"Tell me what ya want, what ya really want!" (Sermon by Rev. David Lawrence) 10:15 a.m.

Luke 12:13-21 (Key part of this text is verse 18: This is what I'll do. . .tear down barns and build bigger ones to store all my grain and goods. . .You have plenty for many years. . .Eat, drink, be merry!")
assisting the guest preacher was 11-year-old Joshua Bair who also read the lectionary lesson from Hosea 11.

When I read a Scripture passage a song comes to mind -- this one from a pop-rock girl group called the Spice Girls [from sing365.com lyrics site =
"Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,

So tell me what you want, what you really really want,

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,

So tell me what you want, what you really really want,

I wanna ha, I wanna ha, I wanna ha, I wanna ha, I wanna really

really really wanna zigazag .

If you want my future forget my past,

If you wanna get with me better make it fast,

Now don't go wasting my precious time,

Get your act together we can be just fine.

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,

So tell me what you want, what you really really want. . ."
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The theologian this guest preacher was assigned to read in seminary, Paul Tillich, would call this approach to life and acquisitions to be "Misplaced Ultimate Concern."  Once I have it [job, car, big house, fancy, desired material item], everything will be peaches and cream.  The voice from us in the 21st Century cries, "Tell my brother to share the inheritance [verse 13 of passage]!" whereas Jesus replies back to us, "I'll tell you a parable."
 
In the sermon Rev. Lawrence re-imagined and recast the elements of the landowner's of "what he really really wanted" : build up my 401k, manage houses, and relocating to Florida vacation lifestyle, more, and more.
 
WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?  We have reached a parting of the words - a "fork" as it were in interpretations.  Will we take as primary task the consideration and overvaluing the materialistic items/goals or will we follow down another path that invites us corporately to a struggle for which we stand in need of one another to act as the entire church. . .to struggle against the world and its aspects of power, money, advertising, wants, needs?  What do we really want? 
I want to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, strength, and will; I want to enact the will of God as I love my neighbor as myself. . .to put aside things and to pick up the cross.  I want to live a life in which the fruits of the spirit are evident [love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentelness, and self-control] -- see Galatians 5:22-3
WHAT WILL WE DO? -- to object to those in our workplaces making racial/ethnic demeaning jokes, sexist degrading ridicule of those who become a kind of butt of the joke.  To care for others who have no voice, who are powerless, the vulnerable children, the enfeebled elderly.  In the light of Tillich's "misplaced ultimate concern" the world and power that be continuously denigrate the too old, the too young to get hired, the jobless, those too different.  We need the whole church to stand up for opposing this! 
WHY DO WE MEET AND WORSHIP ONE WITH ANOTHER? To speek the truth and to tell the church how tough it's been; to support one another; to gather wealth (a "vault filled with the produce" of the fruits of the Spirit).
Where is your faith?  Do you look to a Mercedes for salvation? to a big house up on the hill? We need to point in new directions and cannot tie our salvation in gold and holdings as did the LANDOWNER of Jesus' parable in Luke, chapter 12.  Keep the faith alive in a divine plan not in a "what ya really want" plan!