SERMON
Opening Worship, 2008 Rural Ministry
Conference
Text: Luke 12:13-21 (from ELW,
Stewardship of Creation)
One of the most enduring strains of
American culture in the
The inspiration reaches not only the
esthetic sensibility of Americans, but the moral sensibility as well. With Katherine Bates, many Americans express
a sense of awe with regard to the majestic beauty of the land; but many have
also expressed a sense of moral vocation arising from the land. What I mean here is not simply a sense of
obligation on behalf of the land, but
a sense of obligation because of the
land. Confronted by the grandeur and
enormity of this land, many Americans have perceived a sacred opportunity for
human reformation and redemption. So
compelling is the grandeur of this land that it calls forth similar grandeur on
the part of those who embrace it.
The idea here is, in part, that the
land will test and prove the character of those who make their lives and their
livelihoods upon it. Pioneer settlers
and farmers, for example, knew that the grandeur of the land would require a
similar grandeur on the part of those who would make it their home. Even contemporary settlers and farmers, more
distant in time from their pioneer forebears, know that the land will test and
prove the character of those who live upon it.
Yet many Americans have also perceived that the land itself offers what
it requires. They have believed that the
land itself will make the man and make the woman who dares to embrace it. To venture upon the land, therefore, means to
venture a transformation that will create a new person, a new human being.
One of the greatest prophets of this
particular strain of American culture was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here is some of what he had to say before an
audience in
. . . every
American should be educated with a view to the values of land. . . . The land
is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our
culture. The continent we inhabit is to
be physic and food for our mind, as well as our body. The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative
influences, is to repair the errors of a . . . traditional education, and bring
us into just relations with men and things.
. . . I think we must regard the land
as a commanding and increasing power on the citizen, the sanative and
Americanizing influence, which promises to disclose new virtues for ages to
come. (Emerson: Essays and
Lectures; ed. Joel Porte, Library of America, 1983, pp. 214, 216f.; some
lines quoted also in Garry Wills, Head and Heart: American Christianities,
2007, p. 277.)
Emerson believed, as have many other
Americans before and since, that the land offered a new beginning to those who
would venture their lives upon it, and that those who did so would likewise be
made new. The land would offer both the
means and the media, the theater and the arena of human transformation—indeed,
of human redemption. By embracing the
compelling grandeur of the land, human beings would replace vanity with
nobility, falsehood with fortitude, perversity with perseverance. The greatness of the land would make great
the human beings who ventured their lives upon it.
A
very different lesson is put before us in Jesus’ parable of the rich man. This particular passage from the twelfth
chapter of Luke is appointed for the stewardship of creation in the propers of Evangelical
Lutheran Worship—as are other parts of our worship this afternoon. In Jesus’ parable, the land does not effect any redemptive transformation of the rich man who
lives upon it; the abundance of the land does not evoke grandeur or greatness
from the man; the land does not reform his character or make him a new person. Instead, all of the deformities and
deficiencies of the rich man’s character are imposed upon the land in order to
exploit it. No matter how big and
bursting his barns become, his soul remains just as small and shriveled as it
ever was—perhaps, all the smaller as his barns get bigger. The man is a fool, and the land does not cure
his folly.
Those who hear the parables of Jesus
as the Word of God will know that the land itself does not accomplish the
reformation of human beings. For despite
the awesome grandeur of the land, despite its wondrous bounty and fertility,
the sin that dwells within the human character retains a certain bounty and
fertility of its own; because of that, the land discloses not only human
virtues, as Emerson hoped, but human vices as well. And rather than curing human folly, the land
often suffers from it.
At the end of his parable, Jesus
speaks of those who “are not rich towards God.”
The land might make us rich, but it cannot make us rich towards
God. That requires a different sort of
grandeur, a different sort of bounty and fertility. The sacred opportunity of our reformation and
redemption lies in the bounty and fertility of God’s love. The wondrous surprise of the gospel is that
we are called to be rich towards the God who is already and always rich towards
us.
And here the words of the rich man in
Jesus’ parable become oddly instructive to us: the man said to himself, “relax,
eat, drink, be merry.”
The reason he was a fool not because he wanted to live that way, but
because he believed his big bursting barns could make it possible. He never realized that he could relax because
his life belonged to the God who bids us to find our rest and be at peace in
God’s eternal love; he never realized that he could eat and drink because his
life belonged to the God whose body and blood are given and shed as our food
and drink; he never realized that he could be merry because his life belonged
to the God who bids us to rejoice and be of good cheer. It turns out that being rich towards God
means basking and feasting and rejoicing in God’s richness towards
us—abundantly and bountifully, every day!
That is the sacred opportunity of our redemption. That is the cure of our folly. And that is our moral vocation with regard to
the land. Amen