Homily 618 – 21 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
November 17, 2024
Epistle:  (203) Galatians 2:16-20
Gospel:  (66) – Luke 12:16-21

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

We need to admit something to ourselves.  We love self-reliance.

The American Dream is built around self-reliance.  That someone with nothing can rise to a position of wealth and power using nothing but hard work and their own smarts.  We can look up on the internet the stories of those who started with zero capital and an idea and became wealthy.

This was not the origin of the dream, though.  If we go back to 17^th and 18^th century Great Britain, we find that one could in fact become wealthy, but only if the nobility allowed it.  It was that aspect of being “self-made” that became the American Dream.

In fact, where my family is from in Tennessee, there is a place called Rugby.  It was a place where the second or third sons of English nobility could come and be given a plot of land, and a start for themselves.

In English law at the time, only the eldest son inherited the title and estate.  The younger siblings and even older female siblings got nothing.  Even if the person who died wanted to bequeath his title to a different child, along with the estate and holdings, they were prohibited from doing so by law.

So in America, that wasn’t true.  It was less about being self-reliant than abandoning the class system they had left behind in England.  The only person with the right to participate in the governing system was to be a white landowner.  Over the course of the 1800s these requirements were generally removed, except of course women were not allowed to vote until the early 20^th century.

So you may reasonably ask, what the significance of all this is?

In our Gospel reading, a man has obtained a bountiful harvest.  In his day, everyone was basically in agriculture.  So much so that he finds his barns too small to hold the harvest.

Here is the unspoken part, and the relevance to the American dream.  Did this individual really provide a bountiful harvest for himself?  Some would say, “Of course!  He planted, and tended, and harvested!  He did all the work!”

Others, though, would rightly point out, where did the land come from?  Who provided the favorable weather conditions?  Who provided the labor?  Who provided the seed?  Where did the knowledge of how to grow, and plant, and tend, and harvest come from?

In other words, who provided the growth?

In today’s language and understanding, we can still ask those questions.  Today’s “self-made” people are the product of communities, and education, and benefit from protection from harm through the defenders who stand guard on our behalf, both in the Armed Forces and in Law Enforcement.

Not to mention – who gives life?  As far as I’m aware, no one has created life from nothingness.  No one has created anything from nothingness.

There is an old joke that pits a human against God, and the human says that they can do what God does, and God asks how.  They respond easy – first we take dirt … And God cuts them off.  Where did the dirt come from?

The point of all of this is that everything in this world, in all of creation, belongs to God.  It is God who created it, God who created us, and it is the epitome of arrogance to think we can do anything except rearrange what God provided.

We rely on each other as well, even in the times of Moses and King David.  There were people dedicated to offering worship to God, who had a more important job than a dedicated army even.  They were the Levites, who served in the Temple, who kept the connection between God and humanity, the children of Israel.

What this means for us, and what this means in the context of today’s reading, is that the things, the stuff, that we think belongs to us doesn’t really belong to us.  It belongs to God.

We have temporary custody of it, and are to use it as God directs – to take care of our needs, and the needs of those around us.  If this sounds the opposite of the American Dream, I would say it is opposite.  The character in the Gospel, who has wealth stored for many years, and expects to no longer work – that is the American Dream.

And Christ calls that person a fool.  I don’t think anyone would want Christ to call them a fool.

Blessed Theophylact in his commentary on this passage reminds us that the proper investment – the storehouses of God – are the stomachs of the poor.  In Matthew 25, we are told that one aspect of our judgement will be how we cared for others from our abundance.

When we combine this week and last week it becomes pretty obvious that we have what we have not so that we can take our ease and no longer work.  Rather, so that we can care for the one in need from our abundance.

I want to quickly add here that God doesn’t demand that we do this.  We have a choice.  We are told that God loves a cheerful giver.  We also understand that God will provide for our needs.

What this enables for us is that we can live and give abundantly, even frivolously.  Beloved believe me when I say you haven’t really experienced joy until you’ve met the needs of someone else who could see no path forward.

We can’t overstate the dangers of wealth.  Not that wealth is inherently bad – that isn’t what is being said here.  No, the dangers are the temptation to hold onto the wealth, tightly.  So tightly that we have no room left to receive God’s love.

That’s the risk.  The risk is that we will lean on ourselves and not depend on God.  That we will be stingy in our mandated support for the temple, and for the poor, and for all those needs that we can meet.

Detaching from wealth is one of the things we have to do.  We cannot serve both God and Mammon.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ.