SUNDAY SERMON: When the stuff we own starts owning us

By Rev. Stephen Baldwin

OT: Psalm 49.1-12

NT: Luke 12.13-21

Tuesday marks my 18th year of ministry. Which means 18 years of living in the same house. When Kerry and I first moved in, we were going from a small Nashville apartment to a huge, four-bedroom house. We had a yard, a garage, and a basement! It was a mansion to us. 

While it still feels like one in some ways, we’ve also managed to fill every nook, cranny, closet, and cabinet with…stuff. Kitchen stuff and office stuff and sports stuff. Clothes, linens, and silverware. I realized this week that we have three sets of silverware for crying out loud?! 

So when I read the story about the man who doesn’t have enough room for all his crops and decided he’s going to build bigger barns, I sympathize. It’s the natural solution. The barn was built to hold your stuff. But now you’ve got more stuff than you did when you built it. So it would be natural to build a bigger barn, right? 

Here’s the problem with that. If I were to start chewing a piece of gum, it would taste good. It would fit nicely. It would keep me busy. 

I might like it so much that I’d add another piece. Oh, yummy. So refreshing. I feel better now. 

So I add another piece, and another, and another. 

Before I know it, the thing that I enjoyed chokes me. Because I’ve taken in too much, too fast. 

Jesus says that’s how greed works. It slips up on you. He calls the man in today’s parable a fool, not because of the stuff he owned but because he let his stuff own him. He put his trust in things, not God, and that’s why Jesus called him a fool. 

My dear cousin Sara Bethel, a longtime member at Ronceverte Presbyterian, used to always remind us that the Bible does not say money is the root of all evil, as folks like to say. It says the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. That’s how greed works. It slips up on you. 

I found a new pair of running shoes this summer that are the most comfortable running shoes I’ve ever had. Immediately, my mind went to…gotta get another pair. They might sell out. They might not make them again. They might never get it this right again. Gotta get another pair. 

“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Jesus says that’s how greed works. It slips up on you. He calls the man in today’s parable a fool, not because of the stuff he owned but because he let his stuff own him. He put his trust in things, not God. He was staring the reward of eternal life in the face, and all he could think about was whether he had stored up enough stuff in his barns. So Jesus calls him a fool. 

CS Lewis puts it this way, and you need to be ready for this, because it’s a mindful: “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Building bigger barns is an easy pleasure. God has something more lasting in mind. What, you ask? We’ll go there next week. I’ve given you more than enough to pray and think about this morning. 

For today, it’s enough to remember that we are far too easily pleased by the stuff we own, eventually allowing it to own us. That’s unsustainable. It will reach a breaking point. Amen.