to return to your place in the text.To read endnotes, click on the the note number, then click on the
Of course, this link between a fool and money (or
possessions) goes back along way, all the way to our Gospel
lesson. The story is prompted by a man from the crowd which has
been surrounding Jesus: "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the
family inheritance with me." Apparently the man's older brother
refused to give him what he felt he was due. The laws of
inheritance in that day stipulated that the elder brother would
receive a double portion of the legacy,(2) then the balance
distributed. For whatever reason, this fellow was feeling
cheated and he wanted Rabbi Jesus to act as Probate Judge, just
as Moses had done centuries before.(3) But Jesus would have none
of it. As is so often the case when families gather for the
reading of the will, the issue is not justice, it is greed, pure
and simple. And the shame is that families are often permanently
torn apart by it. Jesus says, "Take care! Be on your guard
against all kinds of greed;" Or as the venerable King James
Version has it, "Beware of covetousness." Commandment #10: "Thou
shalt not COVET." Someone has defined covetousness as "wanting
more of what you already have enough of." Wanting more of what
you already have enough of. Most of us would not call ourselves
greedy, but wanting more of what we already have enough of? Hmm.
Sounds almost too close for comfort.
Now, in good rabbinic fashion Jesus says, "Let me tell you a
story." He begins to talk about this rich guy...a farmer who has
done very well for himself.(4) Nothing illegal. This is no
slumlord or drug dealer, he does not cheat his employees or
mistreat them. This is lawful profit. Horatio Alger stuff. A
hard worker, an upstanding citizen. Through a combination of
skill and luck and plain hard work, his investment and labor have
paid off. He has got this massive crop in.
Now what? Got to store it someplace. He calls in the
architect to help him plan bigger barns. The hours pass, finally
the architect says, "Look, I have got to get home. I have been
out every night this week."
"Leave the plans with me", says the man, "I will keep
working on them. We can pick it up tomorrow." So he continues
to work with his drawings and his figures.
Mrs. Farmer comes in to say, "Goodnight, dear. Don't work
too late." But he barely hears her, so caught up is he in the
vision of the future.
The hours pass, and he senses what seems to be a knock at
the door. But before he can answer the door there seems to be
someone in the room with him. "Who are you?"
"I am death," the presence replies.
"What are you doing here?"
"I have come for you. Ten, nine, eight."
"Wait a minute, I'm not ready. You didn't warn me."
"Oh yes, I warned you. I warned you when that young man had
that boating accident. When the friend you started farming with
died of cancer. Those twinges in your chest and left arm. I
warned you, but whether or not you were listening, who can say?
Seven, six, five."
"Wait, wait, I will give you half of all I have."
"What is that to me? Four, three."
"Wait, I will give you everything I have. I will start all
over again. I am not ready."
But the count-down continues..."two, one, and out."
In the morning, his wife finds him slumped over the papers.
The pressure building up in his system had simply been too much
for his heart. The little pain he felt and ignored had been the
warning of something more massive.
At the farmer's funeral many fine words were spoken. He was
an example to the community, he was a big barn builder, always
willing to help his neighbor in times of need, a strong supporter
of community charities. A fine man, a fine man. But that night,
the angel of God walked through the cemetery and wrote on the
man's headstone the letters F O O L.
"So are all of you", Jesus said, "who are rich in the things
of this world but have no treasure in heaven." The fool and his
money are parted...permanently. There are no pockets in a
shroud, no U-Hauls behind a hearse.
Please be careful here. Do not make the man worse than he
is. He is not unlike most of us in his passions and motives.
Notice too that what happens is not a punishment. The message of
the parable is not that God does not like people who work hard
and are successful. The parable is simply an observation of the
way life is for all of us, rich or poor, successful or
struggling. Death is one of those facts of life, and no matter
what you accumulate, nothing will change that. Another fact is that those possessions (or the pursuit of them) can become so overburdening as to be fatal. The Greek rendering of this passage is more explicit than the English - Verse 20: "This night THEY (the possessions) will require your soul from you." Those possessions can be dangerous...even deadly. BE CAREFUL!
Now we begin to see why our rich friend was called such a nasty name. Obviously, he was inordinately
preoccupied with those potentially deadly possessions. Until the voice of God interrupts,
all we hear about is STUFF - his "land...crops...barns...grain...
ample goods." He sounds as if he comes from the school of
thought that is convinced that the one who dies with the most
toys wins.
Is he right? I do not think so. Do you remembering seeing
(or hearing about) that wonderful program on Public Television
last year called AFFLUENZA?(5) As it opened we saw a patient in a
doctor's office. She whined, "I feel so awful, so bloated," and
the doctor told her, "I'm afraid you're suffering from...
AFFLUENZA." The program noted that Americans are spending more,
but enjoying it less, and there is a consensus out there that, as
a society, we are too greedy, too materialistic. In fact, there
is an even greater consensus that the children we are raising
have been taught so well that they are even worse than us old
folks. "Never before has so much meant so little to so many."
And there are too many miserable millionaires to be ignored.
STUFF! Just like the fellow in the parable.
But he has more of a problem than an accumulation of STUFF.
He has come to believe that the STUFF is his security. WRONG,
Fool! Even without the problem of an untimely demise, this never
works. Ask anyone who has ever been robbed...or had their house
burn up in the Florida brushfires...or seen a home slide slowly,
slowly over a rain-soaked California cliff.
I was intrigued to read recently of a family that put up a
hummingbird feeder with four feeding stations (similar to one
that hangs outside our kitchen window). Almost immediately it
became popular with the hummingbirds that lived in the area.
Two, three, or even four birds would feed at one time. The
feeder would be refilled at least once a day.
Suddenly the usage decreased to almost nothing. The feeder
needed filling only about once a week. The reason for the
decreased usage soon became apparent. A male bird had taken over
the feeder as his property. He was now the only hummingbird who
used it. He would feed and then sit in a nearby tree, rising to
attack any bird that approached his feeder. Guard duty occupied
his every waking hour. He was an effective guard. The only time
another bird got to use the feeder was when the self-appointed
owner was momentarily gone to chase away an intruder.
That hummingbird was teaching a valuable lesson. By
choosing to assume ownership of the feeder, he forfeited his
freedom. He was no longer free to come and go as he wished. He
was tied to the work of guarding his feeder, his STUFF. He was
possessed by his possession.(6)
That leads us back to our rich fool. One more problem he
appears to share with that hummingbird is selfishness. Remember
what the goal of his good life would be? "Eat, drink, and be
merry." His daydream is to spend his future indulging himself.
His chariot will sport a license tag proclaiming "I'm spending my
children's inheritance." Is that what gives life meaning? No
life that I would ever want.
Admittedly, we understand what motivated him. We come from
a society that encourages the same in all of us. Why else would
people stand for hours in long lines this past week to buy
Powerball tickets that offered only an 80-million-to-one chance
of winning? (And how many of those would be standing in line
today to get into church?) We all suffer from "AFFLUENZA." The
Romans had a proverb: "Money is like seawater; the more you
drink, the thirstier you become."(7) We know. We know. And folks
ARE trying to do something about our addiction. The PBS program
noted that, of the Americans who have voluntarily cut back their
consumption, 86% say that they are happier as a result. In 1996,
5% of the "baby boom" generation reported practicing a strong
form of voluntary simplicity. By the year 2000, some predict the
number will rise to 15%.
Jesus says, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds
of greed - no covetousness, no wanting more of what you already
have enough of - for one's life does not consist in the abundance
of possessions." He made the statement in response to a request
for help with an inheritance problem. He could have concluded
with a story about another family's settlement of an estate.
Again, it involves two brothers.(8) The older brother was very
rich. He had been successful in business and the world. Over
the years he had never married and did not really have friends.
He spent all of his time working. The younger brother, on the
other hand, had a large family and many friends. He worked hard,
but had little to show for his work. It seemed as though between
his family and helping his friends the money just barely went far
enough.
One day the men got word that their father had died and the
land that had been the family farm was to be divided between the
two brothers equally. They both went to stay in their father's
house while they tended to the various matters and arrangements
of their father's affairs. After their father had been buried
surveyors came and marked the land to allow for equal
distribution.
One night the older brother was lying in his bed, and he
thought of his younger brother and how poor he was. With his big
family he could certainly use some extra income. He thought, "I
am rich and have plenty. I will go out in the dark of the night
and move the marker that divides the farm in half, giving him the
bigger portion of the land."
Meanwhile, the younger brother was lying in bed and thinking
about his older brother and how alone he was, without family and
friends. He thought about how blessed he was to have a large
family and so many friends. He thought, "All my brother has to
remind him of his family is this piece of land. I will go out in
the middle of the night and move the marker over further on my
side, so that he may have the bigger piece of the land."
That night, in the middle of their father's field the two
brothers met. When each heard what the other brother was doing,
they embraced and wept. Years later, legend has it, that the
city of Jerusalem was built upon the spot where their tears had
fallen.
Listen once more to Jesus: "Take care! Be on your guard
against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in
the abundance of possessions."
Let us pray.
Lord, we confess to terrible difficulty in not being foolish
about money and STUFF. Help us. We do not do well on our own.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen!
1. quoted in Bill Adler's The Stevenson Wit, via Internet,
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6517/money.htm 2. Deuteronomy 21:17 3. Numbers 27:1-11 4. Credit to Ross Bartlett's sermon, "Learning From A Fool" via Internet for the creative
retelling of the parable, http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/c-or18-98.html 5. A production of KCTS-TV and Oregon Public Broadcasting, John de Graaf, Producer,
first broadcast nationally on PBS on 9/15/97 6. W. L. Barnes, Free As a Bird, quoted in Bible Illustrator for Windows, diskette,
(Hiawatha, IO: Parsons Technology, 1994) 7. William Barclay, Daily Study Bible Series, CD-ROM, (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1996) 8. An old Hasidic tale which can be found in a number of iterations. This one was posted by Janet MacgregorWilliams on Ecunet in "Sermonshop Sermons," #744, 8/5/98
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