Carrying on the theme of how we value people and possessions…

Jesus has an awful lot to say about money, doesn’t he? More than about any other topic I’d say, apart from how we treat other people – but then in many ways, the two are often inextricable linked in my experience. When money and possessions become more important than people, that’s when it all goes wrong.

It all comes down to greed.

However much we have, it’s never enough.

However much we have, we want more.

This instinct is built into our human nature somehow.

Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.  Luke 12:15

Jesus knew. He understood that.

Accumulating possessions is not what leads to life in all its fullness. It’s not in our stuff that life is to be found.

Jesus says this in answer to a request to get involved in an inheritance dispute. That’s the kind of thing that causes family rifts, isn’t it? When people start to argue over what is rightfully theirs – in their opinion. When greed becomes more important than relationship.

This is the story Jesus tells to illustrate his point.

The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.  Luke 12: 16-21

It’s a straightforward tale with a straightforward message.

You can’t take it with you when you die.

And yet we see people around us building bigger barns – earning more money than they can possibly spend, owning more cars than they can ever drive and bigger and bigger houses that they will never fill.

There are enough resources in the world to go round. God created a world of plenty. He has provided for His people the world over. It’s greed that screws that up. Accumulation of wealth by the few so that others go hungry.

This isn’t just about the super rich. How many of us are planning for our retirement, looking forward to the day we can live comfortably off what’s in our barns, so to speak?

Living life to the full is about wealth of relationships, not wealth of possessions. It’s about investing in people rather than in stuff.

That’s the challenge I take from this.

There’s another parable in Luke’s narrative that illustrates this point well: the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. It’s about that huge divide between rich and poor – between the wealthy man and the beggar at his gate. When they both die, their positions are reversed: the beggar is in heaven and the rich man in hell. The first will be last and the last will be first and all that. The rich man begs for the poor man to show mercy on him – but he is to be treated as he treated the beggar on earth. That’s what Jesus is saying over and over again in these parables. Forgive as you want to be forgiven. Treat others as you want to be treated. Show mercy as you would like to be shown mercy too. Don’t judge or you will be judged. These are all variations on the same theme.

When the rich man’s eyes are opened to this truth, he begs for his family to be told the reality of this truth. But they have been – time and time and time again. They’ve had Moses and the prophets. They know God’s laws that have been put in place to protect the poor, promote generosity and hospitality, ensure the welfare of all in society.

If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. Luke 16:31

What will it take to make people listen?

What will it take for us to sit up and take notice?

We’ve reached the end of this week of looking at the parables. There are loads more of course, but we’ve had a flavour of the common themes that run through all of Jesus’ stories. And this is a good place to finish – with two stories that pick out two of the main themes Jesus comes back to time and time again – how we relate to our possessions and how we relate to others.

This upside down kingdom is a completely different worldview to the one we are bombarded with day in day out. This kingdom puts people first – all people, even those we don’t like or don’t respect. We have to be reminded every single day of how Jesus taught us to live, because it’s to easy to slip into the ways of doing life like everyone around us is doing life.

Again I ask the question.

How different would my life and your life be if we really put the values of this upside down kingdom into practice in our lives?

How different would our churches be if we lived by these kingdom values?

How different would the whole world be?