13Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." 14But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" 15And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." 16Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' 18Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' 20But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' 21So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

"Lord, open our hearts to your Word and open our eyes to see your kingdom among us….and Your Son, Jesus, in every soul we encounter. Amen."

Two weeks ago I bought a 42 inch high definition television…..a month earlier I had no plan to make such a purchase, but a close brother bought one and when I saw that gorgeous picture, suddenly my 11 year old, 27 inch Sony which had been perfectly good up to that point…no longer looked adequate.

Soon in the manner to which my wife has become all too accustomed over the past forty years, I began to build my case for why we could find true happiness only if we upgraded immediately……and I could stop envying my friend's new TV.

My name is Vic….and I suffer from an addiction, actually a disease. It's called AFFLUENZA.

In today's lesson, Jesus tells us that our lives do not consist in the abundance of our possessions. Yet in America this year we will spend over $250 billion dollars on advertising, more than we spend on higher education, and most of that advertising is meant to convince us that Jesus is wrong….that our lives DO consist in the abundance of our possessions.

We Americans are addicted to our standard of living. We can't stop shopping, eating, consuming…..

We have more shopping malls than high schools in this country. The average American will spend more than two years of his life watching commercials… two/thirds of our economy is driven by consumer spending…
Buying things is so important to the American Way of Life that when the terrorist attacked on 9/11, President Bush went on national television to urge Americans to return to the malls and shop, otherwise the terrorists would have won.

America is the wealthiest nation in history…our 111 million households hold more possessions than all other households in the history of the world. We have 5 percent of the world's population but we consume more than one-third of the planet's resources…yet among the 16 wealthiest nations our government ranks dead last in humanitarian aid as a percentage of the national income.

All through Scripture the prophets and writers tell us that wealth is stumbling block to living in a right relationship with God and with other people…..Jesus, again in Luke, warns us "Woe to you rich, for you have already received your comfort."

And Paul warns us "Be not conformed to this world!"…yet how many of us here today could be clearly identified as a Christian by our possessions and our lifestyle?

Yet very few us here at Christ Lutheran place ourselves among "the rich"…..most of us are "just getting by"…..we never feel we have as much as rich folks.…most of don't own yachts or private jets…but still our homes overflow with all the stuff we buy to make ourselves happy……and then we go out and buy newer, better stuff.

Why? Why do more than 70% of us work at jobs we hate rather than taking jobs we'd love but for far less money? Are we looking for something that will fill the empty places in our lives, relieve our boredom, calm our anxieties…….we are the richest nation in history… you and I have luxuries that King Herod and Caesar could not even imagine…. We consume goods and services unimaginable not just to ancient Roman emperors but even to our grandparents. But we don't see these as luxuries…they have become necessities….

Brothers and sisters…we are in bondage. No matter how much we want to deny it, we are captive to things. We insure them, we guard them, we sometimes move them behind gated community walls to protect them. When we are away we worry about something happening to them. Because we know there are other people who want what we have.

In America we have over 2 million people in prison…a higher percentage of our population is in jail than any other industrialized country in the world. California alone has more citizens in prison than France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Japan and Singapore combined.

Why? Possibly because in America the one modern appliance that even the poorest people have in their homes is a television…

and they watch those same commercials and programs that tell them what every successful, happy American should have…the luxury SUV…the iPhone and the iPod…the beautiful house…even the $200 basketball shoes. And they see how far they are from having that American Dream….so the young men sell drugs, the young girls sell themselves and some of them break in to homes or carjack that luxury SUV. And rich folks become anxious.

Jesus talked a lot about poor people……He said you're blessed when you care for the poor, feed them, clothe them, visit them in prison…that when you do that it's exactly as if you were feeding and clothing and visiting Jesus Himself.

But He said there will be people who would blow him off…ignore His words…..and then act all amazed that He no longer wants to call them brother and sister.

There are just over 6 billion people on this earth…and more than 1 billion of them live on less than $1 per day…most of them suffering malnutrition and early death …there are another 2 billion who live on less than $2 per day….and often lack safe water or reliable food supplies or even the other basic necessities of life……more than 5 million children die every year from hunger…during every minute of this worship service, 10 children will die.

In Africa the HIV/AIDS epidemic has already infected more than 25 million people……mostly heterosexual couples. Within two years there will be more than 20 million African children orphaned by AIDS, many small children will have to survive on the streets, because the governments and families are being overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster.

I can stand here and throw out horrible statistics like this all morning, but as Joseph Stalin once said…"A million deaths is a statistic…a single death is tragedy."

Stalin recognized that we may get bothered and uneasy and even concerned when we hear statistics like these, but only when we know the people involved, when we have a relationship with the poor and the malnourished, do the numbers begin to mean anything and we feel compelled by compassion to do something about them.

Our society is carefully arranged to avoid contact with those people…..you and I live in neighborhoods where only folks who have about our level of income can afford to live. We drive to shopping malls and stores where our kind of people shop. We seldom see the truly poor except on television…yet in America there are 35 million living in poverty, including 13 million who will go hungry today.

But lacking that relationship with those who suffer I have trouble putting a face on these statistics of hunger and disease.

Three years ago Jeanette and I joined this congregation because we found an energy and Spirit here that we hadn't seen in a long time…..and a big part of that were the young people. One of the most impressive things about our youth group was the summer workcamp, where the kids didn't just go off to amuse themselves and have a good time camping and swimming and taking in a little Bible study…but instead they were going to work for some of the poorest people in America…..sharing food and fellowship, building porches, wheelchair ramps and relationships and seeing, first hand, what true poverty is like.

Just as Ken has said many times, these workcamps are a life-changing experience and I wish every one of us here today had been given the experience our young people have received.

At the Day School they have become involved with an orphanage in Ciudad Acunã, traveling there to carry beds and now bedding…our vacation Bible school kids have collected school supplies for the orphanage…. and some of you have had the opportunity to build on that relationship.

In the weeks ahead Pastor Mike will be leading us in a wonderful program of renewal, called "Forty Days of Community"…almost a Lutheran revival….which will challenge every one of us to clear our calendars and devote seven weeks to being in fellowship through faithful weekly worship, study and prayer together in small groups and most importantly,
for each small group to find a mission opportunity…

that will let us reach outside these four walls and put our focus back on God's work in this community and the greater world beyond…..my prayer is that every one of us who call Christ Lutheran our church family will discover new relationships with one another and, most importantly, with those people that God has called us to serve..

Every one of us here has been blessed in so many ways…and like Abraham, we have been blessed in order to be a blessing to others.

God has given each of us in our material blessings and relationships a true abundance, and through Melvin and Dorothy Pohlmeyer, through our Foundation and Day School, through our young people and their ministry….He has gifted this congregation beyond our imagination….

Yet we are called not to build ourselves a bigger barn….but to let those blessings flow through us into the lives of those who have far less, to be God's messengers of mercy, healing and wholeness….to not, as the rich farmer in Jesus' story, let our wealth focus on our own wants and desires, but to see all our gifts as ways of serving God.

In the Holy Land are two bodies of water both filled by the Jordan River…in one there is life, fish leaping, trees and vegetation on the shoreline. In the other…nothing lives, no fish, no vegetation.

It's not a matter of their source, because the Jordan River is the same….but in the Sea of Galilee, for every drop that comes in, another goes out...and that Sea is full of life. And the other body of water only takes in, nothing goes out….

And we call that the Dead Sea.

In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.