Can’t buy me love

Forest Mill United Methodist Church, August 3, 2025

liz west, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Luke 12:13–21 (CEB)

Someone from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus said to him, “Man, who appointed me as judge or referee between you and your brother?”
Then Jesus said to them, “Watch out! Guard yourself against all kinds of greed. After all, one’s life isn’t determined by one’s possessions, even when someone is very wealthy.” Then he told them a parable: “A certain rich man’s land produced a bountiful crop. He said to himself, What will I do? I have no place to store my harvest! Then he thought, Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. That’s where I’ll store all my grain and goods. I’ll say to myself, You have stored up plenty of goods, enough for several years. Take it easy! Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself. But God said to him, ‘Fool, tonight you will die. Now who will get the things you have prepared for yourself?’ This is the way it will be for those who hoard things for themselves and aren’t rich toward God.”

From 2003 through 2022, I went on a total of 10 short-term mission trips, to Nicaragua, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Sierra Leone, five times to Kenya, and then most recently to Uganda. I just decided recently that God is calling me to take the trip to Uganda again next summer, and last…