Parable of the Rich Fool - Luke 12: 13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘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.” ’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Commentary

Last time I talked to you, we were talking about the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. I think what I left you with is the idea that the two kingdoms will never be merged. They are too different. One calls us to worship ourselves, and the other calls us to worship God. And as the scriptures clearly tell us we can't do both.

Two weeks later, Jesus, is reminding us of this same basic fact. We have today the lesson of the rich man. This man is doing so well, that his crops are overflowing his barns. So he decides to tear down the barns and build bigger ones. Then he feels he will have enough to sit back and relax. But God, tells him otherwise. God tells him his life will be demanded that very night. All he has worked so hard to save up will go to someone else.

If we focus on this one rich man, it is easy to imagine a better path. His crops are overflowing the barns. Why not give the excess to the poor. Crops can not be stored indefinitely. The mice will get in to them, if the get wet, they will get moldy, storing up treasures on earth is a losing game. Even if he converts all of his crops to gold, and stores the gold, then he will have thieves to contend with constantly. It's easy for us to think of an easier solution for this rich man. Give it away! He doesn't need it!

But that is any easy statement for us to make exactly because it isn't our problem. There is one very important word left out of the scripture story. It is there very assuredly. It just isn't stated. Listen again with a word added. The rich man says to himself, “I have no place to store my crops. I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And THEN I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry!” The important word is the THEN. If we put that in the sentence, the thought suddenly becomes recognizable to all of us.

THEN is the great procrastinator. When such and such happens, THEN I will be able to turn my attention to this other thing. I know its important, and I really intend to address it soon, but FIRST, I have to get some other things in order.

The rich man is afraid about the future. He has no need to be but he is. FEAR is the other great procrastinator. We can not let go of our fear, so we can not risk anything new. I am sure we have all been in that place at one time or another. Maybe its about material riches, maybe its about our time, maybe its about our love. We are afraid to let go because we don't know when we might need the treasure for our selves.

Jesus puts his finger on this problem when he warns us against storing up treasures for ourselves. It is a natural enough thing to do. We live in a material world, and a material world is a world subject to scarcity. We have a finite amount of savings, and a finite amount of time. It is only logical that we need to be careful about what we do with them.

The opportunity Jesus is pointing out is the opportunity to live in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world our material possessions are gone. There is no point in building up treasures for ourselves because those kind of treasures don't even exist. In the spiritual world, we find out that the only possession we have to deal with is love. And we discover that love is NOT a finite possession. Rather, love is from God, and God is infinite. The more love we give away, the more love we find we have left. That is what Jesus is talking about when he suggests that we be rich toward God. Your richness is your love, and when you give it away with love, you are giving it to God.

In practice, we know this is not as easy as it sounds. In practice, we procrastinate, and we procrastinate because we are afraid. The kingdom of God is after all a mysterious place. It is hard for us to understand it and so it is hard for us to embrace it. The fear keeps nagging; what if it doesn't even exist. To which God says, “You fool!” What have you got to loose. In the kingdom, your time is infinite and your love is infinite. There is nothing in this world that prevents you from going ahead and giving love away. No need to wait for any imagined then, just do it. The only way you will ever know the Kingdom is there is to participate.

Amen