Cereal

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 31, 2016

13 Proper C

          Camp Mitchell is the Episcopal Church camp in the Diocese of Arkansas, a sacred place where I worked as a counselor during the summers I was in college.  Most of the camp sessions were age-based, so all of the children were more or less the same age.  However, there was one session for low income inner-city children of all ages that was called the Robert R. Brown camp, named for a former Bishop of Arkansas.  The counselors all loved this camp session because we knew the children were getting the experience of a lifetime and we all wanted to make the time as special for them as possible. 

          Three things stick out in my mind about Robert R. Brown camp. The first is that the girls in my cabin, who ranged in age from about 7 to 13, pushed all the cots together to form one big bed so they could all sleep together.  None of them could imagine sleeping alone in a bed.  Secondly, I woke up one morning to the sound of lots of water activity going on in the bathroom.  I got up to see what was going on and found a couple of the older girls washing everyone’s clothes in the sink with hand soap.  None of the staff had thought about the fact that these children might not have a week’s worth of clothes to bring to camp.  But the girls were unfazed by their lack of clothes, nor did they ask anyone else to wash for them.  They simply got together and did what they needed to do.

          Lastly, at breakfast on the first full day of camp, one young camper had pulled up the hem of his t-shirt to make a big pocket and had filled his shirt with little boxes of cereal.  The camp director, a fairly tall and somewhat imposing man, stopped the young camper and asked what he had.  The young camper looked like he had just been caught with the contents of a Brinks truck rather than a shirt full of apple jacks and fruit loops.  I have always remembered what the camp director said to the young, scared camper.  He said “You don’t need to take those with you.  They are all yours and you can come back and get one anytime you want it.” “Really?” said the camper, not quite believing his ears.  “Really,” said the director.  For children who come from families who are food insecure, the thought that there was enough food all the time for everyone was pure fantasy.

          The man in Jesus’ parable this morning is not from a food insecure family.  We are told from the very beginning that the man is rich, and his land had produced abundantly.  Our first reaction to the parable might be to wonder what Jesus has against being responsible and preparing for the future, since that is what the rich man appears to be doing.  He is going to store his abundance for his retirement.  Many of us have saved to buy a house, for the education of ourselves or our children, for vacation, for retirement or any number of other future opportunities.  What does Jesus have against being a responsible grown-up?

          Actually, this parable is not about preparing for the future.  Listen to what the rich man says when his crops have produced so abundantly. “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?  I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grains and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”  In three sentences, the rich man uses the word “I” six times.  The parable is not about hoarding, as the man plans to use the abundance of his crops so he can relax, eat, drink, and be merry.  The parable is not about being lazy, since before the partying can begin, the man has to pull down his barns and build larger ones, which sounds like a lot of work to me.  The parable is about thinking that all that we are and all that we have belongs to us, and believing that we are the navel of our own universe.  Nowhere in this parable does the man consider that his abundance might be a gift to be shared.  As the saying goes, this is a parable about the self-made man who worshiped his creator.

          In the reading from Hosea, we hear God speak with a broken heart.  The people of Israel have gone their own way, chasing after gods who they think will bring them security, making alliances with foreign powers rather than trusting God to protect them, and exploiting other people for their own gain.  Just as the rich man in the parable was looking for security in the abundance of his own crops that he had grown himself, the Israelites were looking for security in alliances and gods of their own making.  The Israelites have forgotten all that God has done for them.  Hear the heartbreak in God’s voice: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt, I called my son.  The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.  Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.”  The Israelites have forgotten God and the way God calls them to live, and God knows the consequences of their actions will be disastrous.  The Assyrians will invade and conquer Israel, which will result in what we know as the 10 lost tribes of Israel.  When the life of the rich man in the parable was demanded of him before he ever got to relax, eat, drink, and be merry, perhaps he realized that his security was in the wrong place.  When the Israel was invaded and occupied, they, too, realized that their security had been misplaced.  “So it is,” we hear in the parable, “with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich towards God.”

          Not too many weeks ago, we heard a lawyer ask Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked “What does this law say?”  The man replied “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus says “Do this and live.”  Those words are the summary of all the law and the prophets, and those are the words that describe what Jesus means by being rich towards God.  Jesus’ parable this morning is not about preparing for the future.  Jesus’ parable is about living today in a way that is rich toward God.  The children at Robert R. Brown camp certainly had no earthly treasure to store up for themselves, but they were rich toward God.  They took care of each other, and made sure that everyone had what he or she needed.  They shared what little they had.  Even the little boy who wanted to take the cereal back to his cabin was not likely taking it for himself alone to hoard for the future.  He would have shared his abundance just as the other children would have shared theirs.  When we put our security in living as people who love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves, we will live richly toward God, everyone will have enough, and our security will have a solid foundation.

                                                                                      Amen.