The presenting problem in this passage has to do with two sons whose
father has died, and they ask Jesus to mediate a dispute about the
distribution of their father's wealth. Jesus is rather abrupt in his
reply, like "Why are you asking me to do to something like
this?" He senses that the brothers are trying to manipulate him
and use him for their own benefit. They come to Jesus, one demanding
his share of the inheritance and hoping that Jesus will actually make
the bank transfer for him.
The background to this scenario is well known in the Middle East.
When the father dies, he leaves his inheritance to his sons. It is
not divided by percentages. There are no assumptions about its
division at all, but the sons then hold the property together in
trust. Psalm 133:1 reflects on how pleasant it is when the sons
manage to cooperate harmoniously in such a situation. In fact, if the
sons adopted the virtues that we spoke about this week in VBS -
generosity, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, and compassion - they
probably would not have been coming to Jesus with this dispute. But
they're asking Jesus to divide the family property so that they, the
brothers, can split.
This is very out of the ordinary. Families in the Middle Eastern
culture stick together, and sons as a unit hold the family assets
together. And so there is more behind this request than simply what
we would consider a legal matter. It is a legal matter that rarely
came up, in fact, in that culture.
Jesus has a clear idea of what his role is and is not in this
situation. He actually refuses to take action. Doing so would
permanently fix their alienation with each other. In justice issues,
as this one is, Jesus' role is reconciler, not divider, and he makes
that very, very clear. So he walks away from that particular issue.
Meanwhile, Jesus takes the opportunity to comment on the root cause
of their division, which appears to be greed. Each wants his
share and more, wants it now, and doesn't want to share. He tells
them a story, which begins and ends with statements of a general
principle. So if you look in your passage there, at Verse 15 he says,
"Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. A man's
life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." This
is the beginning of his parable. A person's life - life understood in
the broadest sense of the term, not biological life, but life
abundant - does not consist in the accumulation of wealth, Jesus is
saying. In fact, he picks up a common theme by saying that the
accumulation of wealth infects a person with insatiable desires that
guarantee not happiness, but chronic dissatisfaction, and (as
we shall see in this story) loneliness.
Now this insatiable desire for a higher standard of living is not
only prevalent in Jesus' world, but certainly in our own. In this
state and in this county and even in this city, we are possessed with
the idea of the good life. But Jesus says, "The good life is the
product of more than mere consumerism and accumulation."
His intention is to speak to this issue in the parable. He has set up
some tension. The brothers are looking at him like they thought this
was going to be a clear-cut deal. He'd just divide the property, and
off they'd be. But now they're going to hear his mini-sermon, a
five-pointer, a parable.
The man in the story is rich. He is already rich before the story
begins. On top of that, this year he had a bumper crop. The land
produced way more than he expected. He had an abundance. In fact, he
ended up with so much produce, there was no place to store it all. In
this rendition, Jesus' story is unique. There are other similar
parables that appear in literature of the time, and in all of those
cases, the man had earned and worked hard for what he accumulated.
But in Jesus' story, the central character is already rolling in the
dough and more is given to him; goods are given way, beyond even his
expectations or hope. This backdrop to the story highlights for
us the fact that our abundance is a gift from God. And certainly in
this man's case, he didn't work to get it. It was a windfall.
Something great happened, and he ended up with a whole lot extra.
Now I can see a parallel in our recent history in the United States,
with the dramatic upturn of the stock market in the last couple of
years before the downturn in the last few months, right? If you owned
stock, you didn't work harder for that money to multiply. All of a
sudden, you looked in the paper, "Oh my goodness. Look what's
happened to my stock!" The Lord is saying that was a gift.
People said to me a year or two ago, "I'm sure that you saw an
increase in your giving at church." And I said, "Well,
actually we did not see an increase in our giving at church,"
which means that this parable is for us, my friends.
The problem was for the man in the story, "Then what do I do
with my surplus?" It seemed obvious to him that to do something
with the surplus was to keep it and store. He did not consider
any other option. We do not hear him say as part of the problem,
"Gee, you know, I really don't need any of this. This is way
more than I need." And we don't hear him say, "Oh, I can't
take credit for something that God has done so beautifully." We
hear neither of those two messages from him.
What we do hear is reference to my crops, my barns, my
grain, my goods, which suggests to me that he was oblivious to
the source of the abundance, and that attitude would color what he
did with it. We are then surprised and saddened to see this verse
where it says in the NIV, "He thought to himself." Verse
17. The word there is distinct. It means he "debated with
himself." He talked to himself about this. According to Ken
Bailey, who is an expert on Middle Eastern life (he lived there for
decades and has spent his life interpreting parables) this represents
a sad state of affairs. In that culture, whenever a man is
required to make an important decision like the disposition of his
assets, he goes out and meets the other elders of the town at
"the gates." The entrance to the town has got seats where
men will literally sit for hours and haggle and debate with each
other trying to make important decisions. So he would have, if he had
had any friends, gone to the gates and said, "Look what
happened. I have all this extra grain. I have no idea where I'm going
to put it. Can you give me some ideas?" And they would have been
batting options back and forth until they came up with a solution.
In contrast to that scenario, what it says here is that he debated
with himself. "What shall I do? I have no place to store my
crops." He has no one else to talk to about it. Perhaps his
wealth has isolated him, certainly in a bubble of self-sufficiency.
But it causes me to ask the question, "How many of us consider
financial matters so private that we make our most important
financial decisions in a vacuum without Christian friends to guide
and to hold us accountable?" The subject of finances among us is
certainly secretive. You know, I don't know what you give to the
church. I've made a very big point of not ever knowing what or how
much anyone in our church family gives, so that I can give ministry
freely and unencumbered without any sense of politics or anything
like that. The down side of that practice is to foster the idea that,
how we dispose of our finances is not anything but a private affair.
What the gospel tells us, however, is that in the kingdom of God it
most certainly is not private, because we carry an obligation to the
kingdom of God, to the community of faith, to our families, and to
their well being as much as to our basic needs. Those are values,
those are virtues, and those are theological concepts put into
action. What we do with our money very much reveals what God is doing
in our hearts. So, unfortunately, our rich fool is operating in a
vacuum without the witness and without the wisdom of his tight-knit
community. He is ready to decide on the solution to his problem.
And what is his solution? The barns aren't big enough? Build a bigger
barn. Let's go bigger. Let's go taller. Let's go more complete. Let's
construct bigger garages. Let us put in another closet. Our
self-indulgent fool will consume God's gifts alone.
Then he speaks to his soul again because there is no one else to
celebrate his success. "Let me enjoy what I have. Let me eat,
drink, and be merry." The words are "fruit" and
"abundance" in Verse 19, "plenty of good things"
(NIV) is actually literally "fruit in abundance." Let me
enjoy what I have. Those are words that come from the root word from
which we derive "euphoria." His formula was to bring forth
many things, and enjoy all aspects of the good life. Unfortunately,
his only audience to his announcement of his success is himself.
At this point when you would think he has the right to sit down, put
his feet up, pour himself a tall glass of iced tea and enjoy his
great wealth, God says, "Wrong! You fool!" Literally,
you are so stupid. Stupid fool! This is not a compliment.
What has been given on loan is now being called back. The rightful
owner has come back to claim what is his, and that is your soul. And
then the real dilemma, the aching turmoil of this man's heart comes
to the front. "Who now is going to get all the stuff that
I have accumulated and can't take with me to the next life? How are
they going to deal with the power struggle that I have elicited by
accumulating all this stuff and not modeling to them usefulness for
God?" He has the torture of imagining the debate: which of his
sons will win the power struggle over his possessions after he dies? Which
brings us back full circle to the top of the parable. The
question that brought this story to mind was, "Teacher, tell my
brother to divide this inheritance with me."
Jesus pulls out a theme that occurs throughout Scripture:
wealth constitutes a burden in this life. It weighs heavy on us, and
it has no meaning in the face of death and in the next life. Believe
it or not, even if we pass it on to our kids, it stays here. It does
not go with any of us.
As some of you know, I'm getting ready for this big backpack trip in
August. My eye caught a story by Donna Shafer in her book All Is Calm.
She said, "There we were, 28-year-olds in love on the rim of
the Grand Canyon on New Years Eve. (Not a bad time to be there,
actually) As we watched the sun go down, we remembered the hotel was
full, and we needed a place to stay. My husband had a brainstorm;
'I'll bet the ranger in the bottom of the canyon is lonely,
especially tonight. Let's call him and see how he would feel about
having some people come for company.' The ranger's telephone number
was in the book. We dialed, explained our situation and offered to
bring groceries down. The ranger and his wife were delighted. They
would love some company. So a half-hour after dusk, we were on our
way down. After an uneventful passage down the curving canyon, we
arrived at the bottom. We were invited into their large cabin and
they served us a nice dinner. Then they showed us their sports room.
It was full of abandoned sports equipment: High-class hiking boots,
expensive backpacks, fancy hats and even fancier walking sticks. The
ranger said, 'People can walk down easily enough with all this stuff.
They just can't walk up again with it.'" Isn't that a
description of our predicament?
The good life is found in being rich toward God, and here we hear
from the Apostle Paul in his letter to Timothy: "Command those
who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put
their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in
God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment."
So it's not like he's saying you can't have fun with the stuff you
have, but just remember that God has given it and it's more than you
deserve. "Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and
to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up
treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so
that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."
So my exhortation and my encouragement to you is to do good, to
concentrate on living your life for God from whom all those good
things have come; to live out of gratitude for the riches he has
bestowed upon you, on every one of us; to be rich in good deeds; to
be generous in our relationships; to be willing to share, which are
all part of what we spoke about all week and what Jesus is getting at
by highlighting the isolation and alienation of this rich man, who's
possessed with the idea of storing up and hoarding what he has.
And then make plans. I have thirty seconds to say this. Make plans to
put your assets to good use. Have you considered gifts and annuities
and estate planning, all those things to send out and make useful the
assets that are beyond what you need for life at this point?
Where is your wealth going? Who is going to fight over it after you
go? Make some decisions that are consistent with God's love for you.
Make decisions out of gratitude for what God has given. Nobody
will begrudge you that, and the Lord will be pleased.
Let's pray. Gracious God, thank you so much for blessing us and for
filling our barns and our closets and our garages. But now Lord, help
us to loosen our grip on the excess and the surpluses of our lives
and to put them to use for your purposes. We know that
means some big changes in our hearts. Help us, Lord, to make them. In
Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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