Luke
12:13-21 (NIV) 13 Someone in the
crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with
me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does
not consist in an abundance of possessions.” 16 And
he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich
man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He
thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will
tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus
grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You
have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be
merry.”’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You
fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get
what you have prepared for yourself?’ 21 “This
is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich
toward God.”
One day a man came to Jesus with a pressing need.
He thought he was seeking justice - tell my brother to divide the inheritance. But
Jesus’ message was to tell the man to wake up and see the truth about his
desires. Be on your guard
against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of
possessions. Many of us have heard the words before. But have they
drifted past our ears instead of sinking into our souls? Indeed
if we were asked what makes us happy, we would probably list some intangibles
like love, relationship, family. But money means survival, and in the day to
day doings of our lives it is often seen as the most real thing, and the most
pressing need of our life. So rather than examining our hearts, maybe we should
examine our lives.
And so Jesus tells of a man who was
so dependent on his wealth that he was no longer attune with the reality of
life. And Jesus called this man a fool. The word means someone without sense,
without awareness of danger they are in or of the harm they are causing. But we
are not a fool by accident, or because of the way we were raised, or because of
what we have been deprived of in life. We are fools because we resist the
wisdom all around us that says life does not consist in an abundance of
possessions. So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves and are
not rich toward God.
The wealthy rich are those who have
a rich relationship to God, one of sharing, trust, a source of satisfaction,
fun, interesting, and the fundamental value of their life. Jesus never opposed
wealth. But He also knew that almost unconsciously we could grow to depend on riches
in such a way that we deprive ourselves of a rich relationship to God. Money
does not have to deprive us of that relationship. The appropriate use of money
is grounded in our trust in God. There is a relief to our spirit, a glimmer of
hope, and we begin to act on this hope in the way we are stewards, in the way
we manage our money under God’s guidance.
From a sermon preached by Henry
Dobbs Pope November 12, 1995
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell (Broyles)
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