Preached at Christ Church, Worton
Colossians 3. 1-11; Luke 12. 13-21
“…seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”
A couple of weeks ago, our former MP, Danny Kruger, who now has a different constituency due to boundary changes, gave a speech to a nearly empty House of Commons that got bits of the Internet cheering, got a well-considered but critical response in the Church Times from Lord Harries, the retired Bishop of Oxford, but raised as little interest in the mainstream press as it did with his colleagues in parliament.
Franz Francken II, Death and the Rich Man (ca. 1610), hangs in the Galerie Lowet de Wotrenge, Antwerp.
I don’t always agree with Danny, and I disagreed with quite a bit of what he said in this speech. Just for starters, he takes a much rosier view than I do of the religious history of these islands – and the contribution of the Church of England to it. But his central point was very well made: that all of the blessings of democracy, tolerance, and freedom of thought and expression that we too often take for granted were built, painstakingly over many generations, on the foundations of Christianity. Those blessings were won in a society where Christianity was taken for granted as the shared moral and philosophical framework of almost everyone, even if they would never used fancy words like ‘philosophical’. Christianity was a shared way of looking at the world.
We moved away from that over the last two generations. We thought we could create a new shared way of looking at the world, one that was entirely neutral between faiths and was based only on rational principles and values that people of good will of all faiths and none could share. We hoped that as well as better fitting an increasingly post-Christian and religiously diverse country, it might also give us a means to manage a shrinking world of global problems across boundaries of culture, faith, and political system. The mainstream Churches mostly embraced this new idea of a religionless value system enthusiastically, and Lord Harries’ article in the Church Times was essentially about defending it.
But every society has a religion. Many of those religions have faith in God, but others are entirely materialistic. Our new value system is such a godless religion. Likewise, the Soviets with their godless religion of Communism also though they were creating a society based only on rational principles and values that all people of good will found could share. They thought that once they got superstitions like Christianity out of the way, along with getting rid of an economy based on the profit motive, people would improve morally. That was, of course, a matter of faith, faith in the teachings of Marx and Lenin. We can forget how for a time it seemed to be successful. In the long run, however, getting rid of God drove some people in the Soviet world to strange superstitions about everything from UFOs to forest spirits, and others to a bleak and cynical materialism. When the great storm came for the Communist economic system at the end of the 1980s, it turned out that their societies had been built on foundations of sand.
Danny Kruger also warned that a storm was coming for us, and particularly warned that we face a great choice about our relationship with the increasingly powerful machines we are making – for all I disagree with Danny about many things, but I agree with absolutely him on this.
One thing his speech missed, I think inevitably for an MP’s speech in parliament, was any sense of looking towards the life to come. It is entirely focused on earthly things, on the benefits a Christian foundation can bring to society.
But our Gospel this morning is telling us something different. Let’s explore it a bit.
Someone in a crowd listening to Jesus teach demands He tell his brother to divide the family inheritance with him. These days, few things can cause bitterness and division within families than disputes about an inheritance, and I doubt it was different in Jesus’ time.
Now, maybe this guy has a good point – perhaps his brother has behaved unfairly. But Jesus replies by asking “who asked me to be judge or arbiter over you”. Now, there is quite a bit of irony here, because Jesus is, of course judge of the world, and He will hand his judgement down on it on the Cross. So that’s something to keep in mind.
But He then tells a parable about a rich landowner man who is doing so well that he plans, in a rather idle way, to build bigger barns so he can be materially secure and then – here’s another detail that’s easy to miss – he tells himself than when he does that he can say to his soul, “relax, chill out, enjoy yourself”. But he is already a rich man, and already has material security; what he has neglected are the things that truly matter – his relationship with God, and the health of His soul.
Christ uses a fascinating phrase here – that instead of storing treasurers for ourselves, we should be “rich towards God”. Part of your job as a Christian is to be rich towards God.
Part of that, of course, is about how you treat the earthly possessions which God has blessed you with. We should never forget that our earthly blessings do come from God. Are you grateful to God for the ways in which he has blessed you? That has implications for how we live our lives, for if we understand that our blessings are gifts of God, then we should be generous in sharing them with others. Not all of us have been blessed materially, but have been blessed in other ways, and we should share those gifts with others too, for they also come from God. But being “rich towards God” is about a more profound sense of giving to God some quality time, and the depths of our souls, and true love. It’s about more than just practical acts of service, but a rich relationship of our souls with God.
Our epistle reading this week is, once again, from St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Colossae about twenty years after the death and resurrection of Christ. The Colossians had become Christians from Gentile, pagan, backgrounds. Paul is pleased with some of the progress they have made, turning away from evil deeds to living more godly lives, but he is concerned that they seem to have become captivated by some sort of thin spiritual fad. So here he is reminding them of what lies at the centre of the faith they have embraced—and that is heaven. Christ is seated at the right hand of God in heaven, so that is where they should direct their hearts.
Far from being like the rich farmer of the parable, and being spiritually passive, however, Paul says the security of their reward in Christ means they should put aside the negative aspects of their earthly life, the anger, gossip, and lying they still slip into. They should also set aside earthly divisions, of ethnicity, of different factions within the Church, even the division between slave and free, for all of them are now one in Christ. And it is with Christ who is seated above with the Father that they, in the end, will be revealed in glory.
Christ’s parables are often full of paradox, of ideas held in tension, So let me suggest it is only once we Christians turn our hearts and minds and souls towards heaven once again, and sit much more lightly to earthly things, that we might find that God uses us to create a new foundation for our society—never forgetting that our society has been judged on the Cross, like any other that has existed or ever will exists. Set your minds on things that are above, and be rich toward God, and He will lead you to where he needs you to go on this Earth.
And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and power, as is most justly His due, now and forevermore. Amen.
