11th Sunday After Pentecost (C) – Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21
It’s Vacation Bible School time again. Last week, I had the joy of being a part of the program at Christ Lutheran, and next week, I get to do it all over again at Immanuel. Thinking back on it, VBS is probably the one ministry of the church that I’ve been involved with the longest. One of the activities that the curriculum we used this year features is a daily cartoon starring Chadder the Chipmunk, and so I got to send my brother a note this week letting him know that I was thinking of him, since, a decade and a half ago, in my home church in Pennsylvania, it was his job to run Chadder the Chipmunk’s Theater every summer. In fact, next weekend, I’m flying to Illinois to do his wedding, and I’ve threatened to bring along our Chadder the Chipmunk puppet to do the sermon.
I have to be honest with you, though. Despite giving my time and talent to Vacation Bible School for such a long time, I hate it. I mean really, thoroughly hate it. I spent some time this week wondering why I hate it so much. I think it’s because it seems to be that one thing we do where the work is so big and the results are so small. Seriously: I can remember last year’s VBS program [at Immanuel]. It had a National Park theme to it. I ran the games, and it was lots of fun. It was really beautifully done. And I have absolutely no idea what it had to do with God, or the Bible, or faith. And if I, as a teacher, don’t know, you can guess what kind of long-lasting impression it made on the kids.
No, I’ll show up next week, and I’ll plaster on a happy face, and we’ll sing songs and be silly together and have a great time, and I’ll be so very, very glad when it’s over. It’s a good thing that I don’t get to make all the decisions around here, or we wouldn’t have Vacation Bible School at all.
But it’s true. I may be the pastor of this church, but I don’t get to make all the decisions. It’s not my church. Of course, the Church really belongs to God, but as far as humans are concerned, it’s all of us together. This is our church. We all shape it and share in it as a community. And thank God for that, because it takes a whole community to make the church work. It’s like… like building a barn.
Have you ever seen a old-fashioned barn raising? I’ve certainly never been part of one, but growing up in Amish country in Pennsylvania, I’ve seen them happen from a distance. More than that, though, I’ve seen the horse and buggies and the bicycles streaming away from them in the evening when the work is finished. The kind of community that gathers for the work of building a barn is enormous, and takes many hands. It’s more than a big job; it becomes an event, something that brings people together and builds friendships.
And it’s that sense of community that is totally missing from the story Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson. The rich man wonders how best to respond to his prosperity. He says, “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 I will store my grain there.” It even becomes comedic, when the man begins to think about what it will be like to live with such prosperity. “So I says to myself, Self: Eat, drink, and be merry!” He doesn’t turn to a friend or family member to celebrate his riches. He has only himself.
It seems these days we are becoming more and more like this every day. When is the last time you went to your neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar? Do you even know your neighbors anymore? I’ve been living in the Christ Lutheran parsonage for six months now, and I’ve yet to meet a single one of the people living in my neighborhood. Instead, so much of my interaction comes through the computer, though friendships I maintain with people far away. And that’s not a real relationship.
For the perfect extreme example of that, [as I said] I’m headed next weekend to Illinois, where I’m going to preside over my brother’s wedding. I’ve been working together with his fiancé to plan the ceremony. We haven’t talked at all, even though she has my phone number. Instead, all of the planning has taken place via emails that we’ve sent to each other on Facebook. Imagine that! Planning a wedding on Facebook! In a few more years worth of technological advancement, maybe we’ll be able to do the actual wedding on Facebook…
In so many ways, people live their lives more and more alone, increasingly disconnected from other people. And I think this is a symptom of our current society and way of life. We’re so focused on stuff—acquiring stuff, gathering property; we think things will make us happy. That’s the message that we get from advertisements, from stores, from the whole world we live in. It is the abundance of possessions that drives our world today.
And Jesus warns us against that. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Jesus is pointing us toward what is really important in our lives. It’s not the possessions; it’s the people. It’s the relationships we have with one another that matter.
And Jesus does better than that. He doesn’t just point us toward those relationships. He is the one who formulates and deepens those relationships. The author of Colossians describes it beautifully. He says that your life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ is your life. Your very life is rooted in your relationship with Jesus Christ. It is him that makes you alive, that renews you, that transforms you and gives you meaning and makes life worth living. Our relationship with Jesus Christ is the very meaning of our lives.
And through him, we have meaning in the relationships we have with one another. The truth of this has bowled me over this week, as I’ve visited with the loved ones of Dave Bennett and Edith Pierson. For both of them, the first words out of their mouths expressed appreciation for the wonderful relationships they have have had with people here at Immanuel. For both Dave and Edith, the many visits that people in this congregation shared with them before their deaths made their lives meaningful, more than you can begin to imagine. In their lives they were not alone, and because of that, in their dying they were also not alone.
Because that is the real mystery of our faith in Jesus Christ. In the reality of Christ who is risen and coming again, we too have risen to a new life, a life where God’s love is the foundation of who we all are, and we are permanently connected to that love, related to God, unable to be broken. Our relationship to God and to one another is firm, and nothing can get in its way. We are loved! We are loved! We are loved!
Which is why we do Vacation Bible School, and why I really do love to do it. We work hard, and we put on a wonderful program, and the kids leave and don’t remember a thing about how God Helps Us Stand Strong(TM), or whatever the year’s message is. But I think they do learn very clearly that church is a safe place for them to go, a place where they can have fun, and where they can build relationships with real people who love them and WILL love them no matter what. A place where our children can be renewed. And in that renewal, the author of Colossians tells us, we are unbreakably connected. “There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”
May Christ be your all, and bring meaning to all your days. Amen.