Bigger Barns

Are we blessed yet?  It’s a question Ash Barker asks in his book, Make Poverty Personal: Taking the Poor as Seriously as the Bible Does. After raising the question, Barker reminds his reader “the point of our faith is not to have bigger and better lives or churches, but to transform the world.”
 
Last week I wrote an article about getting “A Bigger Life” and then I read Barker’s book. He made me pause and think. I still believe we need bigger lives to receive all God wants to give us. What we don’t need is bigger barns! 
 
Jesus once told a parable about a rich man who’s farm produced such an abundant harvest he found himself up to his elbows in grain. Instead of sharing the grain with hungry people he decided to tear down his small barns and build bigger ones to store his surplus. His plan was to “take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” (Luke 12:13–21) 
 
The story doesn’t end well for the guy with the big barns. God calls him a “fool” and says, “This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” Jesus sums up the story by saying, “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
 
The difference between a need for bigger lives and bigger barns is tied up in our definition of the word, “blessing.” What does the Bible mean when it says we are, “blessed to be a blessing?” What does it look like to be “rich toward God?” Far too often, we Christian’s define “blessing” in terms of material wealth, vocational success, position and power. We fail to hear the words of Jesus clearly; instead we interpret his words through our upwardly­–mobile, consumer­–driven filters.

Some parts of the Hebrew Bible do point to wealth, possession of land, and big families as a sign of God’s blessing. But Jesus and the New Testament writers undermine this notion and turn our conventional interpretation of blessing as material wealth on it’s head.  Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor; blessed are the hungry; and blessed are those who weep and those who are hated.” If that’s not hard enough to digest, he goes on to say, “Woe to you who are rich, well fed, laughing and spoken well of.” (Luke 6:20-22)

Obviously, the promise of “being blessed” by Jesus and “being rich toward God” must mean something greater than material wealth. That’s why we need bigger lives and bigger hearts to receive the blessing. Jesus speaks of a spiritual blessing that brings deeper meaning and significance to our lives. God’s self-giving Spirit—poured into our lives—is a blessing that will open our hearts to a radical generosity that looks like Jesus. Filled with the Spirit of Christ, we have the potential to be a resource of blessing to others. Art Barker says, “God’s blessing today is not found in leather wallets, but among the cries of multitudes facing poverty. For there we find Jesus’s presence longing to intervene through his body, the church.”  
 
It’s time to tear down our big barns and build bigger lives.