Texts:
Luke 12:13-21
Colossians 3:1-11
Hosea 11:1-11
Louisville Slugger Field was built for baseball. It’s a great place to watch a baseball game. Baseball is my favorite sport and our family loves to go to Slugger Field and watch baseball.
Luke 12:13-21
Colossians 3:1-11
Hosea 11:1-11
Louisville Slugger Field was built for baseball. It’s a great place to watch a baseball game. Baseball is my favorite sport and our family loves to go to Slugger Field and watch baseball.
Our family are also soccer fans and have become big supporters of Louisville City and enjoy going to watch them play soccer. Lou City also plays at Louisville Slugger Field. Which was not built for soccer. It’s a great place to watch baseball. It’s an…interesting place to watch soccer. There really isn’t a good place to see everything. We sit at the end of the field - along what would be the third base line - and it’s a great place to watch the final attacking third of that end of the field. The side of the field is good for generally seeing what is going on, but the stadium angles away from the field and it is hard to have much detailed awareness of what is going on in front of either goal.
Our vantage point on life is like a seat at a Lou City match. Our viewpoint is always limited as it always begins with us. We see where we are. Our vantage point for the way the world is playing out any particular day begins with where we are located. Sometimes we may be at the end - we see a portion of the world very clearly, but there is a lot going on farther away that we either can’t see clearly or perhaps have no awareness of at all. Sometimes we may be on the side - we have a general idea of what is going on, but we kind of lose the details.
And then there is this: A couple of weeks ago I attended the Presbyterian Youth Triennium at Purdue. On the campus of Purdue is the Elliot Hall of Music. Our worship most days was in Elliot and one day I entered the main hall a bit late looking for a seat. The room was mostly full so I thought I would need to go to the balcony. When I saw a seat. Wide open. Not far from the stage really. How could this be? I darted for it, certain that someone else would get there before me. I got to the seat, sat down, looked up and realized why this seat was available. Rather than looking at the stage where the worship leaders would be I was looking at a pole.
Some seats are literally behind a pole. A complication for us when it’s life we are talking about is that not only are we sometimes behind the pole, sometimes we are the pole.
Our three - yes three - scripture passages this morning give us three vantage points on the life of faith. One from within ourselves. One a map. And one the very good news from God’s vantage point.
Luke shares the story of a rich man with a problem. His land had produced abundantly. Yes. That was the problem. This is a classic “I’m behind the pole and the pole is me” vantage point. His land had produced abundantly. It is conceivable that one might perceive this as a good thing, but rather than experiencing it as a blessing, the rich man saw a problem. He’d need more space. The problem is not that the man has been blessed. The problem is that he never moves past thinking about the impact of the bumper crop on him personally. He’ll need to build new barns so he can keep his harvest in his barns and then he can party. No acknowledgement of the source of his blessings. No mention of how he might be able to use his resources to be a benefit to anyone beyond himself.
Jesus is pushing us not to see our blessings as our doings and reminding us that the world does not begin and end with us. The rich man’s vantage point is totally consumed with himself - it is dangerously limited.
Paul in the Colossians passage offers a way to lift ourselves out of life behind the pole. We broaden our view when we make our faith, rather than ourselves our vantage point.
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:2, CEB)
“Cloth yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” (Colossians 3:10, CEB)
In setting our minds on things that are above and in clothing ourselves with the new self, we challenge ourselves to be on the way to having our perspective transformed. To move ourselves from the center of the universe and to see ourselves as participants in the transformative work of God’s kingdom. Paul makes some very specific suggestions in this passage that are in many instances not easy tasks - we are to get rid of evil desires, greed, anger, malice, slander and abusive language - but if accomplished are practical goals that can get us closer to where God intends for us to be.
Between the rich man in Jesus’ parable and Paul’s blueprint. That’s where we live most of our lives. We know there is a larger view. God’s view. A world where we love God and where we love one another. And yet we get pulled to a much more limited vantage point at times.
We are blessed by God and our response is…to wonder if we have enough barns.
The problem is it can be hard to recognize when we are losing our way. There are fair reasons to wonder if you have enough barns. Planning is not a categorically bad thing. One might argue that it is even responsible. But there are indications of where things may be going off the tracks. That moment when planning and responsibility become hoarding and greed. That’s a moment to have an eye out for. The moment when our first, second and third thoughts are about ourselves. That moment when a blessing is being assessed as a problem. When there is no thought of God’s involvement in our windfall and no thought of what we might do with it other than take care of ourselves.
At our best, we will not always get it right. Which is why it is awesome that we had three passages this day. God know about us and our occasionally falling short of the mark. God knows that in spite of our desire to be faithful, sometimes we make decisions from behind our pole.
The prophet Hosea speaks to a people who have become self-obsessed. They are trending towards unfaithful with great momentum. The prophet speaks of the early days of the relationship between the people and God. When God called the people out of Egypt in a stunning act of liberating love. They have lost sight of God. But - behold - God has not lost sight of them.
My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:7-9, CEB)
God comes to us in love. God forgives us when we stray. God is the Holy One in our midst. If you feel strained in your relationship with God - if you feel like you’ve been sitting behind the pole, there is such good news here. God calls us to faithfulness. God provides us with descriptions - like Paul offers in Colossians of what that faithfulness will look like in our daily lives.
But God has also had experience with us in our moments of poor decision making. Then God calls us back to faithfulness. God moves us to a better vantage point. The whole purpose of that story Jesus told about the rich man is to respond to a question someone asked Jesus about a family dispute over money. In the story Jesus is all about vantage point changing.
God loves us and is tireless in calling us again. And again. And again. Calling us to move and to live forward in faith towards an ever expanding vision of life, not as we imagine it should be, but as God made us to experience and participate in it. Amen.
