We are having a garage sale on Saturday. Actually, we are not selling our garage but the contents of our garage…and our attic…and our closets…and different rooms in our house. There are some things of value and many things that don’t have so much value. But as some say, one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. We have a lot of “stuff” and some of these things we have had for awhile. Actually quite a while. All right, for a long time. Some of these things have been tucked away in corners or buried under piles or hidden in spaces that we rarely go to or look at. But we have held on to them for one reason or another. Some of these items have memories attached to them. They are our memories and others may not find the same enjoyment in them that we have experienced. But you can’t sell your memories, only those things that represent them. We are at the place in our lives where we are grasping the truth that the memories are more important than the things that stand for them.
If you are like me you will understand that the accumulation of things happens slowly, almost imperceptibly. I can’t tell you how many times I have cleaned out my garage only to find it filled to the brim three months later. And it wasn’t like I I backed in a UHaul and dumped it. It was one thing here and another there. I don’t know where to put something so I put it in the garage. One of our daughter’s needs us to store things from their wedding so it goes into our attic. Someone gives us a Keurig so the coffee machine we had goes on the shelf. Our Christmas decorations alone take over two closets. And let’s not mention the boxes and boxes of the kid’s things from childhood.
Jesus told a fascinating parable in Luke 12:15-21:
Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ‘ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself ?’ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”