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Eat, Drink and Be Merry |
Luke 12: 13-21
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© John Ewing Roberts |
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INTRODUCTION There is a little book entitled They Never Said It - A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Authorities.[1] It delights in pointing out that Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca never said, "Play it again, Sam." Nor did Charles Boyer in Algiers ever say to Hedy Lamarr, "Come with me to the Casbah." Horace Greeley never said, "Go west, young man." Marie Antoinette did not come up the line, "Let them eat cake." It goes on - General Sherman never exactly said, "War is hell," nor did George Washington say to his father, "I cannot tell a lie." A minister named Parson Weems made up that well-intentioned whopper. Which brings me to my point about "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die." All too often well meaning people, the scholarly equivalent of Parson Weems, tell us that, "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die," comes from the Greek philosopher Epicurus, or that the quote sums up Epicurean philosophy.[2] Well, Epicurus never said it. EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY In fact, these words come by combining several different quotes from the Bible. "A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and be merry." (Ecclesiastes 8: 15) "Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die." (Isaiah 22: 13) "If the dead are not raised, `Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" (I Corinthians 15: 32) Interestingly enough, Jesus was not troubled by the charge that "the Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber..."[3] The reason for this little exercise in accuracy in sermonizing, however well intended, is to assure you that in dealing with today's gospel text I will make every effort not to sink either into well intended but inaccurate quotations or to sink into the equally offensive pit of well intended but trite moralizing. There are so many ways a preacher can go wrong on this text. It is too easy to turn this text into a sermon against sensuality, against contemporary understandings of something Epicurus never said. It is too easy to turn this text into a sermon against preoccupation with possessions, security in self-sufficiency, the grasp of greed, and the hollowness of hedonism, as seductive as the alliteration may be to some.[4] It is too easy to moralize off of the powerball lottery this week. A BETTER WAY THAN MISQUOTING MORALIZING Better preaching may come not by misquoting and moralizing but by offering some contemporary parables, stories from our time which resonate with the text. Here are a few. A. The Grieving Widow A Baptist New Testament scholar, Alan Culpepper, tells the story of a grieving widow. The pastor asked if she had any special requests for the music at her husband's funeral service. She requested his two favorites, Amazing Grace and I Did It My Way. Culpepper comments, "One cannot trust both in material possessions and in God's grace for security."[5] (That comes perilously close to moralizing, doesn't it?) B. The Old Hermit and the Cave An old hermit stumbled into a cave in which he found an enormous hidden treasure. As he left the cave, he saw three men and started to run, hoping to lead them away from the hidden treasure. But the three men were curious; why would an old hermit run from them? So they stopped him and asked where he was going. "I'm running away from death. Get out of here." His warning, of course, had just the opposite effect on the three men. They were suddenly very curious about the place the old hermit did not want them to go, and forced him to retrace his steps to the cave. "Here," said the hermit, "is where death was running after me." The three men drove the old hermit off, went in the cave and found the treasure. They decided that one of them should go into town to get provisions to eat while the other two guarded the treasure. One volunteered to go get the food, thinking to himself that while he was in town he would poison the food, come back, give it to the other two, watch them die and then have the treasure to himself. But while he was away, the other two decided there would be more for them if they killed the third man when he came back from town with the food. This they did and then settled down to eat the food he had brought. But the poisoned food killed them, leaving three dead men beside the treasure which remained hidden in the cave. The too obvious moral of this story is that greed lurks in caves, deals in death, and doesn't deliver on its promises.[6] C. Ted Turner and Bill Gates No matter how much we have, no matter how generous we may be, no matter what we have in retirement accounts, pensions, insurance policies, burglar alarms, heath care programs, no matter how secure and fixed we may be, there is always someone better off, someone who makes us want more or want to do more. Take the case of poor Ted Turner and Bill Gates. Two years ago Ted Turner, vice chairman of Time Warner, Inc., said he would donate $1 billion to the United Nations over the next ten years. CNN reported that Turner would give $100 million each year for the next ten years. "I'm not poorer than I was nine months ago and the world is a lot better off," he said. The funds would go to children's health and other U. N. programs. Two days later Ted Turner appeared on the Larry King show on, you guessed it, CNN. Turner said, "People love money. It doesn't matter how much you've got, you want more. I mean, look at the ball players, look at Bill Gates, I mean, he feels like he can't get by, you know...but Bill Gates could give...he's given a lot away but I challenged him to give even more, because he's got a whole lot of money. I mean, he can buy and sell both of us and then keep the change." Larry King cut to the commercial saying, "I'm Larry King in New York with poor Ted..." And how rich is Bill Gates, Mr. Richer-than-Ted Turner? On Saturday Night Live Norm MacDonald said that if Attorney General Janet Reno was successful in getting a federal court to fine Bill Gates' company, Microsoft, a million dollars per day for trying to monopolize access to the Internet, Bill Gates will be broke just ten years after the earth crashes into the sun.[7] HOUSES, NOT BARNS In Luke a rich fool tears down barns and builds more. This week the new owner of O. J. Simpson's house at 360 North Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood, the man who paid nearly $4 million, an investment banker named Kenneth Abdalla, sent in bulldozers to reduce it to rubble. The real estate broker, Fred Sands, explained, "The reality is it was somewhat dated, and it was still subpar for a $4 million house." (The bank that foreclosed on it had spent $200,00 on elaborate renovations to make it more attractive.) The realtor continued, "The second-story master suite wasn't what it should be for today's environment." Bring on the bulldozers! 918 North Roxbury Drive was the home for nearly fifty years for Jimmy Stewart, better known to many as George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. Stewart died last summer. This spring the house sold for $5.6 million. The new owner demolished it to make room for a new Italian-style villa, twice as big. "He plans a 12,800-square-foot house with a three-car garage to replace the old 6,300 square-foot house." The New York Times yesterday explained that "In most markets, spending $4 million or $5 million on a dwelling only to demolish it would be unheard of. But in affluent areas like Beverly Hills or Silicon Valley, where land is precious and parcels like the Stewart family's 1.4 -acre plot almost never come on the market, the lure is irresistible." "The twist is that (the new owner) can build so big a house only because more than 30 years ago Mr. Stewart himself doubled the size of his property by buying the house next door and tearing it down to build his beloved garden."[8] AUTHENTIC EXISTENCE In a splendid book on the parables, Peter Rhea Jones, who has spoken in special services here at Woodbrook, says that Luke 12: 13-21 is a parable about inauthentic existence. The rich man is not a bad man because he is rich; he is a fool because he is presumptuous. He presumes foolishly that his planning can control a future he does not necessarily have. Not only is he "a control freak." He also fails to be a good steward of his abundance. "He would rather fill empty barns than empty stomachs...The fortunate farmer, inundated with abundance, acted out an inauthentic existence because he had a wrong notion of the good life, a wrong notion of joy, and a limited notion of the possibilities of abundance...The farmer became a hollow man because he lived as if God did not exist." He was a practical atheist. For all practical purposes he lived as if there was no God.[9] ABUNDANCE/RICH TOWARD GOD It is too easy to go after the farmer, the rich fool; I prefer to go for the positive teaching of the parable. Fred Craddock, professor of preaching and New Testament at Emory University, warns against caricaturing the farmer and robbing the story of its realism. "There is nothing here of graft or theft; there is no mistreatment of workers or any criminal act. Sun, soil, and rain join to make him wealthy. He is careful and conservative. If he is not unjust, what is he? He is a fool...He lives completely for himself, he talks to himself, he plans for himself, he congratulates himself."[10] No, it is too easy to go after the farmer, the rich fool; I prefer to go for the positive teaching of the parable. At the heart of the truth of this text is a great affirmation, found in words from two verses. Let me explain. Jesus in verse 15 speaks of "the abundance of things." The word for "abundance" is perisseuein, a key New Testament word. In contrast to "the abundance of things" Jesus offers the notion of being "rich toward God," the language Jesus uses at the climax of the passage in verse 21. The root of the word rendered "abundance" appears in a positive context in Matthew 5: 20, where Jesus challenges his followers to have exceptional righteousness, a righteousness that exceeds that of the most righteous people of their time, the scribes and pharisees. The great German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazis just days before the end of World War II, wrote extensively of this word in Matthew 5: 20 in his great book on the Sermon on the Mount, The Cost of Discipleship.[11] This root with its meaning of abundance and the exceptional reappears in one of the greatest verses of the Bible, John 10: 10 where Jesus says, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (KJV) The sum total of these verses gives us the key to the life with Jesus. It is a life that has abundance, an overflow of the Spirit, an exceptional quality coming from unity with the source of life and energy, the fountain of love and joy, a life that is rich toward God. CONCLUSION In the play Cyrano de Bergerac, De Guiche says of himself to the beautiful Roxanne: Do you know, when a man wins Everything in this world, when he succeeds Too much - he feels, having done nothing wrong... A thousand small displeasures with himself, Whose whole sum is not quite Remorse, but rather A sort of vague disgust... A rustle of dry illusions, vain regrets.[12]> God deliver you and me from vague disgust with ourselves and the rustle of dry illusions. God grant that we will never be "rich in things and poor in soul."[13] God grant that we will ever be "rich toward God" and in Christ have life and have it more abundantly. So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.[14] [This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission.] Notes: [1] Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George, They Never Said It- A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes and Misleading Authorities [New York: Oxford University Press] 1989, 159 pages [2] Leander E. Keck, New Testament Editor, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XI, "Luke" by R. Alan Culpepper [Nashville: Abingdon Press] 1995, p. 256 [3] Luke 7: 34 (KJV) [4] Keck, op. cit., p. 257 [5] R. Alan Culpepper, Proclamation 3, Pentecost 2, Series C [Philadelphia: Fortress Press] 1986, p. 16 [6] Review and Expositor, Dan R. Stiver, managing editor, Spring 1997, Vol. 94, No. 2, R. Wayne Stacy, "Luke 12: 13-21: The Parable of the Rich Fool," p. 285 [7] Leonard I. Sweet, editor, Homiletics, July-August-September 1998, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 45-46, quoting Yahoo! News - Reuters, September 18, 1997; "Drudge Report," CNN, AP New Alert, September 19, 1997; Norman MacDonald on Saturday Night Live [8] "Once Again, Tinseltown Brings Down the House," by Todd S. Purdum, New York Times, August 1, 1998, p. A8 [9] Peter Rhea Jones, The Teaching of the Parables [Nashville: Broadman Press] 1982, pp. 132-133 [10] Fred B. Craddock, Luke [Louisville: John Knox Press] 1990, p. 163 [11] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, translated by R. H. Fuller [New York: The Macmillan Co.] 1959, pp. 136-138 [12] Edmond Rostand, "Cyrano de Bergerac," Act 5, A Treasury of the Theatre from henrik Ibsen to Arthur Miller, edited by John Gassner [New York: Simon and Schuster] 1952, p. 322 [13] Harry Emerson Fosdick, "God of Grace and God of Glory," Baptist Hymnal, Wesley Forbis, editor [Nashville: Convention Press] 1991, No. 395, stanza three [14] Colossians 3: 1-13 (NRSV) |