A life without soul is no life at all. That’s what Jesus seems to be saying in our reading from Luke this morning about the rich landowner whose crops produce an abundance even beyond his imagining. What will he do with all his grain? Well, build bigger barns to store it in. He can think of nothing else to do with it. Sharing it with others who have little or nothing to eat does not occur to him. He is a man without vision, seemingly even without awareness of the need around him, without compassion for those who hunger to the bone.
That’s one of his problems, isn’t it? He’s a man possessed by his possessions, more concerned with storing excess material riches than with striving for the riches a true relationship with God will bring him. In our parable this morning Jesus addresses the pervasive human disposition to grub for and grasp after what almost always distracts our focus from what can be acquired through God’s gracious gift. “Do not be afraid, little flock,” Jesus said, “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Maybe it is a question of fear. Afraid that life will pass us by, we strive to scratch and claw our way through treasures on earth, seeking to put a life together on our own, forgetting and neglecting God’s gracious way with us to bestow on us the soul food we really need, whether we’re aware of it or not. And in following our fear we become distracted from what ought to be the real aim and goal of life, a richness within, a deepening of our spirit that opens to us the door of eternal life both in this life and in the life to come.
Last week Lisa preached on the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus’ two dear friends who must have entertained him frequently in their home. You remember in the story how Martha complains to Jesus that her sister Mary seems unconcerned that she, Martha, is doing all the work in providing him the hospitality the culture would have dictated. Mary is not, according to Martha, doing her fair share. But Jesus points out to Martha that she herself is “distracted by many things.” In her – what we might now call “multi-tasking” – Martha has lost sight of her center. Yes, it is good and right to provide hospitality to her guest, but as many of us know we can take a good thing to extremes. In the flurry of activity of our lives we are often distracted from what ought to be our center.
And among the causes of our distraction are our material possessions and the drive to accumulate even more. Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool after a man in the crowd appeals to him to help him get his fair share of the family retirement. As Martha complains that her sister is not doing her fair share of the household tasks, so the man in the story complains that his brother is keeping his fair share of the family wealth from him. Jesus dodges that request. He doesn’t want to become embroiled in a family feud over wills and trusts. We know that because of what he says that then frames the parable that follows: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
We’re aware of this, aren’t we? Yet how easily we can forget the message and its import. So easily we can let the distractions of life – including our concern over worldly riches – deflect us from a life “rich toward God.” A life rich toward God does not add inches of fat to our waistline but rather layers of goodness to our soul. And that is terribly important, for a life without soul, Jesus implies, is no life at all.
By the term soul I’m suggesting something akin to the center of our being. The Greeks had a way of separating soul from body as if the two were distinct and isolated. The soul, they said, was the essence of our being, the body merely the depraved and decaying frame in which the soul found a place to reside for a time. It had no place else to go. The Jewish notion of soul, however, contends that the soul and body are inextricably linked. The soul is embodied, we might say. Body and soul belong to each other. Our life experience comes from the expression of our soul through our body.
Lisa, John, and I have been reading a book on the nature of the Christian funeral by Tom Long, a professor of preaching for Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. He gives a helpful illustration on this idea of embodiment of soul, an expression of our essence as human beings. This is what he says:
The biblical view of embodiment connects firmly to the ways that we experience ourselves and other people in everyday life. Take, for example, a good friend. We have come to know this friend over time in the thousands of things this friend has said and done in our presence. We have seen our friend laugh at these kinds of things and cry in those experiences. Our friend has shown up at our side in times of need, his [or her] need and ours. We have watched our friend take care of his [or her] children, stand up for his [or her] convictions, show stress under pressure, and express delight in a day at the beach or over a plate of enchiladas. In other words, the way we get to know a person is through a lifetime of small embodiments. We are, in essence, what we choose to do with our bodies. When we say we know our friend’s “soul,” we do not mean something apart from his [or her] body; we are describing the character and personality we have seen through his [or her] cumulative embodied actions. If our friend should suddenly and uncharacteristically lash out at us in rage, we say to ourselves, “That’s not like him [or her].” What we mean is that this moment of embodiment is unlike the many other embodiments of him [or her] we have experienced before.
I wonder if the friends of the rich landowner in the parable would have observed that his behavior in hoarding what he had was “just like him” or not like him at all. I would hope the latter, though I would suspect the former. Such habits of selfishness and self-absorption usually run in patterns, and I would suspect that the landowner is characteristically rich in things and poor in soul. And that’s why Jesus has few other words to describe his woeful state than the word “fool.” There is no greater measure of fool than that one relinquishes soul for things. For a life without soul is no life at all.
If we are to take any wisdom from Jesus’ parable – and what is a parable for if not for increased wisdom? – then we might take these two things at least.
First, the reminder that God is the author of life and death, as well as the creator of a land that produces food for its inhabitants. In theological terms we might easily say that it is divine providence that has made possible the excess crops. The landowner who benefits from God’s largess, however, seems to ignore the hand of God in his good fortune and focuses only on the benefit accruing to himself. Nowhere does he offer thanksgiving to God for the abundance of his land. The only pronoun he uses repeatedly in his musing over the good fortune of his wealth is the pronoun “I.” It’s all about me.
And, second, the man seems to have forgotten that all created life is bounded by death, a reality that comes to bear whatever the quantity of one’s possessions. Death makes no exception for great wealth. In the end, and sooner rather than later, death will separate all of us from our overflowing barns. Despite barns filled to the brim, our days are numbered, a fact it behooves us to heed in the days that are passing one by one in our living.
About our material possessions, the parable calls all of us, richer and poorer, to reflect carefully on what we want and why we want it. Are our desires and standards for what is enough driven by a determination to store up treasures for our own pleasure, or by our understanding of God’s blessings and our true purpose in life? Will we measure our lives by the call of our culture and our own selfish impulses that tell us to build bigger and bigger barns, or by the gracious and generous call of the gospel of Jesus Christ to be rich toward God?
A life without soul is no life at all. But a life rich in soul is a consummate joy and a constant source of wonder and thanksgiving.
Anticipating a long drive home from my Vermont vacation on Friday, I selected recordings of six of my favorite Broadway shows to combat the banality of stalled traffic on the interstates. As it happened, I needed even more than six. But what I had proved efficacious, indeed, a joy. One of them was Fiddler on the Roof. Suddenly the delightful song “Miracle of Miracles” engulfed me. An exuberant young man, the poor tailor Motel, having found, despite his lack of wealth and the hold of tradition, that indeed God has given him the love of his life in Tzeitel, one of Tevye’s daughters, sings of God’s miracles with exuberant and extravagant thanksgiving. He recounts the great familiar miracles of Hebraic tradition, including Moses and the Exodus and the fall of the walls of Jericho. And in those stories he then locates his own personal story, for “wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles,” God has taken a tailor by the hand. Many of you must remember the words he sings: But of all God’s miracles large and small, the most miraculous one of all, is that out of a worthless lump of clay God has made a man today. And these: But of all God’s miracles large and small, the most miraculous one of all, is the one that I thought could never be: God has given you to me.
Such gratitude for God’s gift of life in loving relationship to each of us opens us to a life rich in soul. In looking to God to fill the greatest needs of our lives, and in acknowledging the gift of their sustaining presence – yes, in giving exuberant and extravagant thanksgiving to God for them – we find a life “rich toward God.” Such a life deepens our souls. A life without soul is no life at all. But a life rich in soul is the best life of all.