I'm just kidding, I know no-one reads my blog that closely.
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The Parable of the Rich Fool
Modern statistics of contested wills?
General greed as the malaise of the modern (and ancient) world
Futility of wealth as an end
Greed as idolatry
Proper focus of life – “do not worry, be ready for service, know the times”
Main points
Problems of wealth – wealth can break up families, dominate lives, take focus away from God, become an idol
Focus on personal wealth is foolishness and meaningless – focus on wealth we have or wealth we don't have are equally foolish (Eccl), and they become meaningless because they have no eternal significance (opposite of sermon last week – wealth can be used for eternal purposes)
Proper focus of life – comes in the rest of the chapter: don't worry about worldy wealth, be ready for service to God, and know and understand what is coming.
Words
A man comes up to Jesus and asks him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Seems a fairly innocuous request at first, doesn't it?
As many of you may know, I have been working for the last little while typing court transcripts for the local and district courts. If you know anything about our legal system, you will know that legal decisions are made based on what the law actually says, and what previous decisions have been made in that area of law, which is called case law. When it comes to disputes over a will, one of the pieces of case law is Morton v Little and Price v Little, where in 2005 two daughters challenged their mother's will, because she gave them relatively small legacies, as she wanted to instead give the majority of her estate to charity, where she felt it was needed more. The daughters, both married and living on reasonable incomes, managed to increase their legacies from $20,000 to $100,000 and $350,000 respectively, which of course robbed the charity of those funds, not to mention depriving their mother's wishes from being followed with what was her own money.
The distribution of a deceased person's estate can bring out powerful emotions in people. Partly it is because emotions are already high – there has been a death in the family, after all. Part of it comes because there is an element of feeling that how the estate is divided somehow represents the love of the one departed, or their connection to that person, and who gets the photographs, grandma's spoons and so on, is important. But part of it has to do with the dollar signs that appear in some people's eyes when they see that a significant amount of money is up for grabs, and they want to get their hands on it.
I wish I could say that it was an ailment that affected only non-Christian families. But I have seen at least two arguments over estates within Christian families that were of the worst kind, in my opinion – bickering over the 'estate' of someone who isn't even dead yet! One was a simple matter of a grandmother giving one of her grandchildren a gift to meet a present need, and one family member feeling that this was “unfair” because all the other grandchildren weren't getting the same sized gift out of 'the estate'. But the other one was far more sinister, where one son was syphoning money out of his mother's estate before she died so that the other son would not get any share of the inheritance! That one ended up in a gruelling legal battle stretching over 12 months, brother against brother, Christian against Christian.
Now look at the request of the man in the crowd again, and let's see if we can fathom the meaning of the parable that Jesus tells in response to this request. In fact, Jesus makes it clear what he thinks about this person's request when he says straight out in verse 15, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” As soon as we hear that, we know what this parable is going to be about – it's going to be about greed. So what happens in the parable? Well, it's all about a rich man. That's right, the parable of the rich fool is about a man who is already rich. It's not a rags to riches tale, it's a riches to more riches tale – far more common when it comes to riches. The man is a rich landowner, who has made his wealth from farming. Already he is considered rich. But one year, the man has a bumper crop – his fields produce more fruit than they would normally do. A substantial amount more. A huge amount more. In fact, so much more that even he, as a successful, wealthy man, had not planned for his crop to be so big. He talks about it in terms of storing the grain in his barn – his current barns are too small to store the huge abundance of extra grain that he has received from his harvest. So he decides to tear down his old barns, and build new, bigger barns, so that he can store all the grain he has grown in this bumper crop, and live off the wealth it provides, never having to worry about money again.
It might be hard for you to imagine this. We don't really measure our wealth these days by how many barns full of grain we have, or how many head of cattle we own. Money these days is mostly electronic, so running out of space for it seems a little unbelievable. There's no limit to how much money can fit on your ATM card. Perhaps a good modern analogy would be investing in the stock market. You're already wealthy enough to be investing in shares. But one day you read in the paper that one of the companies you have a significant share in, say Holden, somehow discovers a way to make their cars fly. Suddenly, their stock shoots through the roof with this new, unbelievably awesome technology, and you suddenly become incredibly rich. Much, much richer than you ever expected. So rich that not only do you no longer have to worry about things like what happens to the share prices, or what happens if there's an economic crisis, or how much tax am I going to pay. You don't have to worry about affording anything you want ever again. You are so rich that it is now mandatory to wear a top hat and a monocle.
So what do you do? You're faced with so much cash, such an unbelievably large amount of money, that you think, “I know what I'll do. I am so filthy rich that I'm going to just sell all my Holden shares, and live off the fat of my wealth, never having to worry about anything. I can just sit back and watch TV all day, or play golf all day, or all day.” It's a dream come true – being so rich that you never have to worry about losing a job, about an economic recession, about rises in the cost of living, about your family ever being in need or want of anything. So there you are, sitting at your dining room table with the newspaper working out how you are going to spend your life now that you are a multi-trillionaire, when all of a sudden a car flies through your window and kills you.
Now what happens to your plans of playing golf every day? What happens to your life of luxury? They are all for nought – a total waste of time. Not only that, but now your kids will get the money, and who is to say that they will spend it appropriately? They might gamble it all away on instant lottery tickets. They might well spend it all on lawyers as they fight over it amongst themselves. The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us in chapter 2 verse 21, “For people may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to others who have not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.” Jesus says that God calls the rich man who made these plans a fool. Verse 21 back in Luke 12 says it all – for those who seek to feather their own nests, but are not seeking to build up the kingdom of heaven, their plans will be meaningless. They are not building anything that will last. Later in the same chapter of Ecclesiastes, in chapter 2, verse 26, “To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.” When you are storing up wealth, but not pleasing God, you're basically a bank account for God to use for the sake of those who please him. The rich fool may well have died, and his children got the money and then used it for God's glory!
Why does the rich man live his life this way? Perhaps we should ask Why do people today still live this way? Why do we live this way? We seek to make ourselves comfortable, or secure, to build up something for our future, perhaps for our children's future. Is Jesus calling this foolish? No! Look carefully at his words. “This is how it will be with those who store up things for themselves but are not rich toward God.” I think it's easy for us to hear this parable and to become judgemental of the super rich. It's easy for us to look down on those with incredible wealth, with their solid gold toilet seats, private jets and flying cars or whatever, and say “Yeah, what selfish people they are, with all that cash and wasting it on such things.” But we have to remember that this parable is not primarily about the mega-rich. Jesus is using a parable, a story, to illustrate a reality for everyone who listens to it, for all of us. And so to do that he uses an extreme example, an example of a mega-rich person. But he is answering the question of a normal person, who wanted Jesus to help him in a normal will dispute.
You might remember my sermon of two weeks ago, about the rich man and Lazarus. I said that the rich man sought after a life of luxury, and he got it every day until he died, but he was living a life that was unintentionally leading him to hell. Well, in this parable the rich man isn't even getting his life of luxury! He dies with the plans still in his hands. His life is worthless, because the only thing he cared about was a future of luxury and security, and once he dies, that all comes undone. He has no more future. But if he had been rich toward God, then his life would have had eternal meaning. His contribution to the building of God's kingdom would exist forever, and he would live forever in heaven to see it.
You might think I'm a bit strange for saying this, but this parable is not just about money. It's about our life's direction, and what we are striving for. If our lives are shaped by greed, like the man asking Jesus to help him get some of the inheritance, or like the rich fool, then our life really is all about greed. This is such a common life's direction that Jesus picks it to talk about over and over again. You've heard about it at least three weeks in a row now. It's a favourite topic of Jesus. But Jesus is not focusing on greed, he is focused on the kingdom of God, and so he is seeking to break down the reality and consequence of a life lived for anything but God, and show us that the only meaningful direction in life is to seek to follow God.
So let's get this straight. Being rich toward God is not just about how you spend your money. That's only one part of it. Being rich toward God does not necessarily mean being poor in this world, any more than it means being mega-rich. What it does mean is instead of building plans based around your life, your wealth, your security or your comfort, your plans are focused on building up God's kingdom, spreading God's message, doing God's will and making God's name great. Just giving money to a church for a new building, or even to a mission agency to support the spread of the gospel, does not indicate richness toward God. Anyone can do those things without caring at all about God's kingdom.
Being rich toward God is about living your whole life in such a way that is focused on doing God's will. It's a change of attitude that stops asking, “What about me?” and starts asking, “What about God?” It stops asking, “What do I want?” and starts asking “What does God want of me?” When you have the answer to those questions, it means living those answers out with everything at your disposal. Take a look at your life for a moment. I won't even bother asking you if you are storing things up for yourself. You know you are. Of course you are. Everyone is. It's a wise thing to do. The question is, while you are doing that, are you being rich toward God?
It is important to recognise that the author, Luke, put Jesus' parable of the rich fool in chapter 12, which is all about living such a life of being rich toward God. It starts with Jesus telling people that the only worthwhile thing to strive towards is eternal life. Christians should not even fear death at the hands of persecutors, because our lives here are nothing compared to eternal life. We should be rich toward God with our very life and death. Then we have this parable, about the rich fool – the message is we should be rich toward God with our money. After that is Jesus' famous speech about how we should not worry, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.” What is the message there? Don't make your life's direction all about what you eat, or drink, or wear. These are temporary concerns. Jesus says, “Your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” Sure, buy new underpants. But don't spend your life worrying about them! Seek God's kingdom!
The next section is telling us to be watchful. It's a parable about servants whose master has gone away. If the servants are keeping watch for their master's return, then they will be ready to serve the master, and he will be happy with them. But if they don't keep watch, if they think the master will be a long time coming, and they mess around and don't work while the boss is gone, then he will be angry when he finds them. This is yet another parable about where our life direction is pointed. Jesus has said he is going to return. When he does, will he find that we have been working diligently for him, because that is the direction our lives are focused towards? Or will he find that we have just been marking time until he gets back, or that we've been doing our own stuff on his work time, or that we have been feathering our own nests with his wealth? Jesus is pretty plain about it, “The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.”
The next section is about understanding that even our families, the closest people to us, may become separated from us because of this change in our life's direction. Families are an important and God-ordained part of our lives. But they are still temporary. Only God's kingdom is eternal. If we do not seek to look after our family's eternal needs, even as we seek to obey God in looking after their physical needs, then we are not focused in the right direction.
Finally, Jesus says that if our lives are focused in the right direction, the importance of eternity will become obvious to us. He likens it to looking at the sky and making weather predictions, which we then base our lives around. When we're making plans for a picnic, we check the weather and if there are dark clouds looming, we change our actions accordingly. Jesus says that if we are aware of the existence of the eternal kingdom of God looming on the horizon, our actions and lives should change accordingly.
Now let's put all those together. If you want your life to be at all meaningful, then your life's direction has to be focused on making a difference eternally. It means looking at our world from the perspective of God – as a ticking clock, counting down towards an inevitable end, recognising that end is coming nearer every day, and making sure your life is focused on what will be valuable after that end, in eternity. It means being watchful and dedicated servants, so that when Jesus does return and the end does come, you will have been diligently working away at his work. It means recognising that eternity is the only thing with any meaning, and outranks everything else that we are told in this world is so important – money, family, even life itself.
Let me tell the story one more time – this time, I'll put it in perspective. God comes to earth as a man, and begins to tell people how to get to heaven, and how their lives can be eternally significant. He has just finished telling them that even if someone wants to put you to death for following him, it's worth it. In the crowd, one man puts his hand up to ask God a question. “Yes,” says God, “You. What is it?” The man has God before him, and asks him for this: “Can you tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me?”
God looks at him and says “I, God, am here talking about how you can live forever with me in heaven, in perfect peace, lacking nothing, for all eternity. And you want me, God, to come and tell your brother to divide up your dad's socket wrench collection? Are you honestly that greedy? Are you really so short-sighted because of your selfish greed that you would rather me tell your brother to give you your mum's commemorative tea set, than hear me talk about how you and your brother can have eternal life? You are a fool, sir, and I pity you.”
You might think that's harsh. It is harsh. It's harsh because everyone knows we have all at one time or another worried needlessly about stupid things. Something silly can get under our skin and we pursue it like a greyhound chasing those fake rabbits around the greyhound track. “Oooh, my brother won't split the inheritance evenly with me! Oooh, toothpicks at restaurants aren't sanitary because they aren't individually wrapped! Oooh, there's not enough flavouring on Barbecue Shapes!” We focus our lives on trivialities. We chase the fake rabbit. Whereas God is concerned about justice. God is concerned about righteousness. God is concerned about grace and mercy and compassion. God is concerned about eternity. Let's get our lives focused in the right direction – in God's direction. Yes, you will still have superannuation and retirement. You will still have jobs and buy houses and children's parties and last wills and all of those things. But put them in their place. They are trivialities when you compare them to eternity with God in heaven. Jesus said “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Seek first the kingdom of God.
Let's pray.
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