“If You Build It, He May Come”
(Luke 12:13-21)
The Greenhouse ~ 11th Sunday after Trinity
The Christian life is difficult. It is also beautiful, hopeful, and meaningful, but it is difficult. The Scriptures are clear with us that it will be. Whether we live in Rome in the 1st century, England in the 16th, or America in the 21st, each time and place poses additional challenges for the Christian’s ability to live a faithful life. For America in the 21st century, one of those challenges is the American emphasis on rights.
America was founded upon the belief espoused in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For the first 100 plus years, the problem with this statement was decidedly that not all persons were given these rights. Women and minority races, for example, had fewer rights than white males. Perhaps this lofty, idealistic claim about unalienable rights that were then immediately withheld from certain persons set up future America for some problems. I’m not here to give an American history lesson, so that’s for some other discussion. But what we find in 21st century America is an overwhelming claim to personal, individual rights that go well beyond what the unalienable rights of the Declaration defend. We now claim individual rights to nearly everything, claiming that no one can tell me anything about how I live, even if how I live is impacting other people. Some of these rights make sense, most of them do not, but this individual rights-talk dominates the American conversation.
Rights-talk, however, is not new. We find an example of it in Luke 12, where the man questions Jesus about a dispute with his brother. He begins with a claim to rights—I am an equal inheritor with my brother, so tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. On the surface, this seems a reasonable claim. But Jesus intuits something deeper in this man’s heart, and so he tells the man, and all present, to watch out for greed. Possessions, he says, are not what life is all about, so greed is particularly dangerous because it causes bitterness in our hearts and misdirection in our lives. To illustrate his point, Jesus tells a parable of a rich man who had too much grain and too many goods for his current barn. Instead of sharing this wealth, the man determines that building bigger barns to hoard his wealth is the proper choice. He thinks he can now live in luxury, take it easy, and live off his produce. Jesus, however, inserts God’s voice into the parable, saying, “You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?” Jesus then abruptly ends the story: “That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God” (v. 21).
A man comes to Jesus with a legitimate claim to his right to half of an inheritance; Jesus tells a story about greed and how we should be concerned about richness toward God, not earthly possessions. For 21st century Americans, I think we have a serious word of caution. Many passages in Scripture warn us that our rights can be asserted to the detriment of another. These and other passages also encourage us to give up rights for the sake of another. One of the more prominent is 1 Corinthians 8 and Paul’s discussion of food sacrificed to idols. In verses 4-13 he writes:
4 About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.
7 However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not bring us close to God. We are not worse off if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. 9 But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge. 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.
Paul’s point is summarized well in verse 9: “But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.” Paul acknowledges the right, but he cautions against exercising that right to the detriment of another. My short sermon won’t solve the difficulties arising from this text. But I think the connection to Jesus’ parable is clear, and we would be wise to think and pray deeply and often about how frequently our decisions are rooted in American rights-talk instead of 1 Corinthians 8 or Luke 12 God-talk. I am not suggesting that you can never assert a right; I am not suggesting that the man should have ignored the half of his inheritance; but I am suggesting that many of our decisions are rooted in greed but excused by asserting our rights, and that is not the way of Jesus.
The first response to this story, then, demands that we answer the call to examine our motives and see if there is any greed in them. Are we making decisions like the man in the story to hoard our wealth? Perhaps we are, but we have simply missed the truth because we have the right.
The second response is also fairly evident, but perhaps likewise can be overlooked. In our context, we live with sufficient food, shelter, and medical care that most Americans see a long life compared to the rest of human history. It is common to live in America to our 70s and 80s, but none of us knows for certain the days of our lives. We all surely know people who have died young, and each early death is a sobering reminder that life is fleeting, quickly passing, and each day is unpromised. The barn builder forgot this lesson and acted with the presumption of many more days; but the Lord knew in the story, and knows for each one of us, the days of our lives, though we do not. Our lives may extend to 70 or 80 or more years, but they may also be gone tomorrow. Our job, then, is to live faithfully today, and each day, until the day we pass from this life and meet the Lord. American theologian and pastor Jonathan Edwards once resolved to live this kind of life, writing among many other resolutions, the following: “7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.”[1] I pray that we all consider how each moment may be our last, and to live as though the Lord’s return, or our death, is imminent.
These truths and calls to action are heavy, and they should weigh upon minds. Nevertheless, they need not weigh upon our souls, causing grief and undue burden. In that spirit, I’ll end with a lighthearted analogy. I titled this sermon, “If You Build It, He May Come,” as a play on a key phrase from one of the best baseball movies (or any movies), Field of Dreams. In Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a voice in his cornfield one night that says, “If you build it, he will come.” Later, he sees a vision of a baseball field in his cornfield and decides that not only is this the meaning of the voice, but that he must listen to the voice. He plows down some of his crop and builds a baseball field.
What follows is a mysterious and beautiful movie, but I won’t spoil it. The fool in the parable builds a barn he doesn’t need out of his own greed, and the Lord comes and requires his life of him. Ray, on the other hand, builds a baseball field with the apparent result of his own financial ruin. Acting on faith, however, he builds what he cannot afford and entrusts the results to the mysterious voice. Without spoiling the movie for those who haven’t seen it, and without defending whether or not the filmmakers intended it or not, the voice in this movie is a good God who brings healing through faithful obedience. This analogy, with its contrast between Ray and the fool, illustrates a question that I think lurks in the background of this parable. What are you building? If you build it, whatever it is, He (the Lord) may come. Well, He may come immediately, whether in His return or in your death. Indeed, one day He will come for certain. So, the question is less about whether He will come: both our death and His coming are assured by Scripture. The question is about what we are choosing to build. Are we building barns of greed or fields of forgiveness and healing? Only you and the Lord know. Let’s make sure we build the right things. Amen.
Discussion Questions
What are some ways you have seen rights-talk lead away from God’s design for relationship and human flourishing?
How can we learn to discern when/if it is appropriate to assert our rights?
How can we discern what we are building with our lives? How can we ensure we participate in God’s work of kingdom-building rather than building our own metaphorical “barns”?
[1]Quoted from “The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards,” Desiring God, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-resolutions-of-jonathan-edwards, accessed August 19, 2023. Cf. Resolution 19: “Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.”
Feature Image Photo by Markus Petritz on Unsplash
Field Image: Screenshot of Field of Dreams
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