Heart Transplant

The more we have, the more we need.

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "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 toward God." - Luke 12:13-21

When Jesus is asked to arbitrate in a family dispute over an inheritance, he tells the man not to be greedy, but then he offers a parable that isn't so much about greed, but security.  At least that is the way we might see it.

So much of the public discourse today is about security, from identity theft to social security, we all want to know that what we have built will be there for us when we need it, in the future.

But as Jesus points out, the future is a wish, not a guarantee.  None of us has a lock on it, and it may not be ours to celebrate when it arrives.

So should we not worry about the future?  Should we just wait and see what happens if we wind up outliving our means?

In Jesus' day, the institution that was supposed to take care of the needy with money donated by the congregation was The Temple, and it failed to do that job, so he would not be a proponent of institutionalized social welfare.  He expected all of us to share out of love for one another, not out of greed or the desire to get for ourselves.

But how do you legislate that?

How do you pass a law that tells people they must help one another?

That's the thing.  In God's Kingdom, you don't need a law to do that; it happens automatically, from the heart.

So, I guess we all need a heart transplant. 

We need to put our faith to work helping one another directly, without the middleman.  Do you think we can do that?

Some do.  And it works.

More to come...