Rich Toward God
This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 7/31 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text is Luke 12:13-21 Our society encourages us to succeed. From the time we are children, we are taught that if we work hard and do our very best we will be rewarded. Having plenty of money, a nice house, lots of vacations and a good retirement is what we are told to strive for. Some would consider such success a sign of God’s blessing of our efforts. That theology was even more prominent in Jesus’ time. From that perspective, the rich landowner was a success. In fact, he was so successful that his current storage facilities were too small. Today's gospel passage is bracketed by two equally powerful, yet opposite drives--greed and being rich toward God. When Ray and I moved from Rhode Island to Gettysburg for seminary, we left many things in storage in Rhode Island. We felt we could do without them for four years and we did. Whenever we visited Rhode Island and drove by ...