When things are out of focus....

August 4, 2019  *  Luke 12:13-21

The past few weeks we have encountered Jesus teaching through the use of parables.  Parables, as we know, are earthly metaphors for heavenly truths.  Today’s parable is no different.

Jesus begins the chapter by spending some time with his disciples, and it interrupted by someone asking him for something very specific…a request.  I’m not sure who I feel for the most here, Jesus, or this man?  Here lately people have been asking Jesus to do all sorts of things…Martha asked Jesus to make Mary help her prepare a meal, one of the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, a lawyer asked Jesus to define who is my neighbor….  All of these people received an answer from Jesus to their wants; sometimes it was the answer they wanted, sometimes it wasn’t.  Today is one of the wasn’t days.

A man asked Jesus to force his brother to share his inheritance with him.  Presumably, this is a younger sibling since the first born son receives a double portion (interestingly enough, if a family had only daughters, the daughters received an equal portion only if they married).  So, he is asking for something that isn’t his, and he presumes Jesus will side with him, because Jesus stands against injustice and for the oppressed, and this man feels oppressed in this situation he perceives as an injustice.  But, Jesus didn’t side with this man, instead turns this man’s (almost demand) into an example…a teaching moment…only after issuing an emphatic “no” to the man’s request.

Jesus cautions everyone gathered to be wary of greed, because there’s more to life!  Then, he tells the parable of the rich fool. 

There was this man who had an amazing year in the fields.  His bounty was so abundant that he had insufficient storage space for all the crops he harvested!  So this man was faced with a dilemma…and what was he to do?  He did what anyone in his situation would do…he came up with the idea to tear down his barns and build new ones up!  Yes; he would build barns, and silos, and storage buildings large enough for this year’s harvest with room to spare!  And why wouldn’t he…after all, young Joseph did warn Pharaoh to store up grain during the years of plentiful harvest for the years of famine to come.  Its good stewardship, right?  Being frugal, and all.

There are some farmers here, and having a harvest like the rich man’s harvest is something you can easily relate to; but I’ve never been a farmer and have barely ever had a garden (much less a really successful one).  But, I’m familiar with the lottery, and, in the contemporary, this man has hit the jackpot.  He has so much money he won’t have to work…for years to come!  That…I can understand.

So why is Jesus going making an example of this man?  What’s so bad here?  Bad enough that God says to him, “you’re a fool!”?  That’s awfully harsh!  But, remember, “fool” in Greek means “acting without sense”, and this man actually was.  God tells him “his life will be demanded of him that very night, and then whose treasures will they be?”.  Wow.

So, are we to take it that, because this man was greedy, he died?  If that’s the case then what did happen to his bursting-at-the-seams harvest?  How could this happen?  What does this mean?  Should we be scared?

This parable has very little to do with this man’s harvest, and more about the man’s thought process and planning focus.  During my time at Beersheba (at United Methodist Pastor’s Summer Camp), we did several exercises; and we were broken into teams based on that 6-hour psychological profile we did.  So one morning for the lecture on Social Justice, we were split into teams and told to we were going to be having a debate.  This excited me, because I love a spirited discussion!  The topic was given:  can you be rich, and be a Christian; use only the Bible to support your argument.  Immediately the group I was in began to talk and we came to the consensus that we were all like-minded on this, and we could hear the other group talking, and they didn’t share the same view we had; but I had already discovered that with these exercises, there was always a catch.  The same was true here.  The guest-instructor then told us he would assign our position.  Of course, the group I was in had to support the compatibility of wealth and Christianity. 

Through that exercise I was able to see, that yes, it could be possible to be rich and be a Christian.  This man’s harvest wasn’t the enemy here; the fact that the man was consumed by his good fortune was.  He became so wrapped up in greed that his harvest became almost god-like to him.  He became fixated on it, and it’s preservation became all that mattered to him. 

Again, it may be difficult for some of us to relate to this story in terms of crops and harvest…it might even be hard for some of us to relate to this story translated into money or riches; but there is something that each and every single one of us become consumed by to the point that we lose sight of everything else, including what’s most important.  We all have “golden calves”, if you will. 

Maybe yours is your job; you’re obsessed with responsibility, position, prestige, and respect.  Maybe you worship popularity, or vanity.  Maybe it’s social media.  Some of us know what we’re predisposed to become obsessed with, some of us will never see it.

The common perception of this parable is “you can’t take it with you when you die”.  A little while ago someone sent me a meme of a Hearse with a U-Haul trailer behind it, which shoots that theory down (laugh…it’s a joke).  In the end, I don’t think this man died; I think his “things” demanded his life by owning him.  He was no longer in control; they were.  They dictated the terms and he submitted.    Hang on to that thought for just a bit....