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God’s Party
By Administrator | September 10, 2007
God’s Party
Luke 12:13-21
August 5, 2007
It happens too often:
it can be in conversation with another Christian or even
most especially with someone who steadfastly avoids
the church.
It is that understanding of God as critical,
demanding,
distant,
punishing,
violent,
exacting a pound of flesh for every trespass,
real or imagined.
This God crushes the spirit,
mangles the soul.
And it’s true, let’s admit it:
as people throughout the ages have tried to make
sense of plague and floods,
wars and devastation,
pestilence and, well,
the seemingly sudden collapse as the
foundations literally give way under the bridges
of life,
God has been painted with a broad and not
always attractive brush.
Even in our sacred scriptures, the divine reviews are mixed.
So, I suppose, are our own images.
II. I am always pained and perplexed to hear someone either
terribly fearful of God,
living narrowly in hostage to the Holy One,
or else unable to meet any of God’s so-called demands,
having angrily given up completely.
If I am given opportunity, if the door is opened,
I share the story which I believe to be the
central Jesus parable conveying the character of God.
It’s NOT the parable we heard this morning,
but stick with me a moment.
The story which I remember hearing from earliest childhood
and which has, more than any other,
shaped my image of God,
is often called the parable of the prodigal son.
It is found only in the gospel of Luke,
and in case you don’t remember it—
and it is long and intricate and beautiful—
let me summarize:
There are two brothers.
The older brother does as he is supposed to do.
He is obedient and good and hard-working.
The younger son is the opposite.
He is lazy.
He makes poor choices.
He demands his part of the inheritance from his
father, leaves home, and blows his money
on drinking and prostitutes.
With everything lost,
he comes to his senses.
He comes home to make amends.
And there is his father, waiting for him the entire time.
His father—with open arms and no demands at all.
No recriminations.
What the younger son receives is a big party,
not because he has been truant;
not because he has been an idiot;
not because, as the older son imagines, he is spoiled;
but because he is alive,
and his father loves him so much, more than we
can imagine.
That is the God I have always known:
the God who loves us that much,
who longs for us that much,
who celebrates our lives with a party.
III. Now, what does that have to do with this morning’s text?
Everything, as it turns out.
In this parable, also found only in Luke,
there is another party,
but it is very different.
It is a party a rich man throws for himself,
and everything,
even life itself,
is lost.
We must be careful with the story.
It is not an indictment of the rich.
This man is not inherently evil nor is he judged for
his possessions, but rather for his obsession.
Notice the context.
Jesus was teaching the crowd.
It was customary for people to bring legal disputes to
the rabbis.
Because Jesus had gained such popularity and respect,
and because his message seemed to radiate a love
and equality,
a man called out from the crowd,
“Teacher (or rabbi), tell my brother to divide the family
inheritance with me.”
In parallel to the prodigal son story,
we apparently have here a younger brother,
arguing for his inheritance,
which by law would generally be
one-third of the estate.
But Jesus didn’t come to settle disputes and argue about
inheritances.
He came to reveal for us a bit of the character of God,
what it might be like for us if we could manage
to live now centered in God’s kingdom.
Jesus also saw beyond the question to the young man’s
soul.
He saw beyond his need to his greed.
I heard an old Rich Mullins song recently and remembered
that I had quoted this line from it before but
it bears repeating:
“Everybody says they need one thing.
What they mean’s they need one thing more.”
That line always strikes me with its truth.
I’m always out there shopping for the next thing
I need, just one more thing to satisfy,
to make life just right.
IV. In the parable Jesus tells the crowd,
a man devotes his life to the careful pursuit of
accumulation.
He is not prodigal at all.
He is the opposite, which is good.
He is hard working.
He is careful,
frugal,
and lucky.
The sun shines, the rains come, the crops flourish.
He builds a bigger barn,
stores up his wealth,
and throws himself a party.
Notice there doesn’t even seem to be any guests.
He says to himself, “relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
We’re all working toward that day,
aren’t we,
when life is so secure,
so good,
so finished and polished and right,
that we can finally relax, eat, drink, be merry,
throw ourselves a little party.
The man, according to Jesus, is foolish.
This is not life.
This is death.
The Greek reads a little more clearly:
“This very night your soul they demand from you.”
What demands his soul?
Not God. No, not God, but his own greed.
He has spent his life acquiring things,
storing up things,
guarding things.
Now, those things possess him and require of him his life.
Then comes the end.
V. I know people, rich and poor and in between,
who do not invest in things but
who celebrate with God almost every day of their lives.
They may or may not make good and prudent decisions.
Truthfully, it makes it a little easier if they do.
But if God is the party,
they are not possessed,
either by poverty or wealth,
by the sins of yesterday or the anxieties of tomorrow.
Today is the celebration.
Today there is bread.
Today there is enough poured out for everyone.
Today there is life.
Why?
Because this, all of it, is God’s party.
Not ours.
And we can plan all we want,
invest,
take out IRA’s,
build really big barns.
But tomorrow, the bridge may collapse right out from
under us.
So celebrate today,
when God is throwing the party,
when God is throwing YOU a party.
Invest in God, God’s people, God’s creation.
That’s life.
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