First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs,WY 8/01/10

Soul Investment
By Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 8/01/10
Based on Psalm 107:1-9, 43 & Luke 12:13-21


In the summer of 1975, I was still attending Undergraduate classes, married with our first child who was born that May. Toward the end of that summer my wife and I and our three month old daughter, along with another couple who had a nine month old son decided to drive my in-laws camper up to Grand Lake, CO and spend a week there. We also had arranged to visit our Adult Sunday School teacher who was also in Grand Lake vacationing that summer.
While we were there, we had the opportunity to attend a local production of the musical Cabaret. I was quite excited for I had been listening for several years to the theme song and thought it a marvelous tune. Of course musicals have many songs; after all, that is what makes a play a musical. Another song that I heard that evening was called. “Money Song (Sitting Pretty)”, the chorus lyrics are these:
Money makes the world go around. The world go around, the world go around. Money makes the world go around; it makes the world go 'round.
A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound. A buck or a pound, A buck or a pound
Is all that makes the world go around, That clinking clanking sound, Can make the world go 'round.
And over all this song is correct, Money does seem to make the world go round. Without money you are not able to purchase those items that are needed to survive on a daily basis, such as food and shelter. I am assuming that almost every person in this sanctuary has at one time or another had to work in order to get money. How many of you younger folks get a weekly or monthly allowance? How many of you are required to keep your bedroom clean or do some chore around the house in order to receive that allowance?
Now my parents were so poor that I got to do chores around the house for free! So in order for me as a child to have any money in my pocket or save in my piggy bank, I had to go out and work. One of my very first business ventures as a child, was to go along side the dirt roads and look for empty pop bottles, which at that time could be redeemed at a grocery store for three cents on a small bottle and for a nickel on the larger bottles. Then around third grade I started selling “Occasional Cards” door to door. That was big money, as I recall, I was able to earn about a third of what I sold a box for, So, for a three dollar box of cards, I was able to earn about a dollar. If I had stayed with collecting pop bottles, that means I would have had to find twenty empty bottles to make the same amount of money as selling one box of cards. That was a pretty sweet deal, I thought. But you know, as I grew older, my need for more dollars increased, so I would have to find better ways of making larger amounts of money, so that I could buy all the things that I needed.
When I was first married and was buying my first home, I was making about six hundred dollars per month and I was able to put a fair amount of that into a savings account. But again, as I grew older my need for more money increased and a funny thing happened along the way. The things that I needed to buy seemed to become more expensive as well, so I guess that meant that other people felt that they also needed more money. So things have become more costly and I find that the amount of money that I need today is greater than the amount I needed to live on, say, forty years ago.
This I am pretty sure is a pretty typical story for everybody who is here this morning. Which leads me to this next thought, “Have you ever fantasized about receiving a windfall of money, and how it would make you feel relieved and secure at last?” I know I have, each time I bought a lotto ticket. “Do you think you would be free from worries?” Isn’t that what happened to the rich farmer in today’s parable? True, he started out with advantages in his society, where a tiny percentage of folks actually owned land. On top of that, his harvest that year was staggering and he had to tear down his barns and build new ones to hold it? It’s always interesting to think about what might be in the minds of those listening to Jesus’ story might make them remember the story of Joseph in Genesis, who built new barns to hold the abundant harvests during the “fat” years in Egypt so that the people (including his own family, who had tried to kill him) would have enough to eat during the “lean” years. (We call that putting away something for a rainy day type of fund.) But Joseph wasn’t plotting for his own profit and he wasn’t motivated by greed. The rich fool, alas, thought only of himself. He said to himself, “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.” He seems to be completely turned in on himself.
The rich fool doesn’t seem like an evil man who has cheated and stolen his wealth; like all of us, he’s benefited from good luck, from the rain that “falls on good and evil alike.” The trap he falls into is in his next steps: when he has a windfall, he doesn’t run into the village celebrating and announcing his plan to share his good fortune with the community, let alone get their help with deciding how to deal with this excellent problem. He turns inward and stays there, figuring that he can be self-sufficient and secure solely because of his wealth. Eleven times he uses the first person (“I” and “my”) and never “our” or Their.”
It’s tempting to think that Jesus is just down on material things and wealth. But it’s much deeper than that: he knows the seductive power of possessions, and he wants to clear the way for us to receive much greater blessings and joy. The man’s anxiety about the inadequacy of is barns mirrors in some ways our own preoccupation with handling our possessions, protecting them with security systems, investing them safely, worrying about them. It’s not that such things are irresponsible or wrong, but they do distract us from what is really important. As beloved children of God, we have a Parent who wants to give us good tings, if we can just make room in our lives for them! UCC study help.
A person example comes by way of where my mind was in my teens and twenties. As I mentioned earlier, I grew up rather poor, actually the phrase, very poor would be more accurate. As a child, I remember that had my father not gone out and shot rabbit throughout the winter, we would not have had any meet to eat. My mother could write a cookbook on a 1001 ways to prepare rabbit. I had decided in my early years in high school that I was never going to be that poor myself and everything that I did reflected on that promise to myself. So much so that by the time I was twenty-seven, I had a portfolio, of savings, land investments and home at almost a quarter of a million dollars. I was on the fast track to becoming financially independent. Money was all I ever thought about, truly, until the Holy Spirit started weaseling her way into my heart and I began to recognize my call into ministry. My biggest obstacle that I needed to over come so that I could move forward in that call was my obsession with money. I was very much like the rich young fool. I was putting my faith into the security of something that is not secure at all. It is alluring that is a fact, it has the potential of becoming “master” over people, but it is forever eroding away in its value and it can never provide the “peace”, the “security” that Christ tells us we will find in His word.
Ultimately, the parable tells us, that the rich young fool, died, and never was able to enjoy his wealth. I think what Jesus is trying to tell us, is when we do not allow God to be the master of our hearts, then we will be cheating ourselves, a short changing of the real gifts that God truly has waiting for us. You might think that this parable is being directed at us as individuals, and it is in part, but I believe that this is a parable that is pointing its finger at the organization that we call First Congregational United Church of Christ, of Rock Springs, WY.
I am wondering if as a collective group if we are in fact becoming the “rich young fool?” What I mean by this, is if you look at where we are putting our finances, I have to ask myself, “Are we being good stewards of what we possess?” Some of you may be thinking about this past years annual meeting when we voted in a deficit budget and in the back of your minds, thinking, that isn’t being very good stewards of our money. In one respect, I could agree, except then I look at the balance sheet of the money that we have stashed in a variety of bank accounts and investments, the barns that we are keeping our abundance in. Are we being the rich young fool?
I know for a fact that one of the building blocks that we need to have in place in order to grow and to blossom is in providing adequate church school for our children and not having not their parents doing the primary teaching, but allowing these young parents the opportunity to be in Worship, where they are able to have some quiet time to rejuvenate their souls and allow their spirits to be nurtured. Yet in our church budget, we are providing practically nothing to allow this to happen and then we ask ourselves why aren’t we attracting young families?
I understand the necessity of having savings for a rainy day. I understand the general need of most people who grew up in the depression, to hold onto a larger savings, mostly because they still remember what it was like to not have anything. Of not having a sense of security that money, falsely gives us. Even though I’m a baby boom, who by definition had everything handed to them on a silver platter and really don’t know what it is like to go hungry or not have enough money to buy a pair of shoes for school or to wear hand-me-downs, I do know, because my life mirrors more closely to those who were growing up in the depression than my peers.
We as a church have around two hundred thousand dollars that is sitting in bank accounts and investments. Why are we not taking advantage of the abundance that God has given us and using this money to build for the future? Why are we not hiring a person to direct the educational program that is needed to bring in families that would truly benefit by our investing in them? I am afraid that as a congregation that is growing older, we are looking too much to these funds as security and not allowing room for God to give us a true sense of security, because we are finding a false sense of security in our barns being full.
Before I could accept a call into ministry; before I could trust that God had something more, something better waiting for me, I had to struggle with my insecurity of “not having enough”, of looking to money as the one “sure” thing that would bring security to my soul. It wasn’t until I was able to let go of the need to amass wealth that I was able to let God enrich my life in ways that I could never express to you.
Do you know how many churches die because they didn’t grow and they watched, one by one all their members die, and had a net worth of a million dollars or more? Just ask any Conference Minister they will tell you story after story of churches they pleaded with, to go into debt and give that ministry a real try, only to watch the members cling to those assets because they didn’t have enough faith that God would bless them.
We are setting in a unique position brothers and sisters of reviving this ministry to unbelievable heights, but we can only do that if we trust that God will take care of us and not be mislead into believing that our security hinges on a large bank balance. That is what the rich young fool did. He died with his barns full. It didn’t help him, nor did it help his community. You hired me to help you move forward during this time of transition. I am presenting to you a very valuable truth on being faithful stewards of not only your finances but of your faith. I am assuming that I have stepped on some toes this morning, if I haven’t then either you have tuned me out or have come to the same conclusions of what I am saying. The parable is telling us what we need to be doing, my question is, are we going to trust in what Jesus tells us about God’s abundant blessings. Hear what the psalmist says, “For god satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry God fills with good things. Let those who are wise give heed to these things, and consider the steadfast love of God.” Amen