Sermon on October 4, 2026
“Rich Man, Poor Man”
By: The Very Rev. Pamela Dolan
Primary scripture source: Luke 12: 13-21
Have you ever heard of the Windigo? I go out of my way to avoid scary stories, even during the “spooky season” of October, so the myth of the Windigo was new to me until quite recently. I promise I won’t include any graphic details, but I do want to share an explanation of the myth from the author Robin Wall Kimmerer, who writes, “The ‘monster’ in Potawatomi culture is Windigo, who suffers from the illness of taking too much and sharing too little. It is a cannibal, whose hunger is never sated, eating through the world. Windigo thinking jeopardizes the survival of the community by incentivizing individual accumulation far beyond the satisfaction of ‘enoughness.’”[i]
She goes on to compare the way Windigo ravages a community with the way certain kinds of corporations and individuals, encouraged by “unbridled capitalism” and the belief in endless growth, also take too much, give back too little, and ultimately “lead us into nightmare scenarios” that are destroying our environment and our democracy.
In today’s Gospel reading, we also have a cautionary tale about someone who took too much and gave back too little, a cautionary tale about greed and consumption, and a man who might just remind us of Windigo. Jesus describes the main character in this parable with one word: rich.” He is a man rich in possessions, but his riches don’t protect him from wanting more—if anything, it seems that the more he has, the more he wants. He is insatiable, rapacious, unable to even conceive of giving anything back.t
One little detail that I always find interesting in this parable is that when the rich man finds himself with more grain than he can use, (or in our terms more money than he can ever spend), he doesn’t just build a new barn—he tears down his old barn and then builds a new, bigger barn, all so that he can “eat, drink, and be merry.” There is waste and destruction here, as well as avarice and accumulation.
The really spooky part of this parable, though, is how alone the rich man is. Perhaps his insatiable need for more has made him recognizable to others as a monster of some kind, a Windigo even, because he seems to be entirely isolated. He speaks only to himself. There are no other people in this story: no servants, no children, no spouse. No one enters his consciousness, whether that be someone else who might benefit from his excess of grain, nor even a rival, someone he is trying to outdo. There is just this rich, greedy, lonely man, who speaks to no one but himself, and somewhere in the background the land that produced his wealth but has no share in its abundance. I find his isolation chilling.
In the year 1206, a rich young man thought that he too was supposed to build a new structure, an edifice meant to bring back the glory days of the church. He was sure that was what Jesus was asking of him when he heard the voice saying, “Rebuild my church.” That simple command was the beginning of the ministry of Francis of Assisi, who came to realize that it was not the building alone that needed work, but also the spirit within the building. Had he only refurbished a church building, we would almost certainly not be celebrating his life 800 years later. It is because he went deeper than that, embodying a spiritual renewal that the church so desperately needed, that he is such a beloved and relevant figure to this day.
People who think that Francis was a simple man who became a saint because he could speak to animals are missing the challenge that Francis offers us. Francis was the son of a rich man, well on his way to becoming like the rich man in today’s parable. He was a playboy; his motto could well have been “Relax! Eat, drink, and be merry.” Instead, seized by the call of the Gospel, he gave up all his worldly goods, even the clothes on his back, in order to follow Jesus.
One man becomes a Windigo, insatiable, a monster, while another willingly becomes a beggar. One man is entirely alone, isolated by his wealth from anyone who might love him or simply be in relationship with him; the other man, with no possessions to his name, is known for his joy in and connection to all of creation, to every person and every creature he meets. I wonder, which one do we call “rich”? Which one would we rather be? When we think about it this way, it doesn’t seem like such a hard choice.
But, of course, in our real, day-to-day lives it can be terribly hard. We need models, exemplars, who help us walk the walk. The most courageous people I know are those who are willing to do the right thing even if it will cost them something. I think about my longtime here Wangari Maathai, a woman who was determined to bring the flourishing of both trees and women back to her home country of Kenya, and who persisted in spite of physical threats and imprisonment. And I think about the brave student journalists we are learning about today, young women who worked for almost two years to make sure that the case of the “Cornell 7” was not lost to obscurity, despite the very real risks of taking on an elite institution. Internal reform can be just as difficult and dangerous, maybe more so, than pointing a finger at others who need to change. Francis went first, giving up everything for the sake of the Gospel, long before he asked anyone to follow him.
There is so much of the Windigo spirit at loose in our culture today. We are encouraged to want more and more, to be less satisfied with our lives, our bodies, our homes, and to think that we can buy our way out of anything that ails us. The way of Jesus is the opposite of that. It is the way of enoughness, of gratitude, of delight. It is about recognizing that we are always better off when we share, when we give generously, than we are when we hoard and hold on tight to our possessions, as if they will save us. It is a paradox of our faith that in letting go we are held fast, in offering love and forgiveness that we are loved and forgiven, and in feeding others that we are fed.
At St. Martin’s we are working on building a church that is a true house of welcome, a place where the spirit of Francis, of Jesus, of all who listen to children and animals and the land, can find a home and catch hold of our hearts. This is internal work, spiritual work, as well as concrete, hands-on work. The world desperately needs places of welcome and solace, as well as challenge and daring, where the work of building a more just and loving community can take place. This is the work of the church. This is work we must do together, knowing that we will always receive more than we give, when we give in a spirit of love, gratitude, and connection. Amen.
[i] Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (New York: Scribner, 2024)
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