Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the Gospel (Luke 12) lesson, especially this verse, "Someone in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.'" Thus far our text.
Dear friends in Christ, how many of you, can remember when you were a child saying something similar to this: "Mo-om…. he has all the Lego's and he won't share them with me." Does that sound familiar? What about this: "Dad-uh, his piece of pie is bigger than mine and that's not fair." For me, I can definitely remember times when my brothers and I said those words to my parents. And now I am sure that before too long, I will be on the parental end of conversations like this.
Its not fair, I want my share, give me what I deserve. These phrases are all ones that we hear often, and also things that we often think in our hearts, and the man in our text today is no different. The man in our text comes to Jesus asking for half of an earthly inheritance, but Jesus refuses to get involved in the matter. Why? Because
JESUS DID NOT COME TO GIVE HALF AN EARTHLY INHERITANCE, BUT A WHOLE AND COMPLETE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE.
In our text today a crowd is following Jesus and listening to his teachings. A man out of the crowd comes forth and asks Jesus to settle a dispute with his brother over who gets what out of the inheritance of their father. The man wants Jesus to step in and give the man what he feels he deserves here on earth.
Jesus responds to this man by telling the entire crowd a parable about a rich man, whom God blessed with a plentiful harvest. The man harvested so much that he didn't have enough room to store all that he had. Instead of rejoicing in God's gift, and using it for God's glory, the man devises a way to use this harvest to have a cushy life. He says, "I will build a bigger barn, and I will say to my Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink and be merry." But God says, "You fool, your soul is required of you this night, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"
The man in the parable has put his love for earthly things ahead of his love for God. He has taken the good gifts that God has given him, namely a good harvest, and turned that into his "god." He has broken the first commandment: You shall have no other Gods, what does this mean? That we should fear, love and trust in God above all things. This man instead trusts in himself and in his possessions. He wants a partial earthly inheritance. He wants what he can see now, rather than to wait and trust in something he can't see and for which he feels he has no guarantees.
What about you, dear friends? Do you have things you want? Do you desire an incomplete earthly inheritance? In our sinful nature the answer is a resounding yes. Each of us, if we examine our life sees something that we want or treasure here on earth that we put ahead of God and his gifts. It could be something we own. It could be something we do. It could be something we want to own someday. The list goes on and on.
Take me for example, my Dad owns my great grandfather's .270 caliber Winchester bolt action rifle, and has promised it to me one day as an inheritance. Every time I go to visit I go down and look at it with him, and I desire to have it and to shoot it. I want it to be mine. But Jesus says, "You Fool!! One's life does not consist of his possessions." But we try to make our lives consist of what we have or do. It is our sinful nature.
We covet all sorts of things. Our homes. Our cars and trucks. Our retirement funds and bank accounts. Even at times our life itself. Sin causes all of these things to enter into our hearts, and become our own personal idols. We watch TV and we see the newest gadget, and we have to have it. We see our neighbor's new car, and we want one that is fancier. We store up all sorts of things for ourselves that don't really matter. I remember in our neighborhood back in Fort Wayne seeing people's garages that were so full of things that they could hardly close the door and didn't even have room for their cars (the whole purpose of a garage!). As the text says we lay up earthly treasure for ourselves, and are not always rich toward God. We make what we own a god in the place of the true Lord and Savior of the world.
And if we are honest, it is not just things themselves that we treasure up. The thing that we most often covet is more serious. The thing that we most hold on to, and most desire in our heart, is sin itself. We want to hang on to our pet sins and keep them close in our care. After all they too are a part of our earthly inheritance. We still gossip and tell white lies. Hold on to those things because we feel it would be too hard to give it up. We know we can't turn away from these sins, and even if we could, we wouldn't want to. That is who we are, a covetous, sinful people.
Our Old Testament lesson for today comes from Ecclesiastes and it says, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. After all, these things that we treasure cannot last eternally. They cannot save us. One day, dear friends, we will all die. Our sin will catch up to us. Where will those idols be then? Not one of them can stop death. The things that we desire in our hearts are really nothing more than death. The things of this world that we covet and desire are nothing more than an incomplete earthly inheritance. In response to our desire our text says "You Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"
But there is one who did not covet earthly things. There is one who did not have false desires in His heart. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not covet any earthly possessions. He came and was born into a poor family. He lived a poor life desiring nothing for himself, but instead always gave. He gave sight to the blind. He gave food to the hungry. And it was not only these things that he gave, he gave himself in an even more literal sense. He gave his own body to be beaten and nailed on a cross in your place. He gave his own holy and precious blood to be poured out for your sin and to cover you. He gave up his life… that your own sinful life might be forgiven, that your sinful desires and covetousness might be destroyed. In Jesus' death and resurrection He gives you a whole and complete, eternal heavenly inheritance.
He has given this inheritance to you as you were brought to the baptismal waters, just as ___________________ was brought this morning (at St. John's) and was washed in the blood of the lamb, and made a member of Christ's heavenly kingdom. It is a gift of Christ that daily drowns you in the flood of baptismal waters, and kills your sin and then raises you to your eternal inheritance with Christ. As the epistle lesson says, "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." That is what happens to you in baptism. Sin is washed away in the blood of Christ giving you new life.
Christ is still giving to you. Here today, at this altar he is giving you His very living body and blood in with and under the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Here from this altar Christ gives you this heavenly gift that you might partake of it with your own lips. This gift is here to create and sustain faith in Him in your heart and He gives it to you.
Dear friends in Christ, if there is one thing that Jesus covets more than anything else, it is to have a relationship with you. Jesus treasures that so much that he has given up all earthly things to have and maintain that relationship with you. Yes, here on Earth you and I will sin, we will build idols in our hearts, we will turn from God and at times look to the things we desire in our heart. But in the end, Christ gives us a treasure in heaven more valuable and more wonderful than anything we can imagine. He gives us forgiveness that leads to eternal life.
The man in our parable wished to have an easy life where he could "be at ease, eat, drink and be merry." Here on earth, a life like that could never last, it is only a fleeting dream. But in heaven, Christ gives us an eternal life with God where we really will be at ease apart from our sin, where we will drink the very blood of Christ, and eat his body. He gives us a life where we will celebrate for all eternity the things that God has given to us. Our treasure is in heaven. In Christ it doesn't matter if our neighbor has more than we have here on Earth, because in Heaven, we have everything. We have the God's whole inheritance. Amen.
