Seek Wisdom that Comes from Above like Sunlight and Rain

Year C, Lectionary 18

August 3, 2025

Spanaway Lutheran Church

Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-12; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

Outside the window of my home office I have a direct view of one of our suet feeders, posted next to a rhododendron shrub and under a rather large photinia tree. For the first time my spouse and I purchased spicy suet intended to detract squirrels—birds do not react to red chili pepper the same way mammals do. With the squirrels focused on emptying our other feeders, the chickadees, northern flicker, and nuthatches have had free and total access to the suet. Life looks so easy for the birds! The food supply is as steady as we remember to make it (year-round, in our case). And—while I like to think that during the weeks I forget to replenish one feeder or another they’re still able to forage in and around our neighborhood—I am also conscious of the fact that insect populations around the world have diminished by over 70% within my lifetime. So, for this reason, and simply for the joy of birdwatching, I will happily feed the birds for as long as I am able.

In the gospel lesson this morning, we read one of several of Jesus’ parables about rich men. According to Jesus, this one is a fool for hoarding his grain and goods just in time for death to arrive. (A grim tale, indeed) And, while the story ends there, the larger passage goes on to some well-known verses about divine provision (for birds and flowers) and keeping your treasure where thieves cannot steal and moths cannot destroy.

The passage begins with a question about inheritance—or, rather, an insistence that Jesus, the rabbi, admonish a relative for not sharing the family wealth. Jesus, who seldom responds the way people expect him to, pivots and tells the story of a man who had accumulated much wealth in the form of grain and goods. When his barns couldn’t hold all the material provisions, he consulted himself to consider what to do.

‘Self: What shall I do, for I have nowhere to gather in my fruits?’

I know, ‘I shall pull down my granaries and build larger ones, and gather there all my grain and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods stored up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, make merry.’

Now, there is a logic here, a familiar one: sometimes a person needs more space for things. Many of us who can afford our housing have moved from an apartment to a home, for example. And it is a blessing. I don’t want us to jump to the conclusion that it’s always bad / wrong to go bigger. At least, not without digging into some nuance.

First of all, I would like us to pay attention to how Jesus sets up the morality tale: The land of a certain rich man produced abundantly; it yielded well. This one phrase carries with it countless associations with Israel’s salvation history—starting with the flight from Egypt and continuing through the prophetic literature. Many of these have to do with the commandment to keep the Sabbath. The command to honor God by setting aside the seventh day to rest from work was given to the ancient Israelites and extended to their livestock as well as everyone in and around their household. This also was the premise for a year of rest for the land once every seven years. And so we see this pattern that forms the basis for a household ethic of divine provision: humans (with their livestock) are to work the land, tend to their households six days, then rest from labor on the seventh. The land, too, produces for six years then rests for the seventh. This opens space to remember how God fed the people in the wilderness with manna, with an extra portion falling on the sixth day, and to celebrate God’s divine provision every Sabbath day and each Sabbath year.

The Sabbath was all-encompassing: soil, plants, goats, chickens, farm workers, Israelites and foreigners. The whole economy of a household was to benefit from divine provision by working six days and years, and preserving the seventh for gratitude and worship. Or, so it was intended.

The land of a rich man produced abundantly. In other words, the man was rich because someone else had provided for him—the land was fruitful. Laborers gathered in the harvests. God blessed him. Did the man do all of the work himself? It’s unlikely. But who does he turn to for wisdom? Himself.

While the story focuses on the person of the rich man, and conveys only his conversation with himself followed by God’s response, we can make an educated guess that there was a whole cast of supporting characters, as I’ve just mentioned. The land, the field workers, the carpenters, along with any servants and all those who supplied the rich man with his food and drink—all these together form an image of the household economy surrounding the rich man. It’s crucial to include them in the picture to better understand how the rich man is acting so poorly in Jesus’ eyes.

One way to describe the underlying ethic that connects divine provision with the Sabbath and household wealth is with the phrase Sabbath Economics. I learned about this concept from scholar activist Ched Myers, who has collaborated with others (over decades) to cultivate conversations around faith and place. Myers’ work often looks at intersections between the natural environment, human economics, and political dynamics.

Sabbath Economics offers a way to view wealth in relation to divine provision—(as in) God’s gifts through creation, the generosity of others—and the common good. The whole premise of the Sabbath rest is that God will provide material needs particularly when the desire does not exceed the need. Don’t be greedy, Jesus says. The ancient Israelites who hoarded manna discovered that it molded overnight.

Given that the rich man was one among many, then, we can see just how absurd it was for him to turn solely inward to himself for wisdom.

This passage in Luke 12 goes on describe divine provision as it is experienced by ravens and lilies. Jesus says to the disciples and listeners:

Consider [turn your attention to] the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! . . . Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith! . . . Seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

This (too) is an example of Sabbath Economics: God feeds and clothes all members within the great community of creation. This isn’t about reciprocity—what might ravens and lilies offer to God, aside from praise? It is pure gift.

Now, contrast that with our reading from the book of Ecclesiastes, part of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. Let’s consider the possibility that the Teacher here is a reference to Solomon, king over Israel, who asked God for the gift of a wise and discerning mind in order to lead the people. The wisdom of young king Solomon is legendary. Yet, these opening verses from Ecclesiastes sound like the words of a world-weary Teacher looking around at the human condition where nothing changes and nothing stays the same. All he found was a lot of toiling under the sun. In spite of his experience and wisdom, much like the rich fool who would leave behind a storehouse filled with goods, the Teacher sounds annoyed that someone else could inherit all the wealth and knowledge that he himself had accumulated— and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?  All is vanity! And a chasing after wind.

Whose wisdom did he seek? Initially, he sought God’s wisdom. Yet, over time, his own human experience seems to have muddled his understanding. His vision of all things under the sun became myopic and disconnected from the original Source, God, creator of all things.

Both the Teacher and the rich fool demonstrate certain limits to human knowledge and insight, and the conclusions that we may draw based upon those limits. When our perspectives are informed largely by models of scarcity, and our judgments predisposed to assume the worst, then, yes, all is vanity. The game of life is rigged. We must look out for #1 and get what we can when we can.

But then along comes Jesus, a different kind of teacher, with a very different message. When we include Jesus’ instructions to consider / turn our attention to the ravens and the lilies alongside the story of the rich fool, an important juxtaposition emerges.

Jesus’ admonition to not be anxious is directly linked to his warning against greed. His challenge is to see the world through a lens of generosity, abundance, of giving and receiving gifts. There is little room here for economic models of  scarcity. How do we know? Look to the Creator and the ways that divine provision comes through creation. This is the wisdom we must seek.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, shares what she learned from wild strawberries, known in the Potowatomi language as ode min, or “heart berry” about generosity and the strawberry gift economy. It’s likely a familiar scene for anyone who has foraged berries from the side of a trail, or plucked ripe blackberries from that untamable patch down the street. Berries teach us that some of the best things in life cannot be bought, but must be sought after with discernment. We might try to factor in our labor and time for going to pick berries, the number of scratches or bruises from the adventure, and such. But, at the end of the day, wild berries offer the ultimate instruction in the gift economy. They appear with the season, offer their fruits (and it’s important to pick them at just the right time), and scatter their seeds as far and wide as possible.

The gift economy of wild berries does not know how to forecast or calculate percentages, to weigh investment risks or anticipate demand. Instead, like the land that yielded abundantly, it receives the divine provision of sunlight, water, and soil, alchemizes it into sweet and alluring little packages, for other creatures to receive and consume. And, for us humans, we have the opportunity to receive and be transformed into creatures of generosity, bearers of the gifts of creation.

So, whose wisdom will we seek?

Spanaway Lutheran Church