Scripture : Luke 12: 13-21
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Pastor’s Message;
October 26, 2025 :Commitment Sunday: “Counting Blessings”
There is an old hymn that may be familiar to some of you. It’s called “Count Your Blessings.” It goes something like this: [Mariel and Warner to lead]
“When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Count your blessings, name them one by one; Count your blessings, see what God has done; Count your blessings, name them one by one;
I was raised singing this hymn in worship, whether on a Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or Wednesday evening (the days and times we gathered for worship each week). When I entered my teenage years, I became a bit “too cool for school” with regard to this hymn. I thought it was corny.
Several decades later, I was serving a congregation in a small town in Northeast Texas. Most Wednesdays, I would help lead worship in a nursing home with one of our members who accompanied the group on piano. The residents who gathered for worship would call out which hymns they wanted to sing, and this hymn was one of their favorites. We sang it almost every Wednesday.
Many of those who gathered for worship in that nursing home used walkers or wheelchairs. A couple of them had lost limbs to illness. They dealt not only with the effects of aging, but with chronic health conditions and stints in the hospital. Many of them had suffered loss and heartache that I could only begin to fathom.
Yet, this was their favorite hymn. They chose to count their blessings. I would look around the room as these sweet folks sang in their quavering voices, and the words of that hymn began to sink into my bones. These dear people bore witness to what it means to live a life counting blessings when we are “burdened with a load of care” and “amid the conflict.” Their witness to counting blessings spoke – and still speaks — deeply to me of what it means to trust that we are held in God’s presence and embrace no matter what may come our way.
Before I move on, I want to emphasize that trusting God’s presence doesn’t make the bad stuff welcome or easy. Suffering comes, and it’s not helpful or faithful to skip over how hard life can be. Jesus Christ not only knew this – he lived it. Jesus experienced the heights and the depths of what it means to live on this earth.
The landowner in the parable seems to misunderstand what counting blessings is about. He’s a person of means, and he has experienced a bountiful crop – so much so that he realizes he doesn’t have room to store his harvest. So he decides not just to add a barn, but to tear down the barns he has and build bigger ones in place of the smaller ones.
When he finishes his project, he takes great satisfaction in what he has accomplished. His self-talk reflects not just his pride in storing up so much for himself; it also reveals that he thinks he has bought himself some time: “I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, and be merry.” And we know what happens next: those big barns didn’t prolong his life.
I find that I have many questions I want to ask the landowner. And that I want to ask Jesus. Maybe you have questions too. Questions are good! So let’s ask some.
Jesus first: Why would Jesus — the master storyteller, teacher of parables that seek to illuminate what God is like, and what God’s kingdom is like – have God calling the landowner a fool? I mean, maybe the guy is a fool. But to have God shame the guy for wanting to be secure? I struggle with this portrayal of God, as Jesus never seemed to experience God as a shaming God, and spent a lot of time bearing witness to God’s love for those who felt unloveable, and sharibg with others about God’s compassion for those who felt worthless.
Here are some questions for the landowner: did he think about selling some of his abundant harvest? Or maybe sharing it with others in his community? And what was his reaction to being called a fool by God? Did that strike a nerve? Is he taking time to reflect on that in Eternity?
My friends, we live in a culture that encourages us to build bigger barns. In fact, if we don’t build bigger barns we run the risk of being labelled foolish and unwise. This is not to say we should be unprepared or that we place ourselves in a position that compromises our ability to meet obligations. Our society, though, doesn’t encourage us to learn what “enough” means.
I have had my own struggle with wanting to build bigger barns. Some years ago as I was serving a suburban church, I was growing tired of our little 1200 square foot house. Every bed in the house had a storage box underneath it that I would regularly stump my toes on.
My commute was 19 miles one way, and there were days I made that round trip three times (staff meeting at the church, hospital visit in Dallas, then back to the church for a meeting or bible study), In those early months of that appointment, I would keep an eye out for houses that were for sale in the community around the church. I’d pick up the real estate company’s information sheets and put them on the dining table near my husband’s usual place. I collected quite a little pile of these info sheets, and Rick would just nod, not saying anything.
That fall I attended a required retreat for clergy residents (I was in my last year of residency), and the topic was stewardship. “Boring,” I thought, and took work with me to keep myself occupied.
The speaker was a retired pastor in the conference who had served two terms as a district superintendent, and who had become a dear family friend over the years. He stood before us in his plaid shirt and blue jeans, gray hair grown out and pulled back in a little ponytail. He began to talk about his years of ministry in which he would give God a tip from time to time. He shared about his struggle with expectations and the alcoholism that resulted from that struggle.
I left me pile of work untouched on the table in front of me as I listened.
When this pastor and former DS retired, he and his wife made plans to build a house on the other side of Lake Cooper, near where they both were raised. They put their Dallas home on the market, and were surprised when it sold in three weeks.
Since their new home was just being built, they moved into a two bedroom apartment and put most of their possessions in storage. He talked about what a breeze it was to keep the apartment clean; no second story, fewer rooms.
In 6 months, their new home was complete. He went to the storage unit where they had their possessions, opened it, and said (using colorful language) “What in the heck am I doing with all of this stuff?”
They decided to sell some items, give away others, and streamlining what they took to their new house. They also decided to be more intentional in their giving. No more tipping.
When I got home from that residency retreat, I picked up the stack of real estate info sheets and looked at my husband. “I’m recycling these.” And then I told Rick about the talk I’d just heard, and about how convicting it was for me. “We’ll just get underneath a bigger mortgage,” I said. “We’ll just accumulate more stuff.”
Rick let out a visible sigh of relief. We also began to talk about how we could make our giving more intentional.
I share this story not to shame anyone, but to confess that the pull to build bigger barns is real. The struggle is also an opportunity for spiritual growth.
What’s in our barns may or may not be a blessing. The rich landowner in Jesus’ parable, though, had forgotten – or maybe he had never learned – that God is the source of blessing. Blessings have little to do with material goods. As a fellow clergy colleague has written, “blessing(s) can help us perceive how heaven infuses earth, inextricable from daily life, even when life is marked by pain.”
We can count our blessings because our loving God is present with us through it all. Amen.
My friends, let us say these words of thanksgiving from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi:
Rejoice in the Lord always, again let us say, Rejoice! May our gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, But in everything by prayer and supplications, With thanksgiving let us make our requests known to God. And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, Guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
