In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever.

Perhaps you heard this story that has been in the news of late about this Frenchman who dug a backyard swimming pool in a town out in the countryside and in the hole found gold bars and coins worth almost a million dollars. And in the past several days, we got the word that this man is going to be able to keep all the treasure. He doesn't have to give it away to the government or any other kind of arrangement as often is the case in Europe with these kinds of finds. So what a fortune for this guy. What an amazing thing to just think that, oh, I want to have a swimming pool and I'm spending money on this—and well, that's quite the return on a swimming pool, let's just put it that way.

But what about the man who went through all the trouble to put those gold bars in the ground? Because there's an interesting story there. This is part of why the man now is able to keep it, is that we actually have a fairly good track of what happened. They can actually identify the exact markings on the gold bars, the serial numbers, and we know where they came from. And so there was a person who thought that it was important to save up all this wealth that he had accumulated for, I don't know, some sort of a rainy day. It's quite a rainy day to have like a million dollars in the ground that you're going to be pulling out when you need it—and then it just gets lost and forgotten there to be found when someone's digging for a swimming pool.

And this is what came to my mind as I was this week preparing, reading the gospel that we just heard.

"Whose will those things be which you have provided?" God asks this rich man who imagines that he's done everything. He's provided everything for himself by building bigger barns to hold all his goods for himself.

What we hear in this parable is that even gold bars — for you, they are perishing. For someone else they may be waiting, you know, twenty, thirty years or a hundred years or a thousand years. Sure. But for you, the days are short. And whatever you have, you only have as many days as God grants you to use them before they become, for you, completely worthless. Can't take it with you, as the saying goes.

And when our time is complete, there will be an accounting for what it is that we have done. To whom have we provided these things which we have? Were they just for myself, or was I using them for the kingdom, to build up the kingdom of God, to give glory to him and show love and mercy for my neighbor?

We so often frame our lives with scarcity in a different way. We often basically are thinking like I'm going to live forever. So on that timeline that just kind of goes off into infinity. But then on another axis we are imagining things are very, very constrained—that I only have so much of my stuff to go around and I have to carefully hoard it, really making sure that it goes where I need it to go.

You know, first got to deal with the taxes and then the crucial bills, so that I have a place to live and, you know, a way to get to work and where I need to go and make sure the roof doesn't fall in and those kinds of things. And then of course, you know, we got to go on to things like got to pay for the television, the internet, you know, all those nice things that I like to enjoy and make sure I have all that covered, too. And then somewhere in there, in kind of going through the bank account or whatever other resource we have to use, come down to the last little bit of it and say, ah, what's left? What's left that I should give? I should give something of that to God because God's important to me too, and also my neighbor. Got to do some charity, um you know, lower my taxes a little bit or something like that. And so make sure to out of what's left over give something good to show that I'm a decent person.

And that whole arrangement makes some sense if that's actually how the world works—that you got like this finite supply of good things. And if I give away something that I have, then I have less. I am diminished by offering something to someone else, that if I keep it for myself, then I am increased.

From God's perspective, that's insane. And that's not at all how he works with us. Instead, what he does for us is pours out bounty with immeasurable generosity. He's just dumping it on us all the time. The air we have to breathe, the sunshine, just the fact that we have this planet given to us that is just right for human life. And just think about what an amazing gift that is. Not too hot, not too cold, good seasons. We can grow things here. It's a blessing, an immense gift.

And then you've been given life. Each one of you known by name from your mother's womb with your own particular story, your own particular gifts. All of that given by God, and you didn't do it. Blessed are the things you deserve. And again, he's provided all this before you were born, before you got around to making anything of your life. Already, he's given you so much.

And he continues as you grow up to offer you more in your life, to teach you, to build you up, to put people into your life. And he invites you. He doesn't force it. You can be ungrateful. You can go do your own thing. You can be selfish. You can be like the man in the parable. Say, "All the riches that I have, all this immense harvest that I've had, I'm just going to—oh, man, I can't fit it in the closets and my drawers. So, you know what I do? I'm going to rent a really big storage unit and stuff it all in there." You know what? My bank account is full. Go find some other investment tool for all the extra stuff. See how far I can make my money go.

We can do that. Absolutely. And we'll still get rain and sun and air. God won't strike with a lightning bolt just because you're being selfish.

But we are missing out because he's inviting us to join him in his way, to try things according to his pattern. To see things from his point of view, which just happens to be true. It happens to be the clear way of understanding the reality of all things.

That my hoarding stuff to myself, my being selfish and self-centered is not making me bigger. As I cram more into me—this idol that I think is me, to be more precise—I become smaller. I become less. I become less real. I lose touch with the truth, the way, the life, which is Jesus Christ our savior.

And on the other hand, if we try things as God has invited us, then we have the chance to grow. Because what we find is that as we practice trust in God and thanksgiving for all that he has granted to us—acting out of that confidence that we can have in his goodness, trusting that we will not run out of ourselves by making a free offering to God, that we'll not run out of ourselves by showing mercy to our neighbor—we will learn what real love looks like. We will discover the fullness of life which is not confined by fear. It is not constrained by scarcity.

What we have, we don't have to make it last, scraping it out, stretching it thinner and thinner out into infinity. What we are responsible for is today, the day in which we live. Making reasonable, wise provision for the days to come, but we don't actually know how many days those are.

You know, those of us who imagine that perhaps we have decades and decades left—today, this day, the one we're in right now, for you might be the last. And only God knows. And all those worries and imaginations you had for next year and ten years down the road, they're all fantasies. They're worth nothing. They're gone. Puff of smoke. And the only reality will be what have you done with today?

You see, as we are worrying about securing things for ourselves and building bigger barns to store up all the necessities of life that we imagine we just have to have, we're thinking much too small. Much too small.

God has in mind a much, much grander construction project. He's not working with the little piddling stuff that we tend to focus on. What he has in store for us is that we would build a temple for the living God. And the building material that he would use, and he's asking us to join in the work, is us. It's our souls. It's our lives—to love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your strength, with everything that you are and everything that you have, and to love your neighbor as yourself. It's out of that that the temple of God is built.

Working with faith and hope and love so that God can actually find enough space in our lives, stretching us, spreading us out, building us up so there's room in us for God to fit, so that we can meet him and know him and live with him.

And brothers and sisters, this is what's on offer for us—to set ourselves to this building project, this purpose for our lives together, to become a dwelling place for God in the Spirit.

Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever.