What is important
Today we live in a frighteningly materialistic society – all of us know it, and most of us will occasionally criticise it, but most of us also still manage to get a little bit caught up in it !! Someone once rather shrewdly said that one reason why it’s hard to earn money is that our neighbours are always buying something we can’t afford ! This morning’s gospel reading (Luke 12:13-21), urges us to think about what really is important, and Jesus uses a rather frightening illustration to get our attention.
In the story he tells a parable about a rich man, whose land produced abundant crops – so many that he didn’t have need for them, and he decided to build bigger barns in which to store them and his possessions, storing them up for the future – to relax, eat, drink and be merry at some future date !
But then Jesus says that that very night the man’s life ends – and it ends with barns full of goods and crops being of little use to anyone, particularly the man whose life has ended !
It’s a stark warning for us all to recognise what is important here and now and to grasp those things…
This week I heard that one of Manchester City’s new signings, (Yaya Toure) is being paid £200,000 per week – an incredible amount, but an amount people are willing to pay, but for all the money in the world, there is no guarantee of happiness…
In the parable Jesus told, it was clear that the man who hid away his treasures and crops, ended up never getting to enjoy them anyway. We can be the richest people in the World, but as Jesus reminds us, this is not the most important thing. A London newspaper offered a prize for the best definition of money and the winning answer was, ‘Money is an instrument that can buy you everything but happiness and pay for your fare to every place but heaven.’
The most important thing is life. And our life is not made up of money or possessions, it is so much more than this. The important things in our lives are primarily our relationships. The people we spend time with, the people who we talk to, the people we are related to in family, the people who we relate to in Church, in our street, in our area. Money makes the world go round is the saying but actually whilst this may be true; just think of what your life would be without relationships, without people around you with whom you spend time… and of course, without God…
The Beatles may have done some strange things in their lives, but one of their songs reminds us perfectly of the truth of this gospel reading as they sing, ‘money can’t buy me love…’ The most important thing we can ever have is love - something that we cannot buy. As the famous passage from the first letter to the Corinthians says so well, “without love I am nothing.” It does not say, “without money or possessions I am nothing,” but, “without love I am nothing.” Money can’t buy us love, we work at love, we enjoy love and we can always remember the greatest love that there is.
This love is the love that brings new life to us, the love that is spoken of in our epistle reading this morning (Colossians 3:1-11); the love that has brought the people to whom the epistle is written, new life - a life with Christ. The reading urges people to think of things that are above and get rid of earthly thoughts – by this Paul didn’t mean giving up on our lives here, he didn’t mean hiding ourselves away, but he meant concentrating on the things upon which the kingdom of God is built –forgiveness, love, care, compassion, tolerance, hope…. To think about Jesus, and to be inspired byu his life’s example is to surely think about these things here and now…
Every day we are given new opportunities with other people, to enjoy each other, to enjoy our friendships, to enjoy our relationships. Even when we are annoyed or irritated with other people, and let’s be honest we all are sometimes, we can actually look at people as a gift from God, and God urges us to enjoy all His gifts…
And every day we are not only given opportunities with other people, we are given new opportunities with God… God reaches out to us with His love, and all we need to do is to enjoy! To enjoy His free gift of love… There is no amount of money that can buy a relationship with God – there are no amount of possessions that we can trade for such a relationship – we simply have to accept what he offers us, and the rest is free…
So what does he offer us ? Well, he offers eternal life certainly; he offers forgiveness for whatever we might have done wrong, and the hope that we can actually be better; he offers the peace of knowing that there is nothing that can ever separate us from his love – nothing in life or death, nothing in the trials of life…
And apart from a relationship with Him, he offers us the strength to enjoy the relationships we have with other people, secure in the knowledge that as children of God every one of us is entitled to the benefits that he offers… And living with others, seeing them as children of God, enables us to live with them with a peace and understanding, with compassion, even with love…
It is a love that literally can transform not just our lives, and the lives of others around us, but everyone…
At baptism we are made part of the family of God as we officially become a member of the Church… We are officially acknowledging that fact that we are all God’s children, and as we recognise that fact and acknowledge it, we are recognising the most precious gift a person can ever receive – the gift of knowing God’s love and peace in our lives – and that is a free gift !
There’s a story about a little girl who goes to the bank manager and asks for help to raise money for a girl’s club she was part of. The manager laid out before her a 50p piece and a £5 note and asked her to take her choice as to which one she wanted. She picked up the 50p piece and said, ‘my mother always taught me to take the smallest piece.’ But picking up the £5 note as well she added, ‘But so I won’t lose this 50p piece, I’ll wrap it in this paper !’
Perhaps we can all see ourselves as the 50p piece, but see God’s love as the £ 5 note – and may we all wrap ourselves in that love, that protecting, caring, strengthening, empowering love, and may we enjoy God, His love, the membership and fellowship of His family in the Church, and all the free gifts that He offers to us, and may we be ready to recognise and acknowledge that the most important thing in our lives is the life changing love of God, and the opportunities he gives to us every day of a relationship with him and with other people. AMEN
In the story he tells a parable about a rich man, whose land produced abundant crops – so many that he didn’t have need for them, and he decided to build bigger barns in which to store them and his possessions, storing them up for the future – to relax, eat, drink and be merry at some future date !
But then Jesus says that that very night the man’s life ends – and it ends with barns full of goods and crops being of little use to anyone, particularly the man whose life has ended !
It’s a stark warning for us all to recognise what is important here and now and to grasp those things…
This week I heard that one of Manchester City’s new signings, (Yaya Toure) is being paid £200,000 per week – an incredible amount, but an amount people are willing to pay, but for all the money in the world, there is no guarantee of happiness…
In the parable Jesus told, it was clear that the man who hid away his treasures and crops, ended up never getting to enjoy them anyway. We can be the richest people in the World, but as Jesus reminds us, this is not the most important thing. A London newspaper offered a prize for the best definition of money and the winning answer was, ‘Money is an instrument that can buy you everything but happiness and pay for your fare to every place but heaven.’
The most important thing is life. And our life is not made up of money or possessions, it is so much more than this. The important things in our lives are primarily our relationships. The people we spend time with, the people who we talk to, the people we are related to in family, the people who we relate to in Church, in our street, in our area. Money makes the world go round is the saying but actually whilst this may be true; just think of what your life would be without relationships, without people around you with whom you spend time… and of course, without God…
The Beatles may have done some strange things in their lives, but one of their songs reminds us perfectly of the truth of this gospel reading as they sing, ‘money can’t buy me love…’ The most important thing we can ever have is love - something that we cannot buy. As the famous passage from the first letter to the Corinthians says so well, “without love I am nothing.” It does not say, “without money or possessions I am nothing,” but, “without love I am nothing.” Money can’t buy us love, we work at love, we enjoy love and we can always remember the greatest love that there is.
This love is the love that brings new life to us, the love that is spoken of in our epistle reading this morning (Colossians 3:1-11); the love that has brought the people to whom the epistle is written, new life - a life with Christ. The reading urges people to think of things that are above and get rid of earthly thoughts – by this Paul didn’t mean giving up on our lives here, he didn’t mean hiding ourselves away, but he meant concentrating on the things upon which the kingdom of God is built –forgiveness, love, care, compassion, tolerance, hope…. To think about Jesus, and to be inspired byu his life’s example is to surely think about these things here and now…
Every day we are given new opportunities with other people, to enjoy each other, to enjoy our friendships, to enjoy our relationships. Even when we are annoyed or irritated with other people, and let’s be honest we all are sometimes, we can actually look at people as a gift from God, and God urges us to enjoy all His gifts…
And every day we are not only given opportunities with other people, we are given new opportunities with God… God reaches out to us with His love, and all we need to do is to enjoy! To enjoy His free gift of love… There is no amount of money that can buy a relationship with God – there are no amount of possessions that we can trade for such a relationship – we simply have to accept what he offers us, and the rest is free…
So what does he offer us ? Well, he offers eternal life certainly; he offers forgiveness for whatever we might have done wrong, and the hope that we can actually be better; he offers the peace of knowing that there is nothing that can ever separate us from his love – nothing in life or death, nothing in the trials of life…
And apart from a relationship with Him, he offers us the strength to enjoy the relationships we have with other people, secure in the knowledge that as children of God every one of us is entitled to the benefits that he offers… And living with others, seeing them as children of God, enables us to live with them with a peace and understanding, with compassion, even with love…
It is a love that literally can transform not just our lives, and the lives of others around us, but everyone…
At baptism we are made part of the family of God as we officially become a member of the Church… We are officially acknowledging that fact that we are all God’s children, and as we recognise that fact and acknowledge it, we are recognising the most precious gift a person can ever receive – the gift of knowing God’s love and peace in our lives – and that is a free gift !
There’s a story about a little girl who goes to the bank manager and asks for help to raise money for a girl’s club she was part of. The manager laid out before her a 50p piece and a £5 note and asked her to take her choice as to which one she wanted. She picked up the 50p piece and said, ‘my mother always taught me to take the smallest piece.’ But picking up the £5 note as well she added, ‘But so I won’t lose this 50p piece, I’ll wrap it in this paper !’
Perhaps we can all see ourselves as the 50p piece, but see God’s love as the £ 5 note – and may we all wrap ourselves in that love, that protecting, caring, strengthening, empowering love, and may we enjoy God, His love, the membership and fellowship of His family in the Church, and all the free gifts that He offers to us, and may we be ready to recognise and acknowledge that the most important thing in our lives is the life changing love of God, and the opportunities he gives to us every day of a relationship with him and with other people. AMEN
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