Help me to see that someone needs what you have given me for them. And help me to give thanks.
Amen

The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI. A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care. She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander. She is still trying to understand the accent. While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team. That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.