This Sunday's lectionary includes the parable of the rich fool and was the passage of scripture I felt I needed to preach on. As my sermon unfolded onto the page I had the congregation I will lead in worship in mind, but on reflection this is a sermon that I could preach in probably of the United Reformed Churches I serve. It is probably one I would feel able to preach even in a church I do not know pastorally.
And so, I share today's sermon here. It might not be the finest example of the craft of preaching, but in an age when material wealth is of great importance and there are many issues, in the church and elsewhere, relating to storehouses, there is a challenge here for us all.
Luke 12.13-21 (NRSV)
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 towards God.’
On first glance, we might want to ask
what all the fuss is about with respects to this parable of Jesus’. What the
man in the story does seems to resonant with what most of us, I would guess,
have been taught or been encouraged to do during our lives—be prudent with what
we have; plan for the future and/or that rainy day. Admittedly, depending on
how things have turned out for each of us in our lives, whether we have been
lucky to always have a job with an adequate wage, will have influenced how
successful we have been at this. Yet, even if our saves have only ever been
great enough for a very small piggy bank or biscuit tin, we will have aimed to
put something by ‘just in case’.
This prudent
mentality of the man in the story, however, gets labelled as being foolish.
Why, when these were not ill-gotten gains like in the parable of the wicked
tenants (Matthew 21.33-41) or the dishonest manager (Luke 16.1-9)? The man had
done all the right things: he had toiled hard and the harvest had been more
than fruitful. And then, as we can find other examples of within the scriptures,
for example Joseph managing the years of plenty followed by the years of famine
in Egypt (Genesis 41), the man looked to ensure nothing went to waste by
building bigger barns. The only thing that goes wrong with the plan was that
the man dies before he had a chance to do anything with the wealth he had
collected. He didn’t even get the chance to have his party! So why does Jesus
use such strong language and have God calling the man a fool?
When we look more
closely at the story, there are two things that we should note. Firstly, the
man’s barns were already full. Secondly, the only person in the picture the man
paints was the man himself. Why build bigger barns when clearly the man had
more than he needed already? Why, when we can probably rightly assume that this
was a man who would have been an upright citizen and observer of religious law,
does he not take note of those Mosaic laws about having concern for ones
neighbours, particularly those who may not have the ability to provide for
themselves as the man could? Well, because Jesus wanted to draw the listeners
attention to the age-old problem we have in humanity: our ability to so easily
become self-centred, even when initially our intentions may have not been—we were
only just putting something away for a rainy-day!
The reason Jesus
embarked on this story with the crowd was in response to a question that
related to greed. The law of the land had been followed, inheritances had been
distributed accordingly, two-thirds to the oldest son and one-third to the
youngest. But the youngest believed they should have had more. Maybe so, if we
believe in equal rights, but at that point in the history of the people of
Israel that was not the case. And actually why was it that the younger son
believed he should have been entitled to more? Could he give an answer that was
about something other than his own creature comforts? Given the nature of the
parable, probably not, and that is why we have this foolish man, whose actions which
may have been once about being prudent had become ones centred on himself and
blow the rest of the world!
This is one of
Jesus’ parables that does not have a happy ending. We are left on a cliff-edge
with the question of who now is going to benefit from all that the man has
stored up on earth. There is no one it would seem. The grain will just rot away
in those vast barns and finally the barns will fall into rack and ruin. It’s
shocking, yet Jesus does use these shock tactics every so often to wake up the
crowd and us. We need that prod in the ribs to look at what we are doing and
how we are living out our lives as disciples.
In the gospel of
Matthew, we have the story of another rich man, one who this time Jesus
encounters. Like the rich fool in the parable, he was an upright man keeping
the law, yet he wanted to know what else he should do to ensure that he might
have eternal life. Jesus’ response was, ‘if your wish to be perfect, go, sell
your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven; then come, follow me.’ (Matthew 19.21) The way the story is told, this
was just one step too far for that rich man. And although we may not be rich in
wealth ourselves, even with what we do materially have, it is probably a step
too far for most of us. This, however, does not mean we are doomed in our
following of Christ.
The rich man’s
foolishness in the parable, told by Jesus in the gospel of Luke, is not so much
about what he had stored up or that he had even chosen to do that. Rather it is
about the wisdom behind how he dealt with his gathering wealth. There was no plan
for what that wealth could do other than sit in those barns for a rainy day
that may never arrive. Which actually never did arrive for that rich man. It is
not wrong to have some sort of reserve, but what is that reserve truly being
kept for? Once the bills are paid, should all that is left over go into that
‘rainy day pot’ or does some of it need to be used elsewhere? Should it be handed
on to a neighbour who has hit that ‘rainy day’ but has nothing to fall back on?
As both individuals
and as a community, this parable is a true challenge. Not only may we have
wealth that we need to wisely discern how best manage, but we may have other
gifts from God in our lives and around us in the world that God would encourage
us to make the most of but we know we need to do so with great wisdom. As our
communion liturgy speaks of, God made us stewards of the world. This parable
reminds us that we need to undertake that stewardship appropriately. We need to
see the bigger picture as well as some of the finer detail. We need to try not
to get centred on one thing that could draw us into a self-contained existence
that loses sight of even God.
What then are in our
storehouses? Why are we hold on to such things and what is that ‘rainy day’
that we fear? Is it time to let go and celebrate what God has given us and then
really engage with God in how we go forward, wisely using what we have and who
we are because of God’s grace towards us? After all, God’s call to us as
disciples of Jesus Christ is to walk Jesus’ way and tell every corner of the
world the good news. God did not call us to sit in storehouse or barns waiting
for the rainy day!
Amen
