Danger: Soul Under Pressure, Luke 12:13-21, Pentecost 11-C, 8/4/13
If we had the time and the technology you might be seeing a movie instead of hearing me preach
this morning. Good sermons communicate the essence of a text in vivid, fresh, contemporary
images. So I might show you a few clips from The Return of the King the second in J R R
Tolkien’s great Lord of the Rings Trilogy, specifically its portrayal of how Smeagol became
Gollum.
Some of you immediately understand this reference, and the rest have no idea what I’m talking
about…So, have many of you have read the Lord of the Rings…How many of seen the movies?...
You who are in the know will have to be patient for a minute or two while I bring everybody else
up to speed.
The Lord of the Rings is an epic story of good versus evil, of courage and loyalty against all
odds. The focus of the plot is a quest, by a coalition of dwarves, elves, a wizard, humans, and
hobbits, to destroy a magical gold ring. The ring has tremendous power, but it also corrupts
whoever possesses it. Sam and Frodo are the two hobbits who bear the burden of carrying the
ring. Due to a series of complicated events they are forced to travel with Gollum a creature both
pitiful and dangerous. Gollum is a small, pale beast with sharp, filed teeth. He is alternately
cowering and malicious—and certainly a bit insane. He is a wrecked specimen with the wasted
appearance of a concentration camp survivor. Gollum lives for one thing, to somehow possess
the gold ring which Frodo carries. He constantly mumbling to himself, “My precious, my
precious, must have my precious.”
For much of the trilogy we know little about Gollum’s history, but finally we learn that he used
to be Smeagol, a gentle Hobbit much like Sam and Frodo. His sad decline began the day he and
a friend found the ring on a fishing trip, a stroke of wonderful fortune. But soon the ring’s
malicious power makes Smealgol greedy and paranoid, until he murders his friend. Smeagol
ultimately loses the ring himself, but not before it has, like radioactive waste, destroyed his mind
and body and turned him into Gollum. Greed and the power of gold warp him into a monster.
Tolkien’s novel runs over a thousand pages. Jesus makes the point in a few verses.
A man comes to Jesus asking him to play mediator in a land dispute. Jesus decides that the issue
is not equity, but the man’s greed, so he tells him a story: There once was a man whose farm had
a super year. The weather was perfect, the insect damage minimal, giving him a problem most
farmers would kill for. He did not have enough storage space. He had several options, but he
chose to hoard the bumper crop and enjoy life. He decided to wine, dine, recline, and shine. He
had big plans, says Jesus, but then reality intrudes. “You idiot, says God, “this very night I want
an accounting of how you’ve spent the one life I’ve given you. Is it really so important to have
bigger barns that you aren’t going to need.”
Parables such as this one often have multiple layers of meaning and several possible
interpretations. We can read this text as a simple reminder that there are no pockets in a shroud,
that you can’t take it with you. The writer of Ecclesiastes sounds this note of conventional
wisdom in our first lesson. There is a certain, grim absurdity, he says, in spending all your
energy in trying to accumulate bigger and bigger piles of stuff:
“I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who
come after me—and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish.” On one level this parable
is a simple cautionary tale: It’s dumb to sacrifice health, family, and reputation for something
which is no more enduring than a smoke in a hurricane. That is a teaching worth pondering, but
I think Jesus is saying more than that. It is not just what will happen in the future which should
concern us; it’s what is happening right now.
Clarence Jordan, author of the Cotton Patch translation of the New Testament, renders God’s
words at the climax of the story this way, “You nit wit, at this very moment your goods are
putting the screws on your soul.” “Putting the screws on your soul,” that is such picturesque
image. It comes to us from medieval torture chambers where thumbscrews were used to coerce
confessions. You slowly turned the screw creating increasing pain until it crushed the joint and
left it mangled and useless.
We don’t usually think of riches in that way, but that is precisely Jesus’ point. If we are not
careful the longing for more and more begins press us down, to distort us, mangling our hearts,
deadening our consciences, and cramping our spirits. We become like Tolkien’s character,
Gollum, obsessed and turned inward, more worried about what we might lose than in using our
resources wisely. And that is the farmer’s real problem; he does not USE the bounty well.
We usually call this story the parable of the rich fool. It is critical for us to understand that the
emphasis is on fool rather than rich. The farmer’s problem is not that he has a lot of wealth but
that he is a fool. Given the abundance of his harvest he has several options: he can leave it to rot
in the fields—simply ignoring his bounty. He can sell it off and blow the proceeds on a
monstrous party—foolish indeed. He could share it with his less fortunate neighbors. He does
none of these. He chooses to hoard it, because his soul has become cramped and inbred. He has
an “I” problem which keeps him from seeing well.
The great playwright George Bernard Shaw was once greeted by his hostess at a dinner party,
“Mr. Shaw, I hope you will make yourself at home and enjoy yourself.” Shaw cast a jaundiced
gaze over the room and replied, “Madam, at this party that is the only one I will enjoy.” Here is
a man who is clearly focused on himself, and that is the rich farmer’s problem—he sees no
further than his own interests.
Read this story slowly and you will notice that it is dominated by the first person. Me, my, I—in
his mind its all about him: “My crops,..my barns,..I’ll say to my soul”. Blessed with much it
never occurs to him to think about God—who provided it—nor his less fortunate neighbor—
whose pain he could ease. Listen carefully and you can hear him mumbling, “My precious, my
precious, how can I protect my precious.”
The real point of today’s gospel is not merely that we ought to share—though that is indeed at
the heart of the Bible’s vision of mercy and what it means to love God. No, it’s a warning of
what happens if we let pursuit of material goods put the screws on our soul: we go blind, we
lose the joy of connections with other people, we miss out on the satisfaction of making a
difference in another’s life.
There is nothing in this text, I think, which says we should not make prudent provision for
genuine needs in the future. But it does invite us to honestly ask whether we are using our
money or it is using us, whether it is serving us or we are serving its accumulation.
Think about the most joyful person you have ever known. I am willing to bet he or she was also
one of the most generous. These are people who both make a difference for good and know
where true happiness is found. These are the people who have expansive lives, filled with
meaningful relationship with both God and others. In short, these are people who, unlike
Gollum, know what is truly precious.