Sermon by Tom Are Jr. | July 28, 2024 | Fourth Presbyterian Church

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
July 28, 2024

Home Alone

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Luke 12:13–21
Psalm 14

Well, this is awkward. It is called the parable of the rich fool. Our farmer has a big problem, but he finds a solution But when he does, God calls him a fool. When God calls you a fool, that a bad day.

It’s an uncomfortable text. First of all, Jesus is talking about money again. Everybody knows we aren’t supposed to talk about money in church. It’s not polite, but apparently Jesus lacks sophistication. He didn’t get that memo, because Jesus talks about money all the time. There’s the story of the rich young ruler. There’s the rich man and Lazarus. There’s Zacchaeus, rich guy who also loves to climb trees. Every Christmas Mary sings of filling the poor with good things and sending the rich away empty. Jesus says if we want to know what we really love, we should look at our bank statement. And my favorite: he tells us not to be anxious about money because lilies are beautiful. I hope that helps you.

It’s awkward.

Of course, when Jesus talks about the rich, I take comfort in the fact that he’s not talking about me. I’ve never considered myself rich. But if I compare myself to most of the people in the world — including those in Gaza or those fleeing Latin America or those who populate the African continent or people who get their food from our Chicago Lights Social Service Center, not to mention most everyone who was alive at the time Jesus first told this story, well, it’s possible he is talking about us.

Even a casual reading of the New Testament makes it clear that our financial situation is a spiritual matter, in part because what we have can shape how we are connected to others. And how we live with one another is at the core of Christian living. Stick with me.

Our farmer has a problem. His farm produces a bumper crop. That’s good, but his barns, which we can assume have been adequate heretofore, are not big enough. So, he replaces them with barns large enough to store all of his crops. At last, he can relax. He has secured his future. Eat, drink, and be merry. Admittedly, that it never crosses our farmer’s mind to share anything makes our farmer seems a bit greedy. So, we can’t be surprised that he is not lifted up as an example of Christian living. He dies — this very night — without having time to eat, drink, and be merry. That should be enough. But adding insult to injury, God calls him a fool. Like I said, it’s a bad day.

I admit having some sympathy for our farmer, because I’ve known what it is to be anxious about money. Maybe you have never been anxious about money, but most people have. It can happen when you have a child. They take that first breath, and when they do, they suck in whatever energy you thought you had and your net worth. It happens when we worry about paying for a kid’s college. Or we worry about running out of money before we run out of days. some worry about a car repair or have to choose between morning meds and evening dinner. This anxiety is common. To combat that anxiety, we build our barns.

We aren’t greedy, because once we have enough, then we can be generous. And that happens. Every day we witness expressions of tremendous generosity. But what also happens is we learn that “enough” becomes an elusive target. Am I making sense to you? Jesus can talk about the lilies of the field, but we are still anxious.

Our farmer appears to have cured his anxiety. He’s free. That’s what he says. He says, “All is well. I will relax.” Eat, drink, be merry. He appears free from all anxiety.

I’m using the word free intentionally.

This man reminds me of the British philosopher John Stuart Mill. Some say Mill was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). In 1859 Mill wrote a book, On Liberty, in which he clearly and passionately made the case for individual freedom.

Mill believed that people should be free to do whatever they want. No one should impose on another beliefs about how life should be lived. Mill argued that the only limitation to personal freedom should be when my life choices harm my neighbor. Even if my choices harm me, that’s the price we pay for liberty. Mill says, “Over [oneself], over [one’s] own body and mind, the individual is sovereign” (John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, chapter 1, quoted in Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? p. 49).

That seems experientially undeniable. That’s the way we experience freedom in our lives, isn’t it? When we are in control of our own lives, then we are free. Over my life I am sovereign. Or to put it more simply, I own myself.

I don’t know if John Stuart Mill had a teenager in his home when he penned On Liberty, but if so, it may explain the inspiration for his philosophy. You see, a given in parenting is that parents have an overwhelming desire to take care of our children. Sometimes children experience this loving desire to take care of them as … just a bit controlling. At least that’s what I have heard.

A parent is just trying to be loving and supportive and ensure that mistakes are avoided. So we make a few “suggestions” about what the child should do and maybe suggest when it ought to be done and probably how it ought to be done. And then as a good parent I, I mean whoever, suggest an appropriate time to report back on the completed task.

And the kid looks in disgust, and says, “It’s my life.”

Now the teenager may not be a student of John Stuart Mill, but that’s his philosophy in a nutshell.

Mill says for you and me to be free, then our choices must be unencumbered. Our choices being unencumbered addresses our basic anxiety. The state, the church, the community cannot limit my choices. I am sovereign over my own life.

Well, OK. But think about this. You can have your choices unencumbered, unless you are married, for example. You certainly can’t be a parent and have your choices unencumbered. You can’t be a friend and have no limit on your choices. What Mill describes as freedom is actually just isolation. He is not describing what it is to live my best life. He’s describing what it is to be alone.

Now, why have I dragged you into nineteenth-century philosophy on an otherwise perfectly good Sunday morning? Let me read this story to you again.

“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?’ ‘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.’

Do you hear it? More than greedy, this farmer is alone, home alone. He says “I” five times. “My” four times. Only once does he say “you,” but even then he is talking to himself. There is no one else in his world.

His isolation is further emphasized, because God calls him a fool. The term fool here is not intended as an insult. It is a theological assessment. If God had called him a stupid idiot, that’s an insult, but a fool is theological. Psalm 14 reads, “The fool says in his heart there is no God.”

To our Western, post-Enlightenment ear, “there is no God” sounds like atheism. God does not exist. But as Bible scholar Pat Miller notes, in the ancient world atheism was not an intellectual option. The ancients didn’t wonder about the existence of God. No, the question was how many gods are there and, more importantly, which ones are in my neighborhood? Miller says a better read of Psalm 14 is the fool says in his heart, there is no god around. There is no god here. I am alone.

This farmer chooses isolation from both neighbor and God. The Westminster Catechism asks, “What is life for?” The response is “Life is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.” Which is to say, the fool has no idea what life is for.

He has chosen to live a life unencumbered by God and neighbor, and he may think he is free, but he is actually foolish. And the tragedy is it could have so easily been different. All he had to do is invest in his community. Just be part of the community. I don’t know if he was greedy and therefore he became lonely or if his wealth just made it possible to isolate himself. But whatever the motivation, our farmer felt no obligation to his neighbor or to his God, and as a result, he has become, in the words of the text, rather foolish.

Jesus was clear that what matters in life is living for God and for neighbor. It’s that simple and it is that hard.

Mrs. McIntyre inherited a run-down farm somewhere in the rural South. She has a few African American workers. Mr. and Mrs. Shortley are a couple who manage the farm. At least this is the way Flannery O’Connor describes it in her short story entitled “The Displaced Person.” The displaced person is Mr. Guizac, a war refugee from Poland. (For those who choose to read this short story, I would suggest that the actual displaced person is Mrs. McIntyre.)

Mr. Guizac knows his way around a farm, can fix anything, grow anything, and he works like a machine. But he doesn’t know anything about American racism. He treats everyone the same. Even though Mr. Guizac is the best help she has ever had, Mrs. McIntyre determines she must get rid of him. She “has no other choice,” she says. “It is not my responsibility that Mr. Guizac has nowhere to go. … I don’t find myself responsible for all the extra people in the world” (Flannery O’Connor, “The Displaced Person” in Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories, p. 226). It’s a tragedy, she admits. But what can she do?

She was saying this to a priest, Father Flynn. Father Flynn says, “When God sent his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord … as a Redeemer to mankind, He …”

“Father Flynn! … As far as I’m concerned,” she said, “Christ was just another [displaced person]. I’m going to let that man go. … I don’t have any obligation to him” (O’Connor, p. 229).

The way O’Connor writes that line, when she says, “I’m going to let that man go, I have no obligation to him” you can’t tell if she means Guizac or Jesus, but the truth is it doesn’t matter: let go of either one, you let go of them both.

It seems to me these days obligation has become a bad word. We speak of freedom devoid of responsibility. We claim a purpose independent of relationship. And maybe that’s why Jesus talks about money so much, because the more we have, the easier it is to convince ourselves that is what life is for.

To live as if we hold no obligation to God and neighbor — well, that really is rather foolish.

But you already know that. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be at this church, would you?