Colossians 3.1-11, Luke 12.13-21
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity, Sunday 31 July 2016
Queen Camel, Weston Bampfylde
This rabbi didn’t play by the rules. I went there asking him for justice. He refused me, and told me a very disturbing tale instead.
I asked the rabbi to tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. It was my right to take my share. It was owed to me, according to the law. So I was shocked by his reply. He said, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”, "Who made me a judge or a divider over you?”
Well, I went to Jesus because, as a rabbi, he was a judge and arbiter. He had the power to divide. In our society, that was a rabbi’s role, to make legal judgements over our affairs. He knew the law and he ruled on it. And I knew the law, and I wanted the rabbi to confirm to my brother that I had the right to the inheritance. I wanted to get this rabbi Jesus on-side to force my brother to give me what I wanted. That was the legal practice of the land: a father dies and leaves the inheritance as a unit to his sons. If one heir wants a division of the inheritance then the rabbis rule that he should be granted it.
So I went to Jesus because, as a rabbi, he had the power to divide us, brother from brother, by splitting the inheritance. But he refused to support this division. He refused to be co-opted by me in claiming my right to grab the inheritance and say farewell to my family ties.
Here was rabbi Jesus, resisting my plea, refusing to divide my brother and me, instead throwing the responsibility for my actions back onto me. This was breathtaking and very, very, challenging. Because now I had to go back to face my brother and work out a solution in the light of what Jesus said next.
He told me a story which raised big questions about my motivation for taking this inheritance; and which challenged my outlook on life to the core.
His story was about a man obsessed with the idea of building bigger and bigger barns to store more and more of the excess grain and goods he had in his possession, thinking this would set him up for life. The story ends with the man's premature death, and God saying to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
As I heard the rabbi tell this tale I couldn’t help making connections between the rich man in the story and myself.
These are some of the things I noticed about him, which shook me up.
First of all, he was full of himself. He naturally assumed that the extra crops that grew on his land, were his. For him to store up for himself. No thought that they may have been gifted to him by nature, by the Creator. No thought of sharing them with anyone else.
And secondly, I noticed that he only ever spoke to himself about these things. ‘He thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said to himself, “I will pull down my barns and build larger ones… And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ He didn’t have anyone with him to talk these things through with. He was rich - but very alone.
And so when God speaks in the story, he asks the question I was also asking, ‘These things you’ve stored up for yourself, once you’re gone, whose will they be?’ There was no-one to share with. If he’d ever had family, he’d alienated them, they’d long since left him to his own devices.
I noticed that God doesn’t mince his words with this self-absorbed rich man. He calls him a fool in the strongest term possible in our language. He calls him stupid.
‘Look at what you’ve done to yourself!’ God thunders.
‘You plan alone, build alone, indulge alone, and now you will die alone!’ [2]
So as I listened to the rabbi Jesus telling this tale it transformed from being about a wealthy successful man planning for his comfort in posterity, to being about a stupid rich man closed-off from his neighbours and from God, discovering that, of the things which really mattered, he had nothing.
Jesus’ story made me realise that the man’s excess was not a product of anything he’d done. The abundance on his land was a gift from God. And Jesus’ story showed up sharply for me that just as God gives, so also God takes away. The story makes it sound like we are tenants on God’s earth, indebted to our Creator. And when God says, ’your life is being demanded of you’,‘your soul is being required of you’, there God is calling in the man’s debt: having loaned the man his soul, now God wants it returned.
There were two sayings Jesus used, one at the start of the story and one at the end.
The first one said,
‘Take heed, and beware of every kind of insatiable desire;
for your life does not consist in the surpluses of your possessions.’
And the last one said,
‘So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves
but are not rich towards God.’
After hearing all of this from Jesus I realise that as far as claiming my inheritance is concerned, I know my rights - I’m entitled to the inheritance - but before I take it I might be best to pay some attention to my wrongs. To those insatiable desires I have for more and more; for the illusion that the more I have the fuller life will be for me.
I might guard against the fantasy that everything I have received in life is mine to keep. When the stupid rich man was looking for extra storage space he failed to note that he had ‘ample storage in the mouths of the hungry. Such a thought never enters his head’. [3]
I might spend some useful time contemplating the thought that the wealth that I have, has been gifted to me; the thought that the life that I have I am indebted to God for.
I might consider the question which Jesus raised but left me to answer: a question that seems to hold the key to a satisfied life. What does it mean to be "rich toward God"?
That's a very challenging question. It suggests that what you most value in life influences the sort of life you live. If you most value wealth you'll probably be very smart but very anxious; if you value God you'll also value things like family, community, peace, etc, and you may dress cheaply but you'll be satisfied.
Being rich can buy us many things. But being rich towards God can buy us some very different things altogether. That's what Jesus made me remember. He got me thinking that with money we can buy:
- a bed, but no dreams;
- books, but not intelligence;
- food, but not appetite;
- adornments, but not beauty;
- medicines, but not health;
- entertainment, but not joy;
- a crucifix, but not a Saviour... [4]
Jesus left me with these deep questions to consider:
First, what are the things you think will make you rich?
Second, what are the things you think will make you rich towards God?
He is teaching me that I can only be truly happy and fulfilled when my answers to both questions are the same. And that could take some time, some prayer, some hard work.
At the end of all this, what did I learn about this rabbi, Jesus? That he is a rabbi who refuses to be drawn into making judgements which divide people. Instead he challenges us to step outside simply ‘knowing our rights’ and opens our eyes and hearts to our deeper motives, how we act towards others, and towards God. Who sends us back to work out our differences for ourselves.
So…. what shall I do now? Is the burning question for me. Do I stop to sort out my priorities in life, go back to my brother and work out how we can live together, our inheritance undivided; or do I just leave Jesus behind and go and find another rabbi who knows my rights and who, without quibbling, without conscience, will grant me what I want?
Notes
[1] This sermon is a combination of what I have learned from Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes: a Literary-cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke, Through Peasant Eyes, Chapter 4, The Rich Fool, p.57-73, and my sermon Being rich toward God, preached in Liverpool in 2004.
[2] Bailey p.67.
[3] Ambrose, quoted in Bailey p.64.
[4] With money we can buy - words seen on the wall of a restaurant in Guatemala: translated by Judith Escribano, quoted from a Christian Aid study guide, Rebecca Dudley, Peter Graystone, For love or money.
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