I once heard a comedian say that every morning he reads the Times in bed.  He hurriedly turns to the obituaries, and if he’s not in them he gets up.  Well, last week I read an amazing and true story of someone opening the morning paper and finding himself in the obituaries.  You’ve all heard of him, too.  Alfred Nobel, the Swedish scientist whose name bears the annual prizes for physics, chemistry, literature, medicine, economics, and (most notable of all) peace.  In his day Nobel was one of the richest men in the world.  It goes without saying that he was more than a little intelligent, and after studying in Paris and then in the US he returned to Sweden and began to tinker in his laboratory, inventing one or two things, but nothing of any significance.  That changed in the 1860s, however, when Nobel began to conduct experiments with nitro-glycerine. Tragically, one experiment produced a serious explosion, killing Alfred's younger brother.  Nobel was crushed, but the tragedy led him to find a way to harness the energy of nitro-glycerine and turn it into something really useful.  He had accidentally invented dynamite.  Well inevitably, orders from railroad and mining companies poured into Nobel’s laboratories, making him a very rich man.  And, also from the militaries of the world, who could use his invention in bombs and missiles and weapons of terrible destruction.

And then, that morning in question dawned and Nobel’s peace was rudely shattered.  He opened his newspaper to read the headline, "Dynamite King Dies."  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the error.  But pretty sure that he was still breathing, he decided to read his obituary to discover what people would think of him after his death. Besides all the normal facts and dates of an obituary, Nobel read this:  "the merchant of death is dead."  He had, the paper said, "become rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before".  In horror Nobel realized at that moment that he had abused the gifts he had been given; he had forgotten about others and God in his lust for wealth.  

Something needed to be done to correct this attitude before he really died.  How could his money be put to something positive?  Among other things he decided to change his will and left his vast fortune in trust to a committee which each year would select people who had made positive contributions to humankind. So, in 1901, five years after his death, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded.

Not everyone is as fortunate as Alfred Nobel to get a glimpse of how the world will judge us after we’ve died and have a chance to do something about it.  The rich man in Jesus’ parable didn’t get that second chance.  Like Nobel, he had lots of money, and like Nobel he used it for his own comfort without thought for God or humans.  Unlike Nobel he really did die in his pride and greed.  He had a plan.  He was shrewd.  He had savvy.  But he also had a death sentence from which he could not escape.

Having that sort of wealth is everyone’s dream isn’t it?  To win the lottery, or maybe to make a shrewd business deal, or to receive a letter out of the blue which informs them that their millionaire great aunt whom they never even knew has died and left everything to them.  But when we hear the words of Jesus in today’s gospel reading our thinking is challenged and we kind of think ‘ah... I wonder whether having loads of money is actually good for me’.  And the answer we would probably give ourselves is, ‘well when you look at it like Jesus did wealth and material comfort are dangerous things and acquiring them should not be the goal in life.’

Now of course, having enough money to care for yourself and your dependants and make sure you have everything you genuinely need in life is right and proper.  Jesus nowhere commands his disciples to starve themselves or their families.  The reality is that each of us is called by God to perform certain tasks in life – and if they are callings from God then we need certain things in order to fulfil those callings.  For example if God has called you to work in Grand Rapids then you need a good reliable car.  If God has called you to parenthood then you need to live near a school.  If God has called you to a demanding, challenging job then you need proper vacations away from it all.  And these things are needs, not just wishes; and it’s absolutely God’s will that we have the resources we need to carry out the various callings which he has placed on our lives.  So Jesus is not saying “don’t have money”.  His real point is this: having money is dangerous.  It’s why he said ‘blessed are the poor’ and not ‘blessed are the wealthy’ because he knew how dangerous money can be.  And that means materially comfortable Western Christians live in dangerous waters.  We really do.  Money and the stuff it buys have an extraordinary power to contaminate us.  Having money can be a huge distraction to us.  It can seriously mess up our priorities and our standing with God.  The problem is we can be seduced by material possessions and the thing which promises to make life better, easier, more comfortable, and happier, ends up bringing more problems with it than those it promises to answer.  The seduction of money and the things it buys.  Is there anything you and I face each day that is more powerful than that?  Well, yes there is – the love and grace of God.

The story goes of a rich man who lived a miserable life.  One day he visited a rabbi.  The rabbi took the rich man by the hand and led him to a window.  “Look out there and tell me what you see” he said.  The rich man looked into the street. “I see men, women, and children” answered the rich man.  Again the rabbi took him by the hand and this time led him to a mirror. “Now what to do see?” “Now I see myself”, responded the rich man.  Then the rabbi said, “Now in the window there is glass, and in the mirror there is glass.  But the glass in the mirror is covered with a little silver, and no sooner is the silver added than you cease to see others, and you only see yourself.”

Or if you prefer it from Jack Benny, he once did a skit in which he was walking along the street, when an armed robber approached him and ordered, “Your money or your life!” There was a long pause and Benny said nothing.  The robber asked, “Well?”  Benny replied, “Don’t rush me I’m thinking!”

You see Jesus saw that money and the things it can buy can deprive us of who we are.  It can rob us of our time, our energy, our peace, our contentment, our relationship with God and our relationship with other people.  We’re told by western culture that we need lots of stuff to be complete.  So we work, we earn, we buy.  Like the ‘bigger barn’ guy in the parable we get a sense of contentment.  But it soon wears off, so we think that having a bit more will do the trick.  So we work harder to earn even more, but that’s not enough either.  And we keep saying to ourselves ‘if only I had a little bit more then I’d be happy, then I’ll have enough.’ How much is enough?  Always a little bit more.  Ross Perot the billionaire former US presidential candidate understands this, ‘Guys, just remember, if you get lucky, if you make a lot of money, if you get out and buy a lot of stuff – It’s gonna break.  You got your biggest, fanciest mansion in the world.  It has air conditioning.  It’s got a pool.  Just think of all the pumps that are going to go out.  Or go to a yacht basin any place in the world.  Nobody is smiling, and I’ll tell you why.  Something broke that morning.  The generator’s out; the microwave oven doesn’t work... Things just don’t mean happiness.’

It is to the discredit of the US that we are a nation of bigger barn builders.  In the Bible study group last week we were talking a bit about fear, and how that emotion is so common these days.  We fear the future, so we try to build bigger barns.  We invest in order to accumulate wealth for our futures.  We get insurance because we fear that we might lose our possessions or our health.  We make financial plans for our retirement.  And before we know what has happened to us we make the mistake of thinking that we masters of our own destiny.  But of course we aren’t.  God is.  We can think that the purpose of the money which has our name on it is to bless us, make us comfortable, give us luxury.  But the simple fact is that we don’t own anything.  The Scriptures are clear that we are merely stewards charged with the task of managing God’s money.  We don’t actually own it ourselves.  We must allow that truth to determine how we use the money sitting in our bank account and the possessions which appear to be ours.

So would Jesus say to us that we should not plan for the future?  No, he would not say that.  Saving for your retirement is not necessarily building bigger barns.  The clue to what Jesus would say to us is in the final sentence of the gospel reading.  The bigger barns man dies and Jesus says ‘so it will be with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God’.  In other words it wasn’t saving for a rainy day that separated the bigger barn guy from God.   It was the attitude of his heart.  He was guilty of pride in his own achievements – he thought he deserved a good life because of his own hard work.  And he was guilty of hoarding it for himself.  He was not relying on God’s grace, but on his achievements and prudence.  He was not rich towards God.  Consider all your money and possessions as God’s and consult him about how he would like them used.  He may surprise you.  He may say – have a vacation; buy some new furniture, trade in your old car.  He might – because he might see that you need those things.  But he might also say – give, show hospitality, bless those in need.  The key is – whose stuff is it anyway – Mine or God’s?

The bigger barn guy lost his perspective, and he lost his life.  Money can do that to us.  Let me finish with the story of how money can corrupt us and steal our lives.  It’s the story of a man who loved gold.  As it happens he inherited a fortune and with joy he redecorated his bedroom.  He put up gold parchment wallpaper, hung gold coloured curtains, had a golden coloured rug and a yellow bedspread.  He even bought some yellow pyjamas.  But then he got sick and came down with, of all things, jaundice.  His wife called the doctor who made a house call and went up to examine the man in his bedroom.  The doctor was up there for what seemed like an eternity, and when he finally came down, the wife asked, “How is he?” “I don’t know,” said the doctor.  “I couldn’t find him.”  Let us remember who we are.  We are God’s chosen, his beloved, his children.  What a travesty when we behave as if we were less than that.  And that is what we do when we give up our lives to material things.