Luke 12:13-21 7-31-2022 (As Built, Amite #505)
- Renters… passing through… no ownership…
- My brothers and sisters in Christ I think it was the nineteen forties… John is a New York boy… he’s a queens New York boy… and if you were to talk to John he would tell you… I had great parents… my dad was an attorney… my mom was the quintessential mom… can do will do… and I had two brothers… both of them went to med school… High school and grammar school pretty much uneventful… he said when I get out I decide I’m going to wake forest and he says my brothers decide that they want to go to med school… but the war breaks out… and he said man it's just chaos… he said everybody in the day… the war… we all left… he said after the war he said I come back… my brother is struggling his health is… he can’t quite finish med school… so as a result… John decides… look I’ll go to school in Ireland where you’re staying…I’ll go to Dublin… because you got to remember John is very catholic and so is his family… so at the time was Dublin... so as a result he goes to school there... helps his bother... but things are tight... between going to school... trying to make money… help his brother… pay the tuition… he’s got to get like a secondary job… so he does… he works in a play called Ulysses… and then he says man… this is… this is pretty good… well he gets his brother through med school… he comes back to the United Sates and says man I’m going to go get a masters of all things in speech…and I got to tell you… if you saw him you’d say… he got a masters in speech because of the roles that he plays… and here’s the irony… he gets bit parts right… Gunsmoke… which I think half the world must have gone through Gunsmoke… and he gets a bit part… and he gets another one called a man from uncle… he gets in another Doctor Kildare… and then all of a sudden man the world starts spinning his way… and man he starts to think man I got this… and then all of a sudden trouble hits… he tries out for the skipper on Gilligan’s Island… and he doesn’t get it… and then he tries out for doctor Smith… I don’t know if you remember the show lost in space… he doesn’t get that either… next thing you know he’s on his heels… next thing you know Clint Eastwood throws him a bone… and gets him in Kelly’s hero’s… okay anyway for the three people who just got it… okay I digress… as a result of it man he does that… and next thing you know it’s bits and pieces along the way… he get’s mad about you with Helen Hunt… and next thing you know the big break for him… comes when he goes back to a sitcom in queens New York… he plays a guy who’s vocabulary can’t be any greater then maybe four letter words… his wife quote is an airhead… his son-in-law is a meathead… oh please… thank you Lord… Carroll O’Connor heat of the night… God bless y’all… because it was a mercy killing the night before okay let me tell you… my brothers and sisters in Christ you know what’s amazing… is that his family always told him… Carroll or John if you will… be careful… you’re just a renter… so no matter how good you think you got it there will be a day that will come that you do not… he never forgot that… and neither should you and I…
- That’s that Gospel… the Good Lord goes to the rich man and says you fool… tonight I come for you… you’re planning on bigger things… you will not even see the sunset… much less it rise… my brothers and sisters in Christ I need you to stop for a minute… I need you to think… let’s go back… you’re a first century Jew… so as a result of it you get to see life a little differently… remember Christ is Jew… is mother is Jewish… his stepfather if you will is Jewish… their parents are Jewish… he’s circumcised as a Jew… he’s crucified as a Jew… he’s Jewish… he starts the catholic faith… at the last supper when he says there is a new covenant… no longer a lamb… but the new Lamb of God… so my brothers and sisters in Christ I tell you these things because you need to understand where they are… pride is the table setter for all seven deadly sins… pride… anger… gluttony… lust… adverse… sloth… and envy… he's warning the man that your pride … therefore the greed that has taken over… vanity of vanity will lead to other deadly sins… and what was he getting caught up in… he’s going to rest… he’s going to become slothful… he’s going to start drinking and be merry… so now he’s going to be an alcoholic… and a drunk… my brothers and sisters in Christ one deadly sin leads to another… how do you get from venial to mortal… it’s one of the seven deadly sins… my brothers and sisters in Christ you know what’s amazing… he spent very little time with the person that wanted to negotiate the settlement of his inheritance… nothing’s changed in two thousand years… my brothers and sisters in Christ listen to what I’m telling you… he goes to Christ to argue the book of Deuteronomy… is called the book of laws… rules… you think Catholics have rules… don’t be a Jew… they’re over six hundred rules in their world… not counting the big ten... my brothers and sisters in Christ he’s saying look… don’t come to me about that issue… the book of Deuteronomy already spells it out… if you’re married outside your faith… or your nationality… you married to a Samaritan… there’s one set of rules… if your wife is still living there’s one… if it’s just your children there’s another… and as a matter of fact if neither one of them are around you got to give it to your brothers… that’s between you and them… it’s totally irrelevant… as it should be for you and I… because you’re a renter… what difference does it make… it wasn’t theirs… it won’t be yours… and at the end of the day it won’t be to the people that you leave it to…
- My brothers and sisters in Christ go back in scripture… our best players learned that they are nothing more than renters… but they learned it early in life… they didn’t wait so long for It to come along… think about it… man you’re Peter… you’re married… you got boats… you’re living on the sea of Galilee… you’ve got a business… you got to move… you immediately walk away from your nets… he knows right then… man I’m convicted… I’m a renter… because if I leave… who do I leave it to… even if I had children… which we don’t believe he did… then who do I give it to… matter of fact who gave it to me… My brothers and sisters in Christ Peter realize it… what about James and John… can you imagine what it was like in their life… their father is so upset… that James and John have left to follow Christ... man they got boats… they’ve got nets… where are you going… and then when they realize that he’s following the messiah… do you know according to tradition their dad had a long time before he got nice back to Christ… he just simply refused to acknowledge the fact that he lost two sons… I wonder how he feels now… there is exactly the point… my brothers and sisters in Christ… Joseph of Arimathea… Nicodemus… Longinus… everyone of them realized they were renters… Longinus walks away from the legion and his money and his retirement… Joseph of Arimathea gives up his house and his tomb… Nicodemus leaves the religious… if you will leaves the Jewish pharisee life… the next thing you know becomes an object pauper… my brothers and sisters in Christ you know there’s a true story… in the year 425… there was a guy who came into the world… he took over the entire Roman Empire… which is from Spain to Jerusalem… from the Danube to the Nile… from Asia… to Northern Africa… in his words… Quote… I own it… And I own everything in it… I own the people… I own the things… I own the world… And for all intents purposes he did for a while… as a matter of fact his mere name … would cause trepidation and fear… it would cause people to leave their villages… it would have caused people to pack up and leave… people would actually run in sheer fright of just seeing this guy… and because he was so mean and so powerful… he often times told everybody… again… and again… and again… I own the world and I own the people with it… he meets a beautiful young bride… he gets married… and his honeymoon night he is in such a drunken stupor… that he gets so drunk… he falls… he hits his nose and his head… and he dies of a nosebleed… the end of Attila the Hun… that’s right my brothers and sisters in Christ…
- So here you and I sit two thousand years later… do you and I actually think we own the car… the house… the clothes on our back… my brothers and sisters in Christ we are nothing more than renters… somebody owned the house and the property before we got it… and somebody else is going to own it after us… oh the clothes that you have… my mother’s not here… for the shoes that you may have… my brothers and sisters in Christ… on the day that you and I pass… within days… all our clothes are going to be at Gods storehouse… you’re not even going to own the set of clothes on your back or the shoes on your feet if they even put them on there… my brothers and sisters in Christ that beautiful set of guns that you have… that you’re showing off to everybody else… please… your nephews got that… yeah okay he leaves things out in the rain… a lot… but what’s a little rust on your nice shotgun… oh yeah the golf clubs… you know the ones that you manicured because you actually think that you’re a professional golfer… don’t worry he'll wrap it around a tree somewhere… don’t worry he’ll lose your irons… break a couple woods... pleaser really what difference does it make… my brothers and sisters in Christ everything that you and I own is just a passing through… we own it only for a little bit of time… this is what the good Lord is saying… it’s vanity of vanity’s… man we got to get the next cell phone… brothers and sisters in Christ it’s the cellphones causing half the problems we got… but yet we got to have the next version… my brothers in Christ we got to have the next computer… we got to have the camp… we got to have the next boat… at what point does the accumulation come to a point where that’s the vanity… it’s the accumulation itself… my brothers and sisters in Christ don’t you see… on the day that you and I die we will stand naked and alone in front of him… and there will be no one else… there will be no arbitration… there will be no mediation… there will be no discussion … there will be only judgment… the nanosecond you and I pass… we are immediately… while everybody else is discussing… what they’re going to take of ours… who’s going to say what… who’s going to read what… whatever… and at the end of the day when push comes to shove you’ve already been judged… you know everybody I go to talk to somebody on their death bed… I never have a discussion about the camp… I never discuss the car… as a matter of fact I’ve yet to have anybody ever ask me about their 401k… how’s the stock market doing… my brothers and sisters in Christ they don’t even know where the money is at… nor do they care what’s in their closet… how many of us have clothes we’ve never opened… gifts we’ve never even used…
- My brothers and sisters in Christ I leave you with this… true story… a man goes to see a Rabbi in Jerusalem… he’s been looking high and low for this guy… he finally finds him… he bangs on the door… Rabbi… I need to speak with you… the Rabbi yells from inside… come in… the man comes in… he opens the door and he’s about to say something to the Rabbi… and he looks around… he sees a whole bunch of books… one cot… and a little bitty bench… and he said… is this your furniture… and he said yeah well where’s yours… he said well I don’t live here I’m just passing through… and he said me too… be careful my brothers in Christ… we are all renters…
- Amen.
