When is Enough?

 Luke 12:13-21

When is enough, enough? We run around trying to do the next best thing, you know the one which will get more butts in the pews. We get so busy running around and being anxious that we forget about God. 

I don't think we start off with this intent. We just see so clearly that we are failing we think by running around and doing the next best thing we lose sight of who and whose we are. See this is important. We are enough. It's not what we store up, or that we have a full building and parking lot. These are all earthly things. Where are the things of heaven? The things God wants us to be building up?

When we are rooted and who and whose we are this becomes a clearer calling. Who are we? We are a community, a community who loves each other, takes care of one another. We find joy and some of the treasures of heaven when we are doing the things which relate to building relationship. We give of ourselves, our resources, freely. Because we know we won't run out of the abundance we have found in the giving.

We are concerned with the wider community. We have given and given from a richness we have experienced. We know that in giving we receive wonderful things in return. A depth of gratitude which has touched our hearts. This giving blesses others and blesses us in return. We shouldn't stop this giving because it multiplies and strengthens one another and the wider world.

We are rooted in sharing. We share stories with one another about how God has supported us. How God found us at times when we were most lost and brought us here. Here to this community of faith. Because people bothered to care about us. Because we found a home. Because the relationships we have built show us shades of our relationship with God on earth. This is a treasure which can't be found in another place. There was welcome, there were open arms, there was support, there was care enough to be sheltered from the storms of life and we came into this harbor.

I don't know why Colossians stops where it does today. It falls short of another truth about how we go forward and find the treasures of heaven. The verses following speak of who we equip ourselves by building one another up. How do we do this? By clothing ourselves with different things than the world gives. Because we are already chosen, already beloved we can put on compassionate hearts. Kindness which the world needs to show to one another right now. The others join together in teaching us we don't know everything by being humble. 

The big one is forgiveness. Just because we miss the mark we are not ones who are unforgiven. We forgive as we are forgiven. Which helps us to be clothed in love. Love for not only ourselves, but for one another. For Paul love is the most important gift which allows us to bear each others burdens. It asks us to find the ways of enough-ness. In being loved we are enough.

We don't have to run around and change ourselves. We are loved as we are. We don't have to make it so we are more attractive, we are loved as we are. We have to notice we are enough and share this more deeply with our neighbors and one another. Only in this way are we living into the calling of finding the treasures of heaven.

So stop running around and doing in order to fix things. Start listening to the One who we most belong to. Start revealing the grace you have received and let that multiply into something deeper. Where we find we are not storing up things for here, but storing up things which will lead us forward. Then we are living into this wonderful dream of God.