Sermon: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

A Sermon written for the people of God at The Church at Highland Park, Austin, Texas

August 3, 2025

Luke 12:13-21

Have you walked through a clothing store recently, specifically stores like H&M or Zara, or scrolled websites like Shein or Temu? These stores are filled with cute, trendy clothes that are irresistibly cheap in price.  It’s hard NOT to throw it in your cart. A shirt for $9? Heck yah! How about 2? Shein has thousands of pieces to sort through. And when you come back next week, the inventory has completely changed and you have an exciting new selection of clothing to choose from.   

Up until the mid-twentieth century, brands created fashion collections for four seasons- fall, winter, spring and summer, planning way in advance to predict what consumers would want.  Inventory would sit on shelves for weeks and when they were sold, they weren’t replenished with something new. We had to wait until the next season.

Now we see the “fast fashion” industry dominating the market with their model of design and manufacturing of large amounts of clothing using lower-quality materials in an incredibly fast manner.   “Fast fashion” brands create new clothing collections each week, with 52 “micro-seasons” a year.  This is why you see such a quick turn over in stores, with new products appearing weekly. We don’t have to wait for something new.

The result- clothing made with reduced quality due to the rushed production and cheaper materials, human rights violations due to the working conditions in overseas factories, and extraordinary waste.

100 billion clothing garments are produced each year and it’s estimated that 92 million tons are discarded yearly where they sit in landfills, breaking down at very slow rates. Toxic chemicals leach into the soil and microplastics pollute the water. These garments are often produced using chemicals, dyes, and pesticides that pollute the local water supply and air quality of already vulnerable and poor workers in countries across China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia. Many of the garments are made with PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, which are known to cause cancer and have negative health effects. And the industry is contributing to an already disastrous environmental problem with emissions increasing exponentially. 

American are falling prey to overconsumption because it’s hard to escape the overconsumption loop. It’s not entirely our fault either.  We are bombarded with well-crafted marketing ads meant to exploit our emotions by creating a sense of urgency within us to purchase things we don’t always need. Just think about the sheer amount of advertisements you see in a day. Billboards on the highway, posters on buses, attractive ads every other story on instagram, commercials on tv (or whatever streaming services you use), the annoying video ads that pop up on a food blog while you’re trying to scroll down past the author’s story about her trip to Greece to find the recipe. Advertisers have found every way possible to push their products into your subconscious.  We are manipulated into believing false truths- that we need more, better; that we need the newest, greatest, flashy thing- or else we will be seen as behind the trends, or less than, or fill in the blank with whatever falsities you might be tempted to believe. Enough just never feels like enough.  We always want more.

It’s likely that our garages and closets are a testimonial for this. Packed full of stuff, we need to build a storage shed in the backyard to store more things, or rent a storage unit to store things we just “can’t live without”. When we are surrounded by abundance… I mean, we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we can easily be tempted by the lure of more…the allure of greed. And we can be made to feel like our greed is rational, even virtuous, especially in a capitalist system that conditions us to believe that acquiring wealth equates to success.

Jesus warns of our human propensity for greed and our anxiety about the future in this cutting interaction with a local farmer. Jesus is with his disciples and they have a crowd following them as usual.  A man interrupts Jesus, asking him to intervene in a family inheritance dispute. He asks Jesus to demand his brother split the inheritance with him.  We know from the law in Deuteronomy, that Judaic inheritance practices typically favor the older brother, with the older getting two-thirds of the estate and the younger getting one-third. It may be possible that this man is the younger brother, set to get less than his sibling, and seeks Jesus’ help to win a more favorable lot. 

Jesus side-steps the farmer’s initial request for help with his family matter. It is not his role to be a mediator for family disputes. Instead, Jesus responds indirectly and we are let in to the deepest parts of the farmer’s heart.  Just a few verses earlier, Jesus proclaims “nothing is hidden that won’t be revealed, and nothing is secret that won’t be brought into the open.”  This will prove to be true, because Jesus knows the heart of the farmer, and instead of responding to the family dispute, Jesus shares the farmer’s inner monologue as a parable and warning to us all. 

Jesus calls to light the problem occurring within the heart of this farmer. We learn that the farmer has benefited from a bounty that exceeded what he expected, and instead of finding ways to share what he can’t use, he makes a plan to store more stuff that will rot and attract varmint before he can even use it. And at the same time, he is obsessed with the details of the inheritance check.  He is so blinded by desire for a more secure future that his greed becomes a symbol of waste and recklessness. He believes his wealth will secure his future, and all he wants to do now is sit back and enjoy the bounty. Eat. Drink. And be merry, right?

This parable is likely to make modern American Christians squirm. In our climate of financial insecurity, inflation, and rising costs, what harm is it to squirrel away resources to save for future needs, say…retirement, and college funds, and home repairs? We may not need to hoard toilet paper anymore, but is it wrong to be prepared for uncertainty by stocking up? Is Jesus condemning responsible financial planning and stewardship? Absolutely not. It would be irresponsible to do the opposite and squander resources as a response to this parable warning against greed.

The problem comes not with the quantity of our wealth but the obsession of getting more at the expense of our souls. The problem occurs when the accumulation of money becomes the goal, rather than stewardship, justice, or compassion.  The problem occurs when our hearts are hardened at the thought of giving to someone in need standing on the street corner in fear that they might misuse the funds for booze. The problem occurs when we treat the rich like gods, holding their lives as divine examples to follow. The problem occurs when we idolize material things over our spiritual health. The problem occurs when we wrongly think that hitting “add to cart” will cure our loneliness and lack of connection to others. The problem occurs when our wealth is our only source of meaning, significance, and joy.

We have to do the hard heart work to analyze our deepest desires and priorities. What do I care about the most? Be honest. The answer to that question may surprise you..and if you don’t like the answer, you may find Jesus’s words stinging your ears as much as it did for the farmer.  We don’t like to be called out for wanting what the world wants. Wealth is sexy, and exciting, and thrilling, and gives you a hit of adrenaline. But it quickly wears of. It promises more than it can deliver. It breeds isolation and it makes you a prisoner of “more.” Worse, it can make you feel like you don’t need God. 

This is where the farmer ended up- benefiting from the blessings of God without any acknowledgment of God’s provisions. His heart was seduced by the taste of success and he slipped into it’s trap. He is rich, but he is not rich in God. 

More cryptic words from Jesus- being rich in God. What does that mean? We can look throughout Luke’s gospel at Jesus’ teachings to get an idea.  

Being rich in God is about our relationships with others. Just take the story of the Good Samaritan. An injured person was in need and an unlikely helper provided care. He benefitted nothing from helping, but did so with a generous heart. It cost him time and money, but he was not deterred.  We can be rich in God in the ways that we sacrifice our time to help a friend through a crisis, the way we sit with others when they are in pain, or the ways we give of our resources to someone who has a need.

Being rich in God means shifting our idea of what it means to be wealthy, away from the accumulation of more stuff and the padding of our bank account balance, towards life in community.  And what a better place to experience community than right here, in this place. You church community is a place of mutual care, love, and respect. The relationships you build here carry you throughout the ups and downs of life. They are built over time- over potlucks, coffees, small group bibles studies, retreats, youth camps, and even the sharing of memes on the internet. This church offers something the world struggles to do- provides opportunities for true connection with vulnerability and love. I mean, why else do you continue to show up each week? 

We learn from the story of Mary and Martha that sometimes the right thing to do is to set aside our busy tasks for a moment, sit in the quiet, and focus on the words of Jesus. Caring for our soul gives us the energy we need to do the tasks required of us.How are you like Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening intently, hanging on every word? How are you developing your spiritual life? Are you engaging in meditation or silence or practicing lectio divina, observing sabbath, reading scripture, or writing in a prayer journal? In what ways are you doing the work to develop your soul so you can be equipped to do the work of justice Jesus is calling us to do? Are you missing the big picture because you are distracted by the race for more wealth, more stuff?

The way of Jesus is a way forward.  A way towards freedom from the anxiety of always needing more. Freedom from the myth that wealth equals worth. Freedom to live simply, love generously, and trust deeply. 

So start small. Give something away this week. Donate money to an organization on the front lines of care. Increase your tithe to the church. Say no to something shiny that won't satisfy. You don’t need more stuff.  Choose presence over performance. Choose to show up for a friend in need.

Be rich in God. The world doesn’t need more clutter. It needs more people who live like Jesus is enough. Amen.