The name of
the Lord is a strong tower;
the righteous run into it and are safe.
The wealth of the rich is their strong city;
in their imagination it is like a high wall.
*********************************
Someone in the crowd said
to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with
me.’ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator
over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds
of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of
possessions.’ Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man
produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I
have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will
pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain
and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid
up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You
fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you
have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up
treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’
*********************************
Normally,
we tend to be all for imagination. It
helps people bring all sorts of good things into life. Frank Sinatra sang,
“Imagination is funny
It makes a cloudy day sunny
It makes a bee think of honey
Just as I think of you
Imagination is crazy
Your whole perspective gets hazy
Starts you asking a daisy
What to do, what to do”.
But imagination can also
trip people up when it gets too close to delusion. And the greatest human delusion of all is
that we don’t need God. That’s called
pride, which is at the base of humanity’s biggest problems.
Luke describes Mary’s reaction to becoming the mother of
the Messiah as bursting out into a joyful psalm about what God will do through
the child she is carrying, and how his coming will overturn the order of the
world in favor of the Kingdom of God.
She declares,
“He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the
proud
in the imagination of
their hearts.” [Luke 1:51]
Proverbs 18:10-11 says
something very similar, contrasting reliance on the Lord with reliance on our
own resources, in this case wealth:
“The name of the Lord is a
strong tower;
the righteous run into it and are safe.
The wealth of the rich is their strong city;
in their imagination it is like a high wall.”
“Imagination” here is not
something creative, but something that’s giving a false sense of security.
Jesus’ parable about a man who thought his financial
riches alone, apart from trust in God, would mean not only a comfortable life
but also a long one, takes that warning and runs with it.
“I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have
ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God
said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And
the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures
for themselves but are not rich towards God.” [Luke
12:19-21]
Jesus’ message is a
simple one: “Don’t be that guy.”
Financial struggles are a big part of people’s
lives. A recent article in Forbes says
that
“According to data released by the Federal Reserve,
credit card balances increased by $24 billion in the third quarter of 2024 to
$1.17 trillion.
The Federal Reserve study does not provide numbers for
the average credit card balance per consumer. However, according to TransUnion,
this figure rose from $6,088 in the third quarter of 2023 to $6,380 in the
third quarter of 2024.”[1]
That’s a bigger problem
than the cost of eggs. When. something
like that is hanging over somebody’s head the worry and the strain get into
every corner of life. It wrecks people’s
relationships, it endangers their health, it creates a sense of shame, it feeds
moments of extreme anger and frustration.
Being able to pay off a few bills can do a world of good. Nobody is saying that money doesn’t reduce
the insecurity of life.
Money won’t cure cancer, though. It won’t be there for you when your spouse
walks out. It cannot replace a friend
who has moved far away. Wealth does not
prevent droughts or hurricanes, wildfires or earthquakes. You can’t buy back something you never should
have said. You cannot pay somebody to
forgive you. Even worse, when wealth
creates a high wall, it might not just stand between somebody and
disaster. It might create a high wall
between the people who have and the people who don’t. It doesn’t have to do that, but it often
does.
Security is not to be found in this world. Sorry.
Security comes from beyond, from God.
“The name of the Lord is a
strong tower;
the righteous run into it and are safe.”
It is in God’s gift of
his Son, whose coming pushes away all false imaginings, that a realistic hope
replaces them. Not everyone can be rich
in things, but everyone can be “rich toward God.” How fortunate someone is who is free from
envy, who doesn’t feel the need to keep up with every fad. How much consolation there is when someone
can say at the end of a long day that they are loved, and have enough love in
their own heart that they can’t even give it all away. How much comfort there is in knowing that
Jesus has given us a full and complete pardon and has paid off all of our
accounts with one another and with God.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/average-credit-card-debt/#average_american_credit_card_debt_section
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