"Who wants more money?" - Sermon for 8 Pentecost 8-3-25

“Our days are full of pain, our work is a vexation, and even at night our minds do not rest.” When the wise and wealthy king over Israel has all these problems, what hope do the rest of us have?

The other day after work, I had a beer with a tradesman, and we got on the topic of dreams. He said that his dreams are full of work frustrations. I said the same about my dreams – “Where are my vestments?” … “This isn’t my church!” … “Why have I forgotten what I’m supposed to do?” Like my tradesman-friend, after these dreams I wake up exhausted. You, too, I imagine.

It's not just our night-time rest that’s a problem. Even when we’re lucky to love our work, as I do, but especially when we don’t, our days can be painful and vexatious. Wonky technology, balky people, and picky self-criticism and self-pity all take their toll. We strain and toil and chase the wind, and for what?

Well, we hope to be able to retire comfortably, with enough left over to leave a generous bequest to All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco. We city-folk don’t need bigger barns to store our grain, but we could use more square footage to store our goods; and we sure want bigger banks to store our money, if we’re fortunate to have work that pays abundantly, or to have been born into a wealthy family. “Relax, eat, drink, be merry” thought the prosperous man – who doesn’t want that?

All this money-talk is relative, of course. For some, more money means an extra vacation, or living where one desires, or some other bit of luxury. For others, more money means affording groceries, or avoiding eviction, or easing chronic cares about survival. Rich or poor, wanting more money has its allure; I expect most of us do.

But Jesus calls this whole enterprise of financial planning into question, which is why he never made it on Wall Street. “Sell all you have, give your money to the poor, and follow me,” Jesus says. “Don’t worry about tomorrow;” Jesus says, “today’s worries are enough.”

I won’t second-guess Jesus’s economic teaching; or the Bible’s, for that matter. The body of scripture talks about a fair economy and the right use of money and wealth more than just about anything else. We should take Jesus at his word and the Bible seriously. There is much about our acquisitiveness and our disordered priorities and our golden idols to give all but the poorest of us pause. “Where your treasure is,” Jesus says, “there your heart will be.”

Yet there is a way through with this gospel, and the other fiscally-countercultural passages that make the work of portfolio planners a vexation: “So it is,” Jesus says to end today’s parable, “with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

This prompts the question: Is it possible to store up treasures for ourselves and for us to be rich toward God? What does it mean to be rich toward God? – as if God wants our money. What, then, does God want?

One prophet says we are “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.” The psalmist says “Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me; but to those who keep in my way will I show the salvation of God.” Saint Paul says we are to kill those behaviors we store in the bigger barns of our sin-sick-souls; you heard the list: “fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, anger, wrath, malice, slander, lies, and abusive language.”

The way to be rich toward God is clear; and while it’s held in tension with storing up our treasures, it needn’t be a hopeless contradiction.

Your life will be demanded of you in an instant. So ask yourself now: Against what values do I measure my life? … How do I hope to be remembered? … Do I want God to call me a fool? … Or for God to see his image reflected in my face?

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

8^th after Pentecost C: Proper 13 – August 3, 2025

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“Who wants more money?”