Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Bentonville
August 5, 2007
Gospel:
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "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 toward God."
The Rich Fool
It may seem a little harsh to label this wealthy farmer “a rich fool” – as he has come to be known. He wasn’t guilty as many of the businessmen in Jesus parables are, of cheating his workers, of thievery, or of inflating bills. We only know that he was successful. And that he wished to reap the rewards of his success in his old age. He wished to spend his “golden years” eating, drinking, and being merry. His filled barns are the modern equivalent of IRA’s, 401 K’s, and a fully vested pension plan. Maybe all the old guy wanted, after a lifetime of enduring the harsh winters of Minnesota or Michigan, was to retire on a golf course in Bella Vista. How bad can that be?
In today’s gospel reading we find Jesus being called on to settle a family dispute. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” It is interesting that Jesus refuses to answer the question because he has never been reluctant before to interpret the law, and even, at times, to put himself above the law . And issues of social justice are usually of paramount concern to Jesus. Jesus is always concerned about the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the marginalized. He is just not concerned about this issue, the petty squabbling of siblings over inherited wealth. He, instead, uses the question to address a justice issue larger than who gets the lion share of a family’s inheritance. The rich fool wasn’t foolish because he wanted to be secure in his old age. He was a fool because he had forgotten that the wealth he had accumulated wasn’t his to begin with
What he had been given flowed from creation. Where had his land come from? Had he inherited it? Bought it cheaply? And who really can own land – God’s earth? He may have purchased the seed he used to plant his fields of grain, but the miracle of seed germination is a process that no human can possess. The rains that fell to moisten the soil so the plants could grow – did the farmer’s work cause that? Who built the barns? Who labored in the fields? And where did he get the knowledge and skills he needed to successfully bring in a harvest? And who cooked the rich farmer’s supper when the work day ended?
How can it be said, except in the narrowest way, that the rich fool owned what he had stuffed inside his barns. He inherited it, received it as a gift. Be assured that this farmer, was surrounded by less successful farmers, who worked just as hard, were perhaps just as smart, but lady luck had simply passed them by. No one has ever really pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. Those who wish to build bigger barns to store their possessions have forgotten that what they have acquired is a gift. And gifts are meant to be shared.
The story is told of a hermit, who, seeking shelter from a thunderstorm, stumbled upon a cave hidden deep in the woods. Inside the cave he discovered more wealth than he could ever imagine – a treasure chest overflowing with gold coins. Having long before lost interest in wealth, the hermit turned on his heels and ran from the cave.
Three men walking nearby saw the hermit emerge from the cave and seeing the look of terror on his face yelled after him, “What is it? What’s wrong?
The hermit replied, “I’ve seen the devil, the very face of evil. It will destroy you.”
“Nonsense”, they said, “show us.”
With great reluctance the hermit led the three men inside the cave and showed them the treasure, whereupon he fled again from the gold and the men.
Determining that they needed provisions, it was decided that one of the men should go into town, purchase food and that the remaining two would stay behind to guard the treasure.
While in town, the one man decided that he would buy the food, and mix it with rat poison so that his companions would eat it and he would have the treasure for himself. The two men left behind decided that upon their companions return, they would kill him, so that they could divide the treasure between themselves.
And so they did. And after killing their companion, they sat down to enjoy a meal in the midst of their plenty. And having eaten, it wasn’t long before the bodies of all three dead men lay sprawled around their treasure.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” We will find these words of Jesus written a few words later in Matthew. (The same words, you might have noticed, Harry Potter discovered written on the tombstone of Albus Dumbledore, the late headmaster of the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
But can we be rich without being fools? Maybe, but it requires great humility. It requires a recognition of the fact that an ability to acquire wealth is a gift from God, a gift from creation and must be returned – never hoarded.
I am the richest person I know. In fact, I suffer from an embarrassment of riches. I wake up in the morning next to a beautiful, loving wife. I walk out my backdoor onto a deck that looks out over one of the most beautiful views I’ve seen in NW Arkansas. I spend my days engaged in the most fulfilling work that I can imagine. My children are happy and healthy. I say this to acknowledge to you, what I often forget, that it is all gift. I didn’t earn a bit of it. This abundance of riches is not of my own doing and I have no right to build bigger barns to contain it. And those of us who think that we deserve the health, the wealth, the status that we have are living in illusion. And as the rich fool found out, it can all be swept away at a moments notice.
The Arabs said it this way, “There are no pockets in a shroud”. Or, as I’ve heard it said it Arkansas, “There are no U-Haul’s behind hearses”. Clearly, you can’t take it with you and everybody knows that. But I think Jesus is telling us more.
As heard a few moments ago, “This very night your life is being demanded of you.” In the original Greek a more literal translation is “This very night they are demanding your life.” That’s curious. They? Who are they? Who is the “they” that is demanding your life? Why “they” are the goods and the grain with which the rich fool filled his barn. They demanded his life. The time, the toil that it took to fill those barns with treasure, consumed his life, leaving him ultimately with nothing. The rich fool may or may not have died that very evening, but he had voluntarily given up his life long before.
He was a fool because of the loss of potential. His failure to live in recognition of abundance, rather than in pursuit of it. He had been caught up in the great myth that is being perpetrated on each of us - that our purpose on this earth is to accumulate more stuff.
But if our purpose is not to accumulate things, what is it? Jesus holds in contrast two choices: Storing treasure for yourself and being rich toward God. I think that being rich toward God can mean a lot of different things. But it is clear that an attachment to treasure, moves us away from God. The rich fool wasn’t being condemned for being rich, but for his greed. His obsession with his wealth. His giving over of his life to it. The rich man doesn’t own his overflowing barns, his wealth owns him.
In Benton County we have barns more full than Jesus could ever have imagined.
It would not be completely impossible here at All Saints’, for someone seated in a pew next to you, to have the need of a barn bigger than this nave to hold the billions of dollars they possess. And I am certain that there are here among us people who could easily put all their “stuff” in a small shed. Most of us would require a middlin’ size barn. And all of us possess wealth beyond the imagination of the world’s impoverished millions.
The story, I think, isn’t so much about the evil of wealth, but of our attachment to it. Rich and poor alike can be greedy, grasping. It is our attachment to what we possess that indicates our measure of foolishness. The clearest indication of our attachment to our overflowing barns is our reluctance to give it away. If you give your stuff away, you may no longer own it, but it won’t own you.
To live fully is to recognize the abundance of creation. To wake up each morning and take note of our abundance. To have enough faith in the goodness of God to let go of our possessions. Trust, belief, faith – high sounding words, that mean nothing unless put into action. The rich fool put his faith in the accumulation of more wealth, and built bigger barns. The Christian is asked to empty those barns and give the contents to those who can use it. The poor need those things, but the rich need to give it away – to save their very lives.
"If your free thoughts, your time, and your money were a comet, and you were attached to its tail, where would it take you? That is your God."