The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Luke, the twelfth chapter:
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear 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, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
A name is a marvelous thing. It conveys so much information, so much meaning. I was named for both of my grandfathers with my first and middle names, and, of course, my father with my last name. I named my children after both saints of the Word, Elias for Elijah (it’s just the Anglicized spelling of the same name), and Ava for Eve, coming from the Hebrew spelling. They also carry family names. Eli has Robert, which is both in my family and Liz’s. Ava has Su for my mother. They both carry my last name. A name is wonderful thing. It tells you who you are and where you come from.
But, the lack of a name conveys something, too. Now, we don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a name. That would be unthinkable. To find someone with no name would be a remarkable thing. No parent doesn’t give their child a name. They immediately want to name them. And if they don’t, they would name themselves. In the movie, Big Daddy, Adam Sandler’s character finds boy on his doorstep. The name the boy’s mother gave him no longer really suffices for the boy as it brings him pain after his mother’s death. Instead, he asks to be called Frankenstein. It’s not ideal, but it tells exactly what the boy thinks of himself, a monster of multiple backgrounds.
We want a name, we want people to remember us, to know who we are. You’ll notice in today’s text that the man who approaches Jesus has no name. We’re given to know lots of names in the Scripture, Abraham, David, John, Peter, Paul. We’re given good names, and even names of evil men, Cain, Saul, Judas. These names tell us who these people are and they remind us of what they’ve done. But, sometimes, no name is given because the deeds they do aren’t worth remembering.
This man who comes to Jesus is a coveter. He desires the inheritance of his father, over and against his own brother. He wants more than he was supposed to be given. He was supposed to get one third of the estate, according to the law, but it sounds like he wants more, even half of everything. Certainly, if anyone could get that for him, it would be the great teacher, Jesus. But Jesus rejects that. He has not come to this earth to be a judge between men, but to be the judge over men.
Jesus rejects the man-desired role that this anonymous man wants to give Him, and takes instead the God-given vocation as judge and tells a parable. Here we meet another anonymous man. He has no name, he has no history. He’s just rich. I wonder if the anonymity was on purpose, that Jesus knew the words Luke would write down and to have us equate these two men, give neither a name. That might be too much, as we do often see anonymous people throughout the Scriptures, but I think that’s there. The rich man’s land produced very well. He obviously took care of it. He planted, fertilized, watered, weeded. The man hadn’t harvested anything, though. Not yet. The time wasn’t there. He just knew it was coming. And he thought to himself that when the harvest did come, he wouldn’t even have enough room for it all, which would produce so much waste. What was he to do?
Well, it seems he was going to sacrifice that crop which he had already in stores, by tearing those stores down and building even bigger ones in their stead. Whether he was going to let his current inventory rot or sell it to someone immediately, usually below asking price to move the product quickly, we don’t know. Either way, he was getting rid of what he already had to get something better. He coveted that which was to come, even though it wasn’t even a reality yet.
I suppose there’s not much wrong with making plans for the future, and that’s not really the issue. The issue is this: instead of giving thanks to God for this wonderful abundance, the man thought it was all from himself. He gives himself praise for all the goods he has. He’s smart enough. He’s hard-working enough. He’s got the goods. But the man didn’t realize that his plans would all come to naught, and the next day he would lose absolutely everything because you can’t take it with you.
Finally, though, the man is named. God calls him “Fool.” To be a fool is to be unwise. To be unwise in the Scripture is to be separated from the mercy and grace of God. To be unwise is to be without Christ. By God naming this man Fool, He places on him a mark of judgment and condemnation. It had nothing to do with his richness, his work ethic, his plans. It had to do with him forsaking God in order to worship himself.
Maybe if Jesus were telling this parable today it would have involved a man who got plastic surgery. The man had a beautiful wife, with whom he had built many years together in marriage. But, he wanted to look better. So, he spent his entire fortune on plastic surgery. When he recovered, he looked in the mirror and thought to himself, “I am quite handsome now. After many years, my wife has too many wrinkles and sags in too many places. I will divorce my wife and find someone more beautiful, someone more suited to be the wife of this handsome man I see.” So, having nothing in his bank account, he filed suit the next morning. And as his wife begrudgingly signed the papers, and as the judge declared them divorced, the handsome man breathed his last, having destroyed everything around him that was beautiful, his wife, his family, his marriage.
That unnamed man isn’t worth remembering. He ruined the lives of all the people around him. So, too, for the Fool in the parable. He destroyed everything for the ones who would inherit his land, and all out of his own self-delusion. It wasn’t even greed that was this man’s downfall; it was idolatry. He thought he was God, that the earth obeyed his instruction. He took all of the wonderful things that God had given him on this earth, and turned them into weapons against the Creator and what He had given to this man.
When Jesus refers to the treasures of heaven, or being rich toward God, have you ever wondered what that meant? Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, Jesus says elsewhere. What are those treasures? Have you ever thought of that? Is it nice thoughts? Is it good memories? Lots of prayers? Not really. The treasures we lay up in heaven is being rich toward God, and all that means is to recognize from where your treasures came. You can have a lot of stuff. You can be very rich. That’s okay. It’s not a sin. It’s a temptation toward sin, certainly, but it’s not sin. If you’re very rich, if you recognize that this is God’s and He’s the one who’s given it to you and He’s the one who can take it from you and you give thanks for all of it to Him and you use it appropriately, for His kingdom, for His people, that’s all well and good. But, if you become like the Fool, you’ll forget God and begin to think you are God.
But most of us are not rich. Yet, we still lay up treasures for ourselves, don’t we? We become foolish when we think what God has given us to steward is really ours. We become foolish when we don’t give to the Church out of our joy. We become foolish when we don’t help someone in need when we can. We become foolish when we covet the newest technology that comes out. We become foolish when we want the new car, the nicer home, the better roads, the working cable box and we place those desires over our ability to actually function in this world. Phones, cars, homes, roads, even cable are all wonderful gifts that God may have given you in this world. That’s a treasure of heaven. Not that you take it with you when you die, but to give thanks to God for His generosity in allowing you to have these possessions becomes for you a treasure, for you see how God has worked in the world for your benefit and, yes, perhaps even a modicum of joy.
God loves to give you good things. He’s given you food and shelter, house and home, land and animals. He’s given you good friends and good family. He’s given you a beautiful church building in which to worship Him. We may be rich or we may be poor, but I’m sure we can all think of things that God has given to us that we treasure. And you should treasure it. When my son gave me a little heart painting made out of his fingerprints for Fathers’ Day, it became to me a dear treasure. He gave me a gift. And when your Father in heaven gives you material things, you should treasure them as well because it comes from Him. He delights to give you these things, so you should treasure them. But don’t think that they are God Himself or that you somehow, by your will and work, made them. They are all a gift of God to you.
The best thing that the Father gave you, however, is not a material blessing, as we would think of it, but a blessing that we often forget and often fail to treasure. And that’s our name. The Fool has no name. The man seeking his inheritance has no name. But you’ve been given a name to treasure and to hold onto and to cherish. And it’s not the name that your parents gave you. It’s the name placed on you in your Baptism; it’s the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That is your name. Now, instead of Lewis Robert Polzin, I am Lewis Robert Polzin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That’s long and it doesn’t fit on my business cards, but it’s still my name, and it’s something I have to work to cherish and treasure.
It’s your name, too. It’s the very name revealed by the Son of God who came to this earth to live for you, die for you, rise for you, ascend for you, and the name which promises you eternal life. And it’s yours. It’s your name now. Before your Baptism, before you were brought to faith, you had no name, or your name was Fool. You were purely a sinner, with no hope, no identity, no chance to be remembered. But now you have a name. God gave you a name in your Baptism.
And that we treasure most of all. That we grasp on to most of all. That we remember most of all. It’s why we begin each service in that name. It’s why your sins are forgiven in that name. It’s why we are blessed and find peace in that name. Because it’s your name. It’s your name. It’s how you are rich toward God, remembering His mercies, which are new every morning. It’s how you are rich toward God, realizing His grace, which comes unbidden to you. It’s how you’re rich toward God, in His name, the name He gave you, that you are remembered in the Church, remembered in the world. It’s how you know who you are, where you’ve come from, even where you’re going. By remembering your name, His name, you remember you are a Baptized child of God and He loves you. He gives you all good things because you have a name, His name, on you even through all eternity. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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