Are you jealous of the ocean's generosity?

One of the characteristics of our spiritual community that I particularly appreciate and value is our willingness to give and to share with one another the gifts that we’ve been given. It is an expression of our gratitude and of our sense of belonging together as a community. It’s an expression of our love for the world. We give of our time and energy. We give of our own financial resources, whether they be large or small. We give of our talent and skills.

Sometimes our sharing of our self and substance is hard work and we feel burdened. Sometimes we may not think we have much to give at all. But then there are times when we experience the joy of giving. Perhaps we get to glimpse a particular result our sharing has made possible and we are so very glad that we were able to contribute. Perhaps we just realize the goodness and the generosity of life and feel privileged to participate in some way. Perhaps we remember how we felt when someone helped us out and it just feels good to return the favor.

There is a sense in which our sharing and giving makes tangible and concrete the connection we have with one another, with God and with the world. And the more we make our connectedness tangible and concrete the deeper and more expansive we discover our love to be. We were meant for community, for relationship, for sharing, for love.

This is an important starting point for us to consider the parable today. It’s easy to get side tracked into our own judgments and feelings of guilt, that we don’t do enough, or envy, that we haven’t been given enough, when we hear this story and this can cause us to miss what’s really going on here. So we begin with a celebration of our goodness and then we can consider how this parable might offer us an opportunity to grow in our expression of our goodness.

But before we jump into the parable, let’s go to another Biblical story: the story of Joseph in Egypt.

The last fourteen chapters of the book of Genesis tell the story of Joseph and his family. There is a portion of this story that deals with a miraculously abundant series of harvests. As the story goes, Pharaoh has a disturbing dream in which he sees seven gorgeous fat cows grazing on the bank of the Nile. Suddenly they are joined by seven thin and scraggly-looking cows. The thin cows eat-up the fat cows, but they are still as thin as they were before. Next Pharaoh dreams that he sees seven plump ears of grain growing on a stalk. Then seven thin and blighted ears of grain sprout after them and they swallow up the plump ears of grain.

Pharaoh is so troubled by these dreams that he sends for the priests and astrologers of the court to interpret them and tell him what they mean. No one can. Finally he sends for Joseph, a young Hebrew who has been in prison the past few years. (That’s a whole other long and interesting story.) When Joseph comes before Pharaoh and hears of the dream he tells Pharaoh that The seven fat cows and the seven plump ears of grain represent seven years of plenty in which the harvests will yield an abundant crop. The seven thin cows and seven blighted ears of grain represent seven years of famine that will follow the seven years of abundance. Joseph then suggests that Pharaoh take one-fifth of the produce from each year’s harvest during the seven years of plenty and store it so that when the seven years of famine come there will be a reserve to help feed the people during the seven years of famine. Pharaoh is so impressed with Joseph’s interpretation and his sage advice that he puts him in charge of the operation and makes him second in command of all of Egypt.

Everything happens as Joseph predicted and when the seven years of famine hit, the storehouses are opened and the people of Egypt are able to survive. Even people from other countries near and far come to Egypt to buy grain so that they might live as well. The people make it through by a combination of wise planning and a sense of social responsibility that realizes that the abundance of the land is a gift meant to bless and to sustain all the people, not just some of the people.

So when first century Jewish peasants first heard Jesus tell the parable about a miraculously abundant harvest with a rich land owner who wonders what he’s going to do with it all, they probably had the story of Joseph running through the back of their minds as well.

The parable from Luke is about a gift of an abundance that was meant to bless and sustain the entire community being mismanaged by someone who rather than sharing it is planning to hoard it all for himself. He’s probably heard the prosperity gospel! And he is so anxious to store it all up for himself that he tears down his barns and builds bigger ones to house it all in. The harvest in the parable is obviously going to be outrageously and miraculously abundant if he’s going to all that effort. Yet he, in his greed, is going to miss out on the greatest gift of all.

This is the only parable in which God enters as a direct character. God actually speaks to the rich man. God calls the man a fool, which here signifies that the action of the man in hoarding the harvest has essentially denied God’s existence. For Jesus, God’s existence is found in the Kindom of God that is created every time we love, respect and care for one another and share our resources with the community for the good of all. The rich man in the parable had a unique opportunity to participate in the creation of the Kindom of God, and he missed out.

Yet in spite of his failure, he is not punished. He is simply going to die that night in his sleep. He is not deemed evil incarnate, he is simply foolish in missing the fullness of the blessing that was offered him. Jesus didn’t believe in a punitive God, so there is no “Hell-fire and Brimstone” here. As a matter of fact, when the servants find him in the morning they will begin to make arrangements for an honorable burial. The villagers will probably not assign any special meaning to his death. As it turns out, he may in death become the patron and provider of the community that he never was in life.

The voice of God concludes this parable with a question. God asks “Whose will they be?” The bountiful harvest that requires newer, bigger barns to store it all in. Who will now get to receive this abundant blessing?

Since this is about the Kindom of God, we know who will receive it. It is meant for everyone. God’s Kindom is not the exclusive possession of any one individual or group. It is a shared Kindom, found in the miraculous abundance and blessing created by a community of love and justice. The Kindom of God exists in the deeds of the beloved community.

The true miracle is that the Kindom of God is found within the loving, compassionate actions of an inclusive community. The blessings of God flow between us in the mutual sharing of our resources and gifts. This sharing is something we were created for. Thanks be to God!

Jesus told them a parable:

The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull 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.”

But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”