Division

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 4, 2019

13 Proper C

           My friend Dawn has a great gift for helping other people downsize to smaller living quarters or clean out a loved one’s house after a death in the family.  Dawn makes quick decisions about what needs to be kept, given away, or thrown away.  She has come to my rescue more than once when I had such a job to do and her energy has kept me afloat in the midst of more than one basement filled with decades worth of earthly belongings.  In each case, Dawn had less of an emotional investment in the property being downsized, which was a great help.  How much easier is it to say “Are you really going to use this?” when the item in question does not belong to you, never belonged to you, and has none of your memories attached to it!  Dawn is a relentless sorter of other people’s things and in no time a room can be sorted into things to keep, things to give away, and things to toss. 

          At first glance, the landowner in today’s parable needs Dawn for a friend.  When she finished with his crops and his goods, I assure you he would have no need for new barns.  Everything would fit in a shed!  That is what the landowner really needs, right?  He needs to downsize and get on with his life.

          However, the landowner’s real problem is not that he needs to downsize or come up with more space for his crops and goods.  I do wonder what the man did with all of his grain and all of his goods once he tore down his old barns and waited for the new barns to be built, but that is not the problem of the parable, either.  Listen to what the landowner says:  “What should I do for I have no place to store my crops.”  Then he goes on “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 those few lines, the landowner uses the word “I” or “my” 11 times.  The landowner’s problem is that the landowner is the naval of his own universe.  Never does the landowner think that he might share his abundance with others as a solution to his storage problem, or that his abundance is a result of anything other than his own good fortune.

          Both our reading from Hosea and our psalm this morning remind God’s people of God’s tender love for them and the way God led the people out of slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness, providing for their hunger and thirst, and guiding them to the Promised Land.  Both readings proclaim God’s faithfulness, even when the people complained and rebelled.   Both readings are drenched in God’s love for the people and all God has done and is doing for them.  In the reading from Hosea, we hear the heartbreak in God’s voice as the people turn time and time again to false gods when they feel threatened, and yet God loves the people despite God’s heartbreak.

          In the reading from Colossians, we are told what our lives look like when Christ is revealed in glory.  Those things which divide us from each other are out: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, which we are told is idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive language.  Instead, we are called to recognize that in Christ, we are all one.  We have put aside that which divides us and there is no longer Jew or Greek, slaves or free, or division by ethnic identity.  In today’s world, we might add to that list economic status, gender identity, political party, skin color, views on gun control, or any of the many other ways in which we allow ourselves to be divided.  In Christ, we are all one.

          So, what is the fundamental problem of the landowner?  The fundamental problem is greed.  Before Jesus tells us the parable of the rich landowner this morning, Jesus says “Take care!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist of the abundance of possessions.”  The landowner’s problem is that his life does consist of the abundance of his own possessions.  The landowner is concerned with the welfare of only one person-himself.  The landowner has forgotten the story of God’s people, which tells us that all we are connected with all that God has made and warns us against the futility of putting our trust in anything other than God when times are tough.  God’s heart is broken in the reading from Hosea precisely because the people have forgotten these two things.

          We live in heartbreaking times.  We live in a time when we allow ourselves to be divided along so many lines and those divisions keep us from being able to solve the problems that confront us as a nation.  Just yesterday, a mass shooting in a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas took the lives of 20 people and injured dozens more.  I got up this morning and read of the mass shooting last night in Dayton, Ohio where, at last count, 9 people had been killed and 16 injured.   We wring our hands, pray, and feel hopeless.  We wonder what we can do to end this madness.   And so long as we as a society allow ourselves to be divided by our differences and, like the landowner, we focus on the words “I” and “my,” the answer is probably nothing.  But the good news that Scripture proclaims this morning and always is that God has created us to be connected to each other.  In Christ, we are one.  At a fundamental level, humans are wired for connection with God and all people. Our hope and our call is in living as the people God created us to be.  There is no place for division in God’s heart.  Let there be no room for division in our hearts so that we can begin to heal this very broken world.  We can only begin with ourselves.

                                                                             Amen.