You can relax now

Luke 12:13-21

I don’t know about you, but I am so completely sick of everything always being up in the air. Of having to react and respond all the time. Of not being able to make plans and set those plans in place and count on those plans happening.  If not actual control, I would like to have back the illusion of control. Please.   

The rich man in Jesus’ parable has the illusion of control. He is blessed with an abundance of crops and decides to tear down his barns and build bigger ones to store them all and then finally he will have enough, and then, “I will say to my soul, Soul, You can relax now…”

 

And oh my goodness does this grab me. What would it take to be able to say, Soul, you can relax now? Would you say it when you finally have “enough” money saved? When you have reached a high enough level of education? Progressed far enough in your job? When kids are finally settled and successful? 

When you’ve achieved all your goals for self-improvement and enlightenment, then you can say, Soul, you can relax now?  How about, the mortgage and student loans are all completely paid off, the dream job has been achieved, you’re contributing to real and lasting change in the world as a force for goodness, everybody thinks good things about you and nobody dislikes or distrusts you, your body is a specimen of good health and guaranteed longevity, and your impact, memory and legacy is cemented for several generations. Now you can relax, soul.  Now you can finally live and just enjoy your life! 

 

Oh wait, let’s add some more, Democracy is secure, racism is vanquished, the climate crisis is remedied, now can our souls relax?

 

How about when we do have times we’ve accomplished a goal or reached a milestone, and we feel some sense of inner peace because the hard work we’ve invested has paid off, or friends and family are generally doing well and life seems to be on a good track.  Not perfect, but humming along fair enough.  It feels good to feel this way. Not unlike the man in Jesus’ parable, (who then illustrates that even that doesn’t feel like enough). And as Jesus reminds us, any and all of that can disappear at any moment. Anything can happen to anyone. Like, a global pandemic from the movies could engulf the entire globe for years, or something.  And then the illusion that we have any control over anything is short-lived.

 

This is one of those moments when the lectionary fails us. Because it separates out scripture that make more sense if kept together.

 

This rich man in Jesus’ parable is so often held up as a foil, a ridiculous, greedy fool. (My bible subtitles this pericope "The Parable of the Rich Fool").  We like to use him to remind ourselves not to get greedy and then move on.  But the story doesn’t stop right here. Jesus turns to the disciples and points underneath the pretend rich man’s striving, to the core of him, because it’s the core of all of us. Just like this man, we are all trying to quell that inner terror that things might not be ok. We all worry for our future, our safety, our loved ones, all the time, and our ability to live our lives with a sense of peace is so often dependent on how all these things and people are doing at the moment.  The rich man is seeking a feeling of security. An escape from the worry. The ability to enjoy life and not live in fear. Aren’t we all?

 

The passage continues with these words,
He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 

And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 

For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

 

Around here we remind each other that worrying is practicing fear, and resting is practicing trust.  We let go of worry not by talking ourselves out of it with logic, or by somehow controlling all the external factors around us so that we can finally be at rest inside.  

 

Into our worry, Jesus gives us a very concrete invitation –Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Notice the beauty permeating it all. Right here in the world around us is evidence of God’s care. God who made and cares for this earth and its creatures values and treasures you, loves you.  

Instead of striving for your own security and wellbeing, Jesus says, point your being toward God’s reality, where we all belong inextricably to each other and to God, and we are here to care for one another and for this world. 

When you let go your attempting to make your own life secure, and return to this reality that the source of all life is holding your live in love, then the inner peace, the sense of deeper grounding, will come to you as a gift from God.  

 

James Finley talks about this in his podcast, Turning to the Mystics. He says our inner peace is so often dependent on conditions being conducive to peace. So when our family is healthy and things are going well in our lives we have peace. But when the condition are not conducive to peace, there is conflict, suffering, war, racism, then we do not have peace. So we try to change the conditions that are not conducive to peace, so that we can have inner peace. And we should do those things- we should address what is wrong in the world and in our lives. But the peace we are offered in Christ is not peace that is dependent on the conditions being conducive to peace. It’s God’s peace, given to us, regardless of the circumstances. And we can experience it even in the midst of great darkness and suffering, because it does not depend on the conditions being a certain way, it's deeper than that. And this peace actually allows us to be able to be present to the circumstances in a different way, in fact, to be with people in suffering and struggle more intentionally, and to bear those things ourselves, because the peace we have is not our own peace, it is God's. And it is not dictated by fluctuating circumstances.

 

From time to time the veil is pulled back, and, no matter the circumstances, we feel a sense of oneness with the universe. Maybe it happens when we’re laughing at a table filled with friends, or alone in the cacophonous silence of a still and busy forest, or suffering a terrible, life-severing loss, or simply catching eyes with a baby in a grocery store. We are occasionally, suddenly grabbed hold of by this love that is deeper and wider, more sure and more steady than everything else that exists. And we sense that not are apart from it, but in it, claimed by it. And for a moment we feel righted inside, and we wonder why it is we ever worry at all. And then, just as quickly as it comes, the fleeting glimpse of Reality fades. But these tastes give us hope, and feed our trust, and invite us to live differently.

 

We can’t make these experiences happen, but we can, “assume the inner stance of least resistance” to being overtaken by this love.  We can seek to be open – to, as Jesus invites us, notice the world around with wonder and gratitude, to be present in our own skin, our own lives, this one moment, unlike any other, and receive it. 

Instead of striving for the ideal someday version of our lives or this world that we can finally one day enjoy, we can welcome and appreciate our lives and this world right now, as they are, and be right here with God and each other. And this, perhaps, is what it means in the parable of Jesus, to be “rich toward God,” being ready to receive our lives as the generosity of God, abundantly poured into the world at every moment. 

 

I don’t think we are ever going back to a time when things can be planned and then carried out smoothly.  Life now is harder than it was three years ago, and all signs point to it continuing to get more complicated on nearly every front. There have never not been, and will never not be things to worry about, and there is not coming, in our lifetimes, the “finally” moment, when the barns are full, all the wrongs are put right, all the conditions conducive to peace are met, and we’ll heave a great collective sigh and say to our souls, Soul, you can relax now! 

And even if there were, it could all end in a second anyway.

 

But through all of it, whatever the conditions, the steady, never-ending, powerful, deeper love of God that claims the universe and is moving it all toward redemption, will continue to hold us fast. And we will be ok. No matter what.  

So beloved, let’s allow our lives to flow from God’s generosity and our souls to find rest in God’s peace.

Amen.