"This Tent Sleeps Six... Really?”

Luke 12:13-21

And 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."

My mom told my son when we were recently visiting that she shared a room with her two sisters and that her bed was a fold up bed that got put up and down every day. And she said that the three of them shared a closet that was about 2 feet wide.  Three girls, one small closet, one small room.

We all talked about how people "had less" then, about how you only had three or four outfits and you didn't seem to need as much.  Which got me to wondering... why is it different now? Why do we need four and five bedroom homes and three car garages and a bathroom for each member of the family? When did we get so greedy and need at least one of everything for each person. 

I have also been contemplating this as I struggle with what kind of space or lack of space my son will have in his new dorm this fall? Is there a dresser, how many drawers?  What kind of space is under the bed? And so on... It didn't seem to be a problem I worried about back when I moved in my own freshmen dorm in 1985. Why do I worry about the space he will or won't have?

Consider camping tents. Have you ever seen a tent that is supposed to hold six people? We have a six person tent and I cannot imagine six people in there.  We feel that we need ample space between one another, and room for our 'stuff' and well, we have cots to sleep on... you get the picture. We have taken a six person tent and made it crowded for our family of three.  What happened? Where does greed fit into this? At what point doe we realize that 'life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.'  And don't you go camping precisely to get away from the 'stuff' in the first place?

This scripture begins our month long series called "Camping Out" which culminates with our first church-wide campout in our church yard on Aug 24, with worship following on Aug 25.  All month long we will be looking at camping and how it relates to the nitty gritty of our biblical texts.

What does it mean to need a lot of stuff and a large tent when we camp? Why do we need all the accoutrements? What are we hoping to achieve when we camp?

This scripture ends with the words: 

But 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?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

When do we finally learn that we can only reach God through our willingness to stand before God with only ourselves, nothing else?  What does greed or consumerism do to prevent us from standing naked before God? And is it necessarily a bad thing to have stuff, to need a six-person tent to sleep three?

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