8 Pentecost, Proper 13 – July 31, 2022
Luke 12:13-21
As is often the case the case with Jesus’ parables, there is more here than meets the eye. At first read, we could look at this and say, why is the rich man a fool?
Isn’t it wise and responsible to save for the future? The rich farmer would probably be a good financial advisor. He seems to have things figured out. He has worked hard and saved wisely. Now he can sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of his labor, right?
Well, not exactly. Like the rich farmer, we are tempted to think that having large amounts of money and possessions stored up will make us secure. Sooner or later, though, we learn that no amount of wealth or property can secure our lives. No amount of wealth can protect us from a genetically inherited disease, for instance, or from a tragic accident. No amount of wealth can keep our relationships healthy and our families from falling apart. In fact, wealth and property can easily drive a wedge between family members, as in the case of the brothers fighting over their inheritance at the beginning of our gospel text.
Most importantly, no amount of wealth can secure our lives with God. In fact, Jesus repeatedly warns that wealth can get in the way of our relationship with God. “Take care!” he says. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15).
It is not that God doesn’t want us to save for retirement or future needs. It is not that God doesn’t want us to “eat, drink, and be merry” and enjoy what God has given us. We know from the Gospels that Jesus spent time eating and drinking with people and enjoying life. But he was also clear about where his true security lay.
It is all about priorities. It is about who is truly God in our lives. It is about how we invest our lives and the gifts that God has given us. It is about how our lives are fundamentally aligned: toward ourselves and our passing desires, or toward God and our neighbor, toward God’s mission to bless and redeem the world.
Notice how our rich farmer speaks only to himself. Listen again to the conversation he has with, not a spouse or friend or parent or neighbor, but only with himself: “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”
Do you see it? It is an absolutely egocentric conversation, even including a conversation with himself inside the conversation he is already having with himself! This is why he is a fool. He has fallen prey to the notion that life, and particularly the good life, consists of possessions, precisely the thing Jesus warns against.
Greed is the desire to possess more than we need. There’s a bitter paradox in greed — it’s never satisfied by what it desires. It can’t deliver what it promises. Instead, the opposite is true. Greed is insatiable. It always wants more.
Jesus looks at the man embroiled in a family feud over money, and sees that his obsessive need for a fair share is twisting, gnarling, and embittering his heart. In the heat of his pursuit, he’s not able to discern that his inner life is in trouble. He can’t see his own brother as anything more than an obstacle or a competitor. He’s so concerned about possible scarcity that he doesn’t even notice actual abundance (Jesus) standing right next to him. He’s so narrowly focused on his economic affairs that he has no bandwidth for the salvation Jesus offers. In his greed, he reduces the Son of God to an estate lawyer.
Meanwhile, Jesus looks at the rich landowner reveling in his stores of grain, and sees a person drowning in self-absorption. A man enamored of his own power. A man oblivious to his own mortality.
In the egocentric narrative of a proud, self-made man, Jesus sees an isolated, insecure soul who has forgotten human connection, forgotten God’s generosity and provision, forgotten that possession is not stewardship, and forgotten that in the face of Death (that great equalizer) we are all naked and poor but for the grace of God.
So, what then, does the good life consist of? Read the rest of what Jesus says across the gospels and it becomes pretty clear: relationships — relationships with God and with each other. And, as we inevitably discover while reading, these two can’t really be separated. So, Jesus tells stories like the parable of the Good Samaritan that invite us to think more broadly about who we imagine being our neighbor, and he preaches sermons that explain about caring for the poor, loving our enemies, and doing good for those in need. Not once does Jesus lift up setting up a retirement account or securing a higher-paying job as part of seeking the kingdom of God.
Which doesn’t mean these things are bad. It really doesn’t. Money can do lots of wonderful things — it can provide for you and your family, it can be given to others in need, it can be used to create jobs and promote the general welfare, and it can make possible a more comfortable life. It just can’t produce the kind of full and abundant life that each of us seeks and that Jesus promises. So it’s not about the money, it’s about our attitude toward money and possessions. St. Augustine once said that God gave us people to love and things to use, and sin, in short, is the confusion of these two things.
It is all about priorities. It is about who is truly God in our lives. It is about how we invest our lives and the gifts that God has given us. It is about how our lives are fundamentally aligned: toward ourselves and our passing desires, or toward God and our neighbor, toward God’s mission to bless and redeem the world.
Our lives and possessions are not our own. They belong to God. We are merely stewards of them for the time God has given us on this earth. We rebel against this truth because we want to be in charge of our lives and our stuff.
Yet this truth is actually good news. Because all that we are and all that we have belongs to God, so our future is secure beyond all measure. Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (12:32). Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. Amen.
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