What is Really Foolish?

True confessions…When I was in my 20’s I loved getting pumped by the music of Madonna – and I don’t mean lovely Mary, mother of Jesus…no, I mean Madonna…You know, the one who broke all the rules about what it meant to be a nice girl. 

I found out this week that Madonna was originally from Michigan and her birth name was Louise Ciccone.  A Presbyterian minister by the name of Michael L. Lindvall remembers her as one of the “talented little girls who sang and danced in the Christmas pageant-on-steroids that was held annually at one of the churches he served.”

One of Madonna’s best known songs from the late 1980’s was, “I Am a Material Girl”.  “I am a material girl and I live in a material world…” were the first words written to a funky beat.  It sang like a song of rebellion from a child who was most likely discouraged from such thinking.  Her honesty was bold and disturbing at the same time, and for a young woman like myself on the verge of full-time ministry, it challenged me to consider who I was.

By the time I finished seminary I had $10,000 in debt in school loans and credit cards accounts that were way too high for someone going into parish ministry.  I did not carry discomfort about my graduate school debt, but I most certainly felt strangled by the credit cards.  They controlled me more than I controlled them.

Yes, I was a material girl and yes, I was going into parish ministry. 

There was a definite disconnect.

Without sharing all the gory details of my credit card struggles, let’s just say that eventually I got that straightened out and I look back at those years with a greater understanding of the hole that was in me that I kept trying to fill. 

We do live in a material world and in many ways that can be a good thing; an enjoyable and life-giving reality!  Money or wealth is not bad, but it is not our salvation – or purpose – our replacement for God.  It is not the answer to security or our fear of insecurity.

Neither the parable of the rich fool in Luke or the beautiful lament from the prophet Hosea is meant to announce the reality of our material world as bad nor empty of God.  But they are most certainly bold reminders of keeping perspective on its value or purpose.

Hosea is written as if it is a lament from God’s own heart – God has been forgotten by God’s people.  Their fears have led them away from God towards a human King and other gods that have promised them military and economic security even if it is a return to some form of slavery.

In Hosea, God sounds like a parent who wants to pull out the baby books and remind the Israelites of their early days and how God has loved and guided them.

In Hosea 11:3-4 reads –

“Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.  I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.  I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.  I bent down to them and fed them.”

God does not want them to turn their backs on their relationship.

But as humans, we recognize how easy it is to turn our backs on relationships when we are angry or afraid.

In the reading of Luke we are told that Jesus is speaking to a crowd when someone cries out to him to settle an argument between him and his brother about their inheritance.  The person in the crowd that cried out was most likely a younger brother who knew he was bound to get less than his older one. 

Like other good Rabbi’s had done, this man was hoping that Jesus would step in and express an opinion so he could have ammunition to argue with his older brother about equality.

It is then that Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool.

If you study the parable closely you can see that the man is not a fool because he is rich, he is a fool because he has lost sight of relationship with anyone, maybe even himself.  He doesn’t even seem to recognize the relationship he shares with the land that gave him so many bumper crops!

The purpose of this parable is not to criticize wealth - it is Jesus way of reminding the younger brother in the crowd to not lose sight of the relationship he has with his brother.

“Please”, Jesus is saying without saying it, “Don’t let your concern over money negate the relationship you share with your brother.”

(Remember the story of the Prodigal Son?  It is a bit like this one, isn’t it?)

I have no doubt that among us are stories about how issues of money or property have hurt or even broken close relationships with family or friends.  Perhaps this parable or the lament in Hosea hits a little too close to home. 

Many of us know on a very personal level that our material world can foster relationships as easily as it can break them.  When our sense of security or fairness is threatened – we can lose perspective on everything else.  Death, divorce, unemployment, retirement, unexpected illness – they can reek havoc with otherwise peaceful relationships.

Jesus’ stories and way of living pushes and challenges each of us to search for what I like to call “the higher ground” of justice and reconciliation whenever possible.

Relationships are our lifeline – Greed of any kind can break them, greed for more…greed for money, for security, for control.

Time and again Jesus challenges us to search for the higher ground.

We are not fools because we live in the material world.  We are fools when we lose perspective on what the material world can and cannot provide us. 

The bottom line is that we are in relationship and relationship is our lifeline.  I don’t mean simply married couples or partners, or families with 2.5 children and a dog.  I mean we are in relationship with creation, with the air we breathe and the God we love.  We are in relationship with other nations and with the sea we pollute and the animals and plants we eat.

When the material world breaks down our lifeline – when it breaks down relationship – then it is no longer in line with God’s larger purpose.

Money or wealth is not bad, but it is not our salvation – or purpose – our replacement for God.  It is not the answer to security or our fear of insecurity; it can take the form of a tool, a weapon or a wall. 

It seems to me that Jesus and Hosea are telling us that that really depends on all of us.

The so called rich fool in the parable was a fool only because he had thought he could fill the unfilled place in his soul with more money and bigger barns – it became a wall which kept him from reaching or being reached. 

We need not deny the reality of our material world or turn away from Jesus because you think he wants us to sell everything and live with the poor.  But we are most certainly being challenged to claim the truth of our material world, bless it and transform it so that it does not become our god, the god of our country or the god of our planet.

A time of silence.