C, Post-Pentecost 8 Proper 13 - Luke 12:13-21 "The Rich Merry Fool"

Luke 12:13–21 (ESV) Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”  But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”  And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”  And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully,  and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’  And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear 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, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

When someone in the crowd says to Jesus, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”  Let’s say Jesus says, “Okay!  I will.”  And they go, so Jesus can tell the enquirer’s brother to divide the inheritance.  The inheritance is divided, what then.  Does everyone live happily ever after?  Maybe, but most likely not!

What type of relationship do you think the two brothers had, after Jesus intervened in the dispute?  If the two could not settle their differences beforehand, there is a very good chance the relationship would have deteriorated even further after the fact. 

What would the two brothers’ opinions be of Jesus?  Both would have been wrong!  One brother would have been bitter and resentful for Jesus doing what he did, and the other although he may have been pleased with Jesus’ intervention, would have believed the wrong things about Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world.

But no!  Jesus is not a divider of inheritances, and nor is he a divider of relationships.  He came to be a reconciler, resolving each person’s relationship with God the Father.  And only in our reconciliation with God, can a person expect to have a God-pleasing settlement with another person.

Jesus does not name the person in the crowd, nor does he call him friend.  Rather, he impersonally and abruptly says, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12:14 ESV)

Jesus cannot be a friend of covetousness, justifying and mediating a person’s greed for riches that don’t allow God the Father to be first.

He says to the man and the crowd, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”  (Luke 12:15 ESV)

Possessions here are literally, “things under which you submit first”, or the things you serve as your gods. 

These things we call goods.  But the problem with making these goods our gods, they destroy human relationships and ultimately our relationship with God the Father.

Jesus tells a parable to demonstrate to the crowd, what happens when we make gods out of his gifts by conserving them, trusting them for our security.  Or liberally using them, to extravagantly serve ourselves in pleasure.

If Jesus had helped the man to get his share of the inheritance, Jesus would have helped him become like the rich man in the parable.

Notice in Jesus’ parable to whom the rich man speaks…

“The land of a rich man produced plentifully,  and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’  And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear 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.’” (Luke 12:16–19 ESV)

Who does he talk to? No one!  In the culture of Jesus’ day this would have immediately stood out for the listeners.  Not so much for us today!  Which says something in itself for us who perhaps are more like the rich man than we would like to admit. 

In the middle eastern culture of the day, the rich man would  have discussed with his contemporaries, what he might do. 

Here though however, he only has himself to talk to.  No children, no brothers, no parents, no community, no one!

It’s here we begin to understand why Jesus does not do one’s bidding, telling the brother to divide the inheritance.  A lot more than the inheritance would have been divided if Jesus followed the wishes of the one whose life consisted in the abundance of possessions.  Jesus does not serve the sinful self in its sin.  Rather he serves the sinner in being freed from the power of death, freeing the sinner from the deeds and desires of sin.

The rich man in the parable has possessions and property,  but he is all alone.  The wealth he received from his land producing plentifully, reveals the poverty of his position in life.  He has made himself god of his dominion.  The rich man has taken the place of God, forgetting God the Father, and also fails to remember the problem humanity has, when it takes God’s place.

Because we are not God, we fear losing our identity as top dog, and to protect our position in life,  rid ourselves of the competition, and find our self only with our self for company.  As the saying goes, “it’s lonely being at the top!”  Humans were never created to be God or to be alone.

However, in our wealth-based society that’s exactly what’s happening.  The greater our wealth grows, the more we withdraw from our neighbours, the higher the fences and walls become around us.  Time is spent submitting to and serving our wealth, and in the fullness of time we find ourselves alone separated from God and from our neighbours.

The rich man finds himself alone talking to himself, focused on himself.  Self, I have my crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, with my soul.  But are they really his?  Are the goods you have really yours?  Can you have your cake and eat it too?

It seems Jesus is pointing us to Solomon’s deliberations written in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.”  But unfortunately, the rich man in the parable and perhaps us too, when we are presumptuously consumed by our possessions, overlook the next but most important part of the verse which continues, “This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 ESV)

But really, is the rich man content?  When I observe my goods to which I attribute worth and wealth, it’s not long before the mirage of “satisfied desires” moves and I am unsatisfied once again.  Our goods as gods cannot give us the peace which is only found in God.

Early church father Augustine, rightly says of God the Father, “My soul is restless until it finds its rest in you.”   When wealth and property control us, we get so easily caught up in the belief that our restlessness will stop once we have an overabundance of food and drink.  But it doesn’t.

Jesus knows this.  In fact, in the flesh of a human, he experienced the temptation in which we are tempted and fail.  But, although tempted, Jesus does not succumb to temptation as we do, but faithfully followed our Heavenly Father.

The rich man talking to himself is like a person who chases one’s own steamy breath that vanishes in a moment on a cold  frosty morning. 

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities!  All is vanity.  I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2,14 ESV)

To put it in today’s vernacular, “The rich man is full of hot air, and not much else!”  At the end of the day, he doesn’t even realise his own life is not his own.  Life is not a right but a gift to us – on loan from God.

The rich man puts his feet up in relaxation, eating and drinking in merriment.  Here Jesus uses a play on words.  The words “merry” and “fool” in Greek are both related to the word “diaphragm”.  We might say to be in a good frame of mind.  But diaphragm here suggests a good gut feeling in the torso or midriff.  Think of a relaxing sigh or breath when one has a contented tummy and is in a good frame of mind.

But in the parable God says, “Fool!”  “You, rich man, are hot air and deluded in your comfort.” When God says, “Fool”, Jesus is literally saying the rich man has no diaphragm. He doesn’t have a good frame of mind.  His gut feeling of security is vanity and a chasing after the wind since his goods and possessions are but a breath.  So too is his life!

The Psalmist says, “the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough — that one should live on forever and not see decay.”  (Psalm 49:8–9 NIV)

Our lives are on loan from God.  He is the source of life.  Our life sees decay and death because of sin.  But, despite this, God gives life through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is our daily bread.  He is today’s bread, and he is our tomorrow eternal bread too.

Saint Paul tells the Colossians, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices  and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”(Colossians 3:9–10 ESV)

Jesus gives you your new self, the Holy Spirit comes to see the old self put off, destroy your false gods, and renew you in the knowledge of your new self, Jesus Christ the new Adam, in the image of your Creator, our Father in Heaven.  Amen.