May 17, 2009 Sermon

The Rich Fool
Luke 12:13-21

Randolph Frederick Pausch, born Baltimore, Maryland, October 23, 1960. Received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University in May of 1982 and his PhD, also in computer science, from Carnegie-Mellon University in August of 1988. Taught at the University of Virginia and became a full professor at Carnegie-Mellon. Consulted with Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts, the maker of extremely popular computer games. Became a pioneer in the use of teams of people from all disciplines to create virtual worlds. Consulted with Google. With a professor of drama founded the Alice Project (named for Alice in Wonderland) that makes computer software writing accessible to people previously intimidated by it. One Alice Project's breakthrough was with middle school girls. Randy Pausch married and had three children. He died from pancreatic cancer last summer.

Ten months before he died Randy Pausch delivered a lecture entitled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. He gave it as part of CMU's Last Lecture series, in which scientists were asked to speak as though it was their last chance to impart what really mattered to them. For him, it almost was his last lecture. But he remained upbeat. He said cancer was the hand dealt him and we cannot control what cards we get, only how we play them. He referred to the brick walls we encounter and urged his audience to see them as obstacles that stop only the less determined among us. Pausch kept the focus on the people who had mentored him, as well as those who kicked his rear end when he needed it. He led the audience in singing happy birthday to his wife. He praised his mom, showing a picture of her passing him in a go-kart at an amusement park in her 80th year. He did pushups on stage. Randy Pausch's Last Lecture has become one of the most popular hits on the Internet. I absolutely recommend that you watch it, if you have not already done so.

When Randy Pausch delivered his Last Lecture he knew he would die within months. He showed the audience CT scans of his liver and claimed that his positive attitude was not denial. He kept an online blog. His entries contained passing references to the inexorable work of the cancer on his internal organs. But then he would turn to note accomplishments of his colleagues and loved ones, to how his son did in a soccer game, to the graduate schools his students had been admitted to, to how a dream gave him a great new idea for a video game. Randy Pausch knew what matters in life—and what does not. He knew, as few do, the timing of his death almost to the day, yet he seemingly had space in his brain and his heart only for life.

Randy Pausch believed in God. He did not choose to use the celebrity his illness brought him to witness to Christ, but he believed. He belonged to a church. He lived his life—especially the final year of it—in agreement with the message of Jesus' parable of the Rich Fool. That message boils down to five words: focus on God, not stuff. Eight months after his last lecture and two months before his death, Randy Pausch addressed the graduating class at Carnegie-Mellon. He said, “If there is anything I have learned in life, you will not find (purpose) in things. And you will not find it in money. Because the more things and the more money you have you will just use that as your (measuring stick), and there will always be someone with more.”

Do not confuse things with life. Do not confuse money with life. Worship God, not riches. A man approaches Jesus with a demand: “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Sounds reasonable to us. When mom and dad die we feel it only fair for them to divide whatever they have by however many descendants they have and parcel it out evenly. But the Jewish law as found in Deuteronomy stated that the eldest son should receive twice as much as all others. Now here comes a man—obviously not an eldest son—who wants an equal share. Jesus warns him to watch out. He calls the man greedy. And he tells a parable. As usual, the parable has a simple surface meaning. A man has so much junk he has to build bigger barns to house it all. He tells himself how impressive he is to need more storage. God informs him he will die that night and asks who will own all that stuff.

Unlike most parables, this story of the Rich Fool also has a simple underlying message. We have already defined it: worship God, not stuff. The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the same message hundreds of years earlier. He heard the word of the Lord telling him to pronounce judgment on the people of Israel for worshiping everything but God: wealth, security, fertility gods they snuck up into the mountains to offer gifts of grain and wine and money. He blessed those who put their trust in God and God alone. And in words Jesus would echo, Jeremiah concluded, “Like a partridge hatching what it did not lay, so are all who amass wealth unjustly; in the middle of life it will leave them, and at their end they will prove to be fools.” True, Jeremiah addressed those who build wealth unjustly. But against wealth itself he had nothing to say. No, he spoke to those who cheated and lied and stole—and who believed themselves secure. He agreed with Jesus that there was only one word to describe people who trust in riches, not God: fools.

Look at what God says to the rich man in Jesus' parable. After calling him a fool and telling him he is about to die, God asks, “and what of the things you have stored, whose will they be?” No longer his, is the only honest answer. We find it amusing that the ancient Egyptian kings built massive tombs and stuffed them with treasures in the obviously primitive belief that they could take it with them to the next life. Do we live as though we believe any differently? Did the rich fool in Jesus' parable? Jesus puts the matter to us squarely: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich to God.” It turns out that this parable not only criticizes those who trust in wealth, not God; its point, actually, is the charge to become rich to God.

What does it mean to become rich to God? At the very end of his Last Lecture Randy Pausch revealed that while he did mean for his audience to benefit from it, his true purpose was to make a video record for his own children. When they get old enough they will have their father's deepest dreams and most loving advice. That was the treasure Randy Pausch wanted to store. Can we not learn from his example? I have no idea what sort of look he had in his eyes before the doctors told him he had mere months to live. But during his Last Lecture they had an incredibly intense look. It was as if lasers shot out from his face, lasers of compassion and sheer joy in the miracle of living. How can we live in such a way that we, too feel ourselves blessed, enriched by God, no matter what our bank account balances or general health?

Keep your focus on God, and you will grow richer in God. Be constantly conscious, be aware that God exists and surrounds you with love and blesses you. Live your life in the light of Christ and know that you are doing so. I have gotten bitten with the same bug that infects so many Michiganians. I dream someday of living on the water. Ironic, is it not, that I should share this dream during a sermon on treasuring God, not things? Ironic, is it not, that earlier today we heard from two men who urged the congregation to pray about giving more money to the church? Actually, neither of these facts is at all ironic. If I or the congregation sought these things in order to worship them, in order to base our existence on getting and holding on to them, then yes, we could call it ironic. We could also call it sinful and foolish, as Jeremiah and Jesus did. But if we focus on the joy God brings to us through the creation He has given us it changes everything. Be aware that God exists. Know that God surrounds you with love and blesses you.

I know two men who own homes on lakes. Neither of them attends this church. Both live on “good” lakes. One perpetually complains about the expense of maintaining his property, about the eagles that eat the shorebirds, about the need to put the dock and the boats in the water in spring and the need to take them out and store them in the fall. Every time I visit the other guy at his place he fairly glows with joy. He sees that God has blessed him beyond measure. He is joyful. He seeks ways to share his house and boat with friends and family. Though he has aged to the point where he can no longer take care of it all himself, and though he frets about his deteriorating health, he speaks of how he never expected to live the life he has.

Keep your focus on God. Become rich in God, not in things. Be constantly aware of God. Try not to drive along Grand Traverse Bay without saying a quick prayer of thanksgiving. Try not to grow blind to the love of God as it comes to you through the love of your spouse, your friends, your church. Have you ever known a person who knew he or she would die soon and seemed quite comfortable with the situation? How does such a person do it? Most often, such a person has peace, and even joy, because he or she trusts God. The closer that person comes to dying to this world, the sharper his or her vision becomes as to what truly matters. What does matter? Peace. Joy. Hope. Purpose. Serving others rather than taking from them. Love, the sacrificial, giving love of Christ rather than the love of toys and power and self and stuff.

Fill your God storehouse and let your stuff storehouse take care of itself. Grow rich spiritually. Worship God, not stuff. Live your life in the light of Christ and be aware that you are doing so. Be aware, constantly, that God exists. God loves you. God blesses you.