"Bankruptcy of the Soul" - Luke 12:13-21 - August 5, 2001

Recently I was making the rounds, visiting our shut-ins. When I approached the home of one of our oldest members I was shocked to see nothing in her apartment. The place was completely empty. I had not been informed that she had moved and to my knowledge she hadn’t passed away. I wondered what happened to her and all her worldly possessions?

The previous day I had reviewed our text and it dawned on me that someday I will no longer be here and the place where I used to live will be empty too. Like the man in our story, you know, the one with all the barns, someday he will die and he will not be able to take anything with him.

Fortunately I discovered that the lady I visited had moved in with her daughter. Now she is totally dependent on others for her well-being. She will be now living in a very nice, middle class home. For the past 30 years she has lived in a very modest 3-room apartment. I wonder if her new residence, which has so much more than she is accustomed to, will overwhelm her?

We live in a society which depends on consumerism to keep our Gross National Product growing. One of the fastest growing industries is the storage industry. More and more people are stock-piling their goods. Since the American people charged over 600 billion to their credit cards last year, you can just about bet that more storage will be needed to warehouse all that stuff. Forget the stock market, build some storage lockers for your friends!

If you are like me you don’t like this story. We don’t like to hear Jesus say "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Nor do we like being called, "fool."

In July 1846, Margaret Reed reluctantly left her beloved home in Springfield, Illinois, with her Husband James, their four children, and her ailing mother and set off for California. Margaret had stubbornly resisted her husband’s entreaties to move for months, begging him not to abandon the charmed life of comfort and culture they enjoyed. But her Victorian husband, who was a wealthy furniture manufacturer, sought even more wealth, as well as adventure, and in the end, his will prevailed.

Much of James Reed’s success in persuading Margaret lay in his promise that she would travel in unsurpassed luxury and style, with all her prized possessions. He kept his word. Never before had a covered wagon been built like the Reed’s and never would one be built like it again. Two stories high, with a sleeping loft, it was outfitted with spring seats just like the best stagecoaches, an iron stove, velvet curtains, and her cherished organ. It was stocked with six months’ supply of the best food and wine money could buy. As the wagon pulled into formation with the rest of the Donner Party to head west, it was difficult not to stare and gasp.

The tragic saga of the Donner Party is the most indelible tale of triumph and despair ever written in the history of the American West. Twenty-five hundred miles away from home and only two days from safety, the thirty-one men, women, and children were stranded for an entire winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains by a succession of the worst blizzards on record. Out of provisions and starving, some members resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. Margaret and her children were not among them. She kept them all alive on snow, bark, and leather broth until James, who had left the group to ride on ahead to California seeking a rescue party, returned.

The fact that the family did not perish, physically or spiritually had absolutely nothing to do with the worldly goods she had counted on, for the wagon and all it carried had to be abandoned along the way because it was too heavy and cumbersome to travel through the mountains. The possessions that saved Margaret and those she loved were her wits, her faith and her courage.

I don’t believe that Jesus is against owning things. Neither is Jesus telling us not to own houses, storage sheds or barns. Jesus is concerned about our souls. He wants us to be free and that is impossible if we don’t allow our possessions to possess us. He doesn’t want us to live with a false sense of security either, believing that we don’t need others to help us. Also he wants us to be generous and enjoy giving to others. In a nutshell Jesus is telling us to simplify our lives by letting go. That requires a change in attitudes, beliefs and practices.

For example; perhaps you have heard of the phrase, "lowering the bar." One reason people overindulge, overspend, or just feel overwhelmed is that they expect "perfection." A person who is obsessed with things being a certain way will use whatever resources it takes unitl it is perfect. Unfortunately they also expend themselves and when they reach their goal they don’t feel well enough to enjoy it. Our expectations of ourselves need to be reasonable. At some point we need to be able to say we have done the best we can and forgive ourselves (or others) for our (their) mistakes.

A second attitude that creates huge problems for us is to think we are responsible for everyone in the family. We have a tendency to feel bad when our grown children can’t make their mortgage payment or car payment. Somehow we blame ourselves and feel obligated to pay for the storage barns that our children have built. When we feel responsible for others it can whither away our resources to the point where it jeopardizes our own well-being. It can damage us psychologically as well as we assume guilt for the mistakes our loved ones make.

A third attitude is our anxiety over the possibility of future events. We are always living the "what ifs" of life. What if the house burned down? What if the car breaks down? What if we don’t have the right clothes to wear? One of the hidden truths to this story is the fact that the man was concerned about tomorrow. But, God said to him, "this night your soul is required of you." In other words, the best way for him to take care of his soul was to be concerned about today.

We can do nothing about the past and we cannot control the future. The best way to live our lives is to live today to the fullest, accepting today as a gift from God and being both grateful and generous with whatever today gives us. "Worrying about what’s going to happen is a negative contribution to our future. Living in the here and now is ultimately the best thing we can do, not only for today, but for tomorrow. It helps our relationships, our career, our recovery, and our life." (from The Language of Letting Go, Melody Beattie)

Elizabeth Kubler Ross once said, "It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth - and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up - that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had."

You might think that I feel bad for the old lady who had to move in with her daughter. Not really. For she lived a very simple life. She had only a few pieces of furniture. I know, since I was in her home many times. And for the past year she has been going through closets, giving away all of her things. She was content to live the simple life and no doubt feels good about it. She also had a hobby, not collecting things, but watching children as they came and went to school which was just across the street where she lived.

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio