"The Important Thing" - Sermon July 31st - 11th Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is the important thing.

            Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

            I spent part of the last two weeks watching sections of both the Republican and Democrat National Conventions. I heard speech after speech bragging about their candidate, while mocking and insulting the other. I was pleased that I heard some talk of God at them, but not really all that much. For the most part, it was all about them.

            Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

            Seems rather fitting doesn’t it. Every time I turn on any news, it seems like all the talk is about this being the most important election in US history, if not the most important thing ever! Each side is claiming that the other has the worst candidate ever. That’s rather vane isn’t it.

            The word that we get vanity from is Ebl. It means breath, sigh, fleeting wind. Things that don’t last, that float away, that have no real meaning or time frame. Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless. Fleeting, Fleeting, everything is fleeting.

            The message of Ecclesiastes is that. Everything is fleeting. Everything is in the long run meaningless.

            This isn’t to say that these things aren’t important. Voting in the election is indeed important, our country is a democracy and in order for it to work we need to be active in it. This election like all elections is very important. We impact the future of our country and world for the generations that come after us in each vote. Our work is important. In our work we create value for everyone else, we bring home the bacon, so we can eat good meals, so we can live in comfort.

            But, Ecclesiastes is saying that they are all not THE important thing, they will not last.

            Our Parable by Jesus in our Gospel hits this home. The rich man has so much excess that he needs to figure out what to do with it. So, he builds bigger and bigger storage bins for himself.  He keeps it all for himself, he doesn’t give a thought for others. It’s not even planning for the future, it’s all complete greed. He says to himself, in a rather self-conceited manner, “And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”

And God says to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ ²¹ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

All those speakers at the conventions, both of them, and also any other political group, are like this rich man, storing up treasures here. And we do it too. We spend our time like this rich man, seeking to be rich, so we can relax, eat, drink, and be merry. Why? Because we fear for the future.

"Theologian Walter Brueggeman says 'greed is born out of the idea of scarcity, and scarcity is born out of anxiety – and all three are acted upon in an abundant world. Abundance is denied, not trusted, forgotten in our culture.'"

We fear for the future, so we only see the areas of scarcity in our lives, and so we gravitate towards those things, see those things as the important things, and greed comes out.

What Ecclesiastes and Luke are telling us is not that the scarcity doesn’t matter, if we have true needs they do need to be addressed. They are saying that the anxiety doesn’t need to be. Fear is not the important thing. It is meaningless, vanity, fleeting. Fear, politics, work, money, they are not the important thing.

God is the important thing. God’s love for you, for all of us, is the important thing. God’s love for us in Christ coming to us, living with us, and going to the cross for us is the important thing.

There’s a reason that the phrase Do not fear is in the bible so often, it’s because God means it. God walks with us in the midst of our fear, in the midst of things we cannot contain, things we cannot control. That is the thing that matters.

This text is not a text about not having money, or even about making sure to not have savings. It’s a warning to not have money be the important thing. To warn against having wealth for oneself become the thing. If what becomes important is money, money becomes our God.

It’s a text that tells us that money doesn’t save us, we don’t take it with us, so use it for the people of God in this world who do fear and do find themselves confronted by anxiety.

Save some for your future, but also give to the world around you that God loves so much.

Give to the church here, which in turn will mean your money will do so much here in this community, but also it will reach around the state and the whole world. If you are curious about where the ELCA works across the world, talk to me after worship or stop in the office sometime. It is amazing where your gifts reach.

Give to your local community organizations, the food pantry, the weekend backpack program, the ministerial fund. Give to disaster response organizations that help respond to natural disasters.

This week ask yourself, are you putting your trust in money or in God? Are you putting your trust in something that is everlasting, the love of God? Or the fleeting, vanity of vanities? 

Let us pray,

God of everlasting love, be with us when the ways of the world call to us. Help us to overcome our idolatry of money and power. Help us to see the abundance we have, that we may share it with those in need. Help us to give of our wealth, instead of just hoarding it for ourselves. All of this we ask in the name of your Son, who came to us and saves us.

Amen.