This sermon was preached for Sunday, July 31 at St. Mark's in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were: Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24, Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16, and Luke 12:32-40.
My first year of seminary, my classmates and I decided we wanted to celebrate Maundy Thursday in our own creative way. We settled on cooking a huge meal - a giant vat of chili - and bringing it out into the streets of our city to feed unhoused and street folks we encountered. What better way to honor the Last Supper than sharing our Agape Feast with our neighbors? And we really did go out into the spring nightair with a literal bucket filled with chili and a ladle and some plastic clamshells donated from a local shop. We made our way down the hill to People’s Park in downtown Berkeley moving from group to group of gathered folks who were just settling down for the night. By the time we made it around to the other side of the park however, we were amazed to discover that some of our chili had beaten us there. Some of the people had taken their meal, thanked us, split it, and shared it with the friends who they knew needed it even more. When they came into an unexpected blessing, their first instinct was to share.
When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.
From a financial planning perspective, the man in Jesus’ parable is prudent and wise with his unexpected surplus of his crops. He invests in more capital to store it for the future, enabling good times today to mean good times for many years to come. Yet God calls him a fool.
The man’s foolishness is not in what he does and says so much as in what he does not do. It’s not about poor timing. It’s that he does not consider that the abundance of his fields springs from the hard work of others - the planters and harvesters, his employees - and the blessings of God. He forgets to think of who might be in need of the extra grain. There is no mention or consideration of others in his thoughts or actions at all - only himself, as if he is the only person in the world. Upon his untimely death, God asks, “And those things you have prepared, whose will they be?” But the man has not invested in any relationships. Only in himself.
What does a good life mean to you? So much of our culture and society would urge us to believe that living a good life is relaxing, eating, drinking, and being merry, especially if those comforts spring from hard work and wise planning.
Jesus calls us to more. Your life, Jesus warns, does not consist in the abundance of possessions. A good life is a life that is rich toward God. A good life is defined by connection, meaning, and service. It begins from gratitude and the recognition that the blessings of this life are not solely ours. This parable asks us to consider: What is our response to abundance and blessing? Is it to build bigger barns and higher fences? Is it to protect ourselves and our future first? Or is it to reach out to share our blessings with others? Do we use the life and the gifts we have for connection, meaning, and service?
When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence. For what does relaxing, eating, drinking and being merry mean if it is not shared? God would have those things done around a long table, with chairs enough for all to be invited.
Cyrus Kano, my husband’s grandfather and my son’s middle namesake, epitomized this way of living - building longer tables rather than higher fences. He was constantly finding ways to give out of his abundance, and not just his possessions or wealth. Cyrus used his extraordinary car repair skills to help stranded motorists, replacing spark plugs right there on the side of the road in the rain. He lent out his carpentry skills wherever possible, in the homes of friends and families, and by volunteering for Habitat for Humanity for decades. To the consternation of his children, Grandpa Cy was up on ladders fixing what needed fixing well into his eighties.
On top of all of this, Cyrus literally built a longer table. It’s quite a magical table, actually. It has five handmade leaves that expand a small square table for four out into a stretch of hardwood long enough to seat at least 14, 16 if you really like each other. This table served my mother-in-law and her siblings throughout their childhood and was passed on to Aaron and me at the beginning of our marriage. It’s been a key part of hosting joyful and packed Thanksgivings and Passovers, family dinners, and friend reunions at our apartments. Over the years, it’s become a symbol, a reminder, of the Kano commitment to share the blessings we receive. Our inheritance is more than an object, it is a value. It is the perpetual and everlasting love of a kind man and the good life he inspires us to live.
Today’s parable is told in response to the demand that Jesus arbitrate an inheritance dispute between two disgruntled brothers. So we can hear in this parable, too, the question of what a good life leaves behind in its wake. A good life lived for connection, meaning, and service aims to leave behind strong communities and loving relationships - a legacy built of more than wealth and possessions. That’s why I am grateful for how many funerals this job requires me to attend. Each memorial service, each eulogy serves as a poignant reminder that in the end the people that matter most will remember us best for how we loved - the relationships we built and the blessings we shared.
The fact that we stand here today, gathered around this table, is due to the interwoven legacies of generations of believers who came before us. Folks who shared what blessings they had, folks who invested in relationship, in community, so that we, too, might strive for lives defined by connection, meaning and service.
May we never forget that this table is just a small section of the longest, most welcoming table in the world.
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| Grandpa Cy with his granddaughter at my wedding. |
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