Bigger Barns

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Great, juicy, personally challenging texts this week.  We're discussing Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23, Colossians 3:1-11, and Luke 12:13-21.  Give them a read before listening to the podcast.

You don't have to go too far from Muhlenberg in any direction before the scenes become pastoral and barns pop up on the landscape.  So for this week's podcast, we broadcast to you from off route 42, at a barn.  The gospel passage talks about barns and storing up possessions, and throughout the texts is a theme of holding onto possessions as a foolish endeavor.  The gospel reading has a parable where a rich man builds larger barns to hold all his possessions - but to what end?

We also considered going to a bank or somewhere else that is a modern equivalent of where we store up wealth . . .  Ironically, the first barn we stopped at, we decided wasn't nice enough looking, and we opted for this one instead, which had lots of additions and looked a nice bright red on this rainy morning.

The scriptures from Ecclesiastes, Colossians, and Luke become excellent conversation partners with each other and us as we think about some questions:  Do you value your work? 
Are you trying to get to some level of success or measure - what is it?  These scriptures, particularly Ecclesiastes, might make you ask yourself why?
How can our possessions become idolatry?  The Luke and Colossians texts challenge us in this way.

Where do you find yourself most satisfied, most whole, most nourished?  So many folks lately have talked to us about the lack they feel when consumed by the busyness of life or the value that work (or lack of it) puts on them. 

All of these themes make me think of this video - and maybe you can think of it as a little Christmas in (the last gasp of) July. . . and that ultimately Christ is the gift, and we are more than what we have, buy, or store. 

As the video says: Consumerism does not equal happiness.  Spend less on gifts.  Give more presence.  Love like Jesus.  It began with worship.  It begins with worship. 

See you in worship this Sunday!