Who remembers the Wizard of Oz? What’s the basic premise of the story? What’s the moral of the story?

Classic tale of a young person looking on the bleak prairies of Kansas and asking is this all there is? Her heart knows there’s more to life than this, but how can she get there? How can she get to the “promised land”, the place that’s over the rainbow?

And so she goes on the hunt, but pretty quick she decides she’d really rather just go home. The technicolor and the witches are all a bit much. So, she does all these momentous things to get home when all along, all she had to do was click her heels together three times and say, “There’s no place like home.”

At the end of the movie, do you remember how the Good Witch responded to the Scarecrow when he asked on Dorothy’s behalf, “Why didn’t you tell her this at the beginning?” She said, “She wouldn’t have believed me.”

Now, I thought that was dumb when I was a kid, because anyone would have believed the Good Witch about what spell to use to get back to Kansas from Oz. But as a kid, I did not get the metaphor.

There’s really something to be said about the fact that we don’t believe people right away when they give us such boring wisdom such as, “Your heart’s desire can be found in your own backyard.” It’s not dissimilar to the advice we get to practice gratitude, that our lives will be transformed by being deeply present, and to look for what is good and holy in our every day lives, instead of focusing on our lack.  

This is incredibly boring and non-epic advice. It may be good advice, but it doesn’t have the same allure as going on an adventure to a place that’s over the rainbow.  

This movie continues to be so iconic because we all live out Dorothy’s path in one way or another. We all want something more than what we have. Just being grateful for what we have, just seeing the sufficiency in every moment of life might seem to blah and boring. We’re sure there’s something better just over the rainbow. There could be something better than our current situation if we just had enough wealth, enough power and control, the right people around us doing the right things or thinking the right things, or perhaps enough health and ability. We all likely have something we could identify that we imagine would “fix” our lives, even if we also have the good sense to know better. Both things can be true at the same time.

The man in our gospel today, in Jesus’ story, thinks that all he needs to do to make things right in his world is to build bigger barns to adequately hoard his wealth. And this should indeed satisfy his soul. Jesus mocks this idea. And while it is an easily mockable idea, we all sort of fall into this basic flaw of thinking, that something out there, something external to us and external to God’s provision will satisfy our souls.

That’s not to say that more money doesn’t satisfy real needs for people who need more money. I have been poor enough to put a can of tuna on a credit card so that I could eat something. So, I can tell you that it is deeply soothing to me and my soul to have a savings account.

But the fallacy in our thinking is often that if a sufficient amount of money and physical provision is good for the soul, then more is better. Or if some level of health and wellbeing is good for the soul, then becoming obsessed with optimization of our health is better. Or if some amount of social engagement staves off loneliness, then we just need more and more time with others to make sure we never feel lonely again.  

This isn’t a story about Jesus telling a poor man that it’s OK that he’s poor and he needs to get over himself. Or even that money doesn’t matter. The Bible talks a lot about money and our obligation to care for the poor and powerless, to be their advocate and champion, because poverty hurts and God cares about that.  

This is a story of a rich man trying to get richer, but for the sake of what?

This story isn’t just about money. There are many ways to be greedy in the world. We can hoard and cling to money, people, health, time, power, and stuff. We can chase accolades or likes on social media. We can crave attention with the intensity of an insatiable black hole, like our dog Freckles.

All of this we can yearn for as if it’s going to do something for us that’s good and important.

The problem is, we all have God-shaped holes in our souls and in our lives that we attempt to fill with stuff that’s not God. And that is idolatry.

Idolatry is a sin, of course. But I don’t think it’s a sin that makes God angry because God is so needy of our adulation. Greed as idolatry is a sin because we hurt ourselves as we chase after what we think will fill that God-shaped hole. And it’s a sin because it’s so easy for us to hurt others in our pursuit, as well, regardless of what it is we’re chasing.  

We all have our ways of filling that God-shaped hole in ourselves with something that’s not God. My preferred method of idolatry, I think, is being greedy about productivity. If you ask me how my day is going and I say, “It’s been really productive day” with a wild gleam in my eye, just know that you should probably be worried about me. I’m likely lost in my delusion that I’m doing a great job of earning my right to take up space on the planet by getting a lot of stuff done.

Now, productivity is a good thing and goodness knows we all need to have productive days at times to navigate life and do the work that needs to be done. But productivity is also my drug of choice that can lull me into believing I can somehow fill my God-shaped hole in me through my own action and power.

Now, I don’t think I’m going to hell over this idolatry. I don’t think God is even angry. I think God looks at me, shakes their head, and says with tender love, “There she goes again.” Eventually I’ll come to my senses after hitting a brick wall of fatigue and I’ll be done (for a little while) thinking that I can control the universe through the power of a good to-do list. When that happens, I’ll remember I need to:

• Pray
• Risk believing that I am just as worthy of being on the planet as anyone else
• Allow God to guide my actions, including just letting life be as it is for a while
• Ask for help
• Rest
• Get clear on why I’m doing what I’m doing…for the sake of what am I running around? If it’s a worthy, loving goal that serves who I am called by God to serve, that is different than being busy for the sake of chasing my false idol of productivity.

In short, I can make the mistake of running around like Dorothy through Oz, doing all the things I think I need to do, only to find out that what I really need to do is much simpler; get grounded in reality, remember that I’m not in charge of the world, and put God back in the center of my life. Then, my actions have a much better chance of being Spirit-filled for all those involved.

We may not commit idolatry by creating golden calves and bowing down, but we do commit idolatry. Your idol of choice is whatever you believe will deliver you or our country or the world from the God-shaped holes. So, what do you chase? From where does salvation come, do you think? The answer is likely not obvious because we take our idols seriously. We often don’t think we’re chasing a false God, so I encourage you to sit with the question for a while. And perhaps it’s more than one idol, more than one savior you’re chasing. We are quite adept at multi-tasking our idolatries.

The teacher in Ecclesiastes calls all the deeds done under the sun vanity, meaning worthless. In the second lesson, of all the sins Paul names, only greed is named as idolatry. When we chase something out of an insatiable greed, a need that cannot be filled without God, we are missing the opportunity to experience what makes life beautiful, good, and holy.

For most things we chase, we need to discern what is the right amount. How much productivity or money or whatever is enough? How much is too little? I wonder if our confusion is based in our tendency to focus on what we lack. Personally, I’m always focused on my lack of time. What you experience as your primary lack in life may be different than I, but for all of us, our general sense of lack can make us unkind, suspicious, and, like our friend in the gospel, ungenerous.

Even if it may be instinctual to focus on insufficiency, this fear-based approach to life is not the path of Jesus. The invitation is to look beyond our lack to see what is good and holy. The invitation is to see that we ourselves are part of what is good and holy, as is everyone else.

So, as lackluster as the advice of gratitude can seem to us dreamers who want to fly over the rainbow to get that pot of gold or finish that to-do list, it is good advice.

It is good to be grounded in reality instead of fear. It is good to pray, put God in the center, and see that the Kingdom of God is here. And then let the Kingdom guide our actions. Then we will know, like Dorothy, that there is no place like home with God. There is no place like being here and now, where we are, in this moment, in this place, in these bodies with each other, because God is here and that is enough.

AMEN