Formed in Christ

So, two grandmothers are sitting on a park bench somewhere, reading the newspaper. Hardly anyone reads the paper anymore, but this scene is familiar to me because my grandmother did this every day that I knew her, on a park bench near her apartment in New York City. Looking at the headlines, one of the grandmothers says “Oy.” The other nods in agreement, shakes her head in resignation, and says “Oy.” The first one says, “Okay, enough about the children.”

I picture Jesus and God sitting on a bench somewhere, watching the two guys in today’s Gospel. First, there’s the one who wants Jesus to get involved in a family dispute over inheritance. Then there’s the guy often referred to as “the Rich Fool,” going on about the size of his barns. Oy.

This guy, who claims to be religious, obviously has his relationship to God and his relationship to his stuff a little bit skewed. He has amassed a great fortune, and he wants to be sure to keep it safe and all to himself. Listen to the way he talks: my crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, my soul. Oy.

One New Testament scholar talks about the rich fool as having “preoccupation with possessions, security in self-sufficiency, the grasp of greed, and the hollowness of hedonism.” The guy thinks he has accomplished a lot, but God rebukes him with a sense of urgency: “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you!”

Among other things, this is certainly a story about stewardship. The things you have prepared, God asks, whose will they be? The builder of the barns forgets the source of his good fortune, and he forgets the true purpose of any such building and storing. What is that true purpose? Life with God, life in community, or both.

There are precedents in scripture for storing one’s crops for the future, such as the story of Joseph in Egypt. However, the focus in those other stories is always preparing to share one’s wealth with the wider community in times of need. There is a wonderful Haitian proverb: God gives, but he doesn’t share. The sharing is our job. How are we going to share what God has given us?

As we think about our future here at St. Aidan’s, our mission as a growing thriving community, let us always be able to ask ourselves: Whose buildings are there? What are they for?

The Rich Fool acts out of anxiety instead of faith; out of fear instead of love.

This past Friday our Church calendar commemorated Joseph of Arimathea, who appears at the end of Luke’s gospel to offer his own new tomb for the body of Jesus. We know very little of Joseph outside of a very few sentences in the Gospel of Luke. What we do know from this brief story is that Joseph acts with love, courage, generosity, and spontaneity. How different from the characters we meet in today’s gospel! Joseph has been formed by his love for Jesus and his participation in a community of disciples engaged in formation.

Formation is how we become “little Christs.” This was the sense of the original word “Christian.” Not a carbon copy, but a follower of Jesus, someone trying to live out Jesus’ teachings, and do their best to be Jesus in the world. Whenever I hear the phrase “little Christ,” I always think of Russian matryoshka dolls...each formed as a smaller version of the first.

         So what do we mean when we talk about formation? We don’t have a huge menu of traditional Christian ed activities here, but formation is all around us. Worship is the most formative thing we do. Sometimes simply being together in community is how we are formed into little Christs. Hopefully a congregation can also offer opportunities for formation through study and fellowship, service and personal prayer.

         I like to think of formation in terms of clay—how does a piece of clay become formed into a beautiful piece of pottery? It takes three things: 1) the elements: earth, air, fire, and water. 2) Pressure, something from outside, and 3) a vision. Formation of individuals into little Christs is a process of bringing together these thing things: the elements from our environment, how we have been molded and shaped (that’s the “pressure” part), and having a vision. What are the elements that we bring to our own formation process? What has molded us and shaped us? What is our vision?

         You can see how this connects to the guy building the barns, right? Storing up for the future for himself is his vision. When we are formed in Christ, our vision changes.

         The Rich Fool is on his own, but formation in Christ rarely happens in a vacuum. It happens in community. Think about those nested matryoshka dolls. When they are all taken out, they don’t mean anything unless they are all together. Formation is fed by how we practice hospitality, how we make each person feel a sense of belonging and welcome. Faith formation undergirds how we care for the vulnerable in the world and among us. When we welcome the stranger, protect the vulnerable, and center the marginalized, we not only become more Christlike, we become the means by which formation happens for others.

         Our own gifts of faith and hospitality are not to be hoarded, like the gifts the Rich Fool saves in his barn. They are gifts of the whole community. In that sense, the matryoshka doll imagery is not so far off. We are all connected to one another, we are part of one another as we are all in Christ and Christ is in us.

         As we prepare, through our prayers and our offerings, for this Holy Eucharist, I’d like to end by borrowing words from that early community of faith, the Christians at Colossae, and pray that God’s word may indeed dwell in us, and that our hearts may always be filled with songs of wisdom and gratitude.