August 3, 2025 Luke 12: 13-21 Sermon "Some Rando in the Crowd called out to Jesus..." Rev. Peter Hofstra

             Some rando in the crowd called out to Jesus, “Make my brother split the family inheritance!”  I know that scene from a high school educational film on the life I remember being called the Hanging Judge.  This goes back to the last century, I am glad I remembered that much.    I remember it because there was a guy in the crowd there who called upon the judge in a crowd to demand his brother split their inheritance.  To this day, I am convinced that the set up comes from our Scripture passage.  The judge didn’t hang them, but he pointed to one brother and said, “You split the inheritance into two halves.”  Then he pointed to the other brother, “And you get first choice.”

            Jesus’ response to the brother is “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”  In other words, “That is not my job.”  Because it’s the job of a judge.  And I looked up the guy from the educational historic film, Matthew Baillie Begby, first justice of the Supreme Court of the Colony of British Columbia, a couple of centuries back…

            Jesus turns the shoutout to a teaching moment.  “Take care,” he says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  As a person highly susceptible to reverse psychology, I embrace one of its logical outgrowths, flipside psychology.  For example, there was a meme that said something like “When we speak of a domestic housewife, does that not presume the existence of a feral housewife?”  In this case, if one’s life does NOT consist in the abundance of possessions, then does it not presume the existence of something else to consist of? 

            To be clear, Jesus does not dismiss being rich.  At passage end, it is in being rich toward God.  I believe there is clarity in figuring out what that means in flipping Jesus’ parable. 

            Many kinds of greed, Jesus says. The 1st and most obvious seems to be verse 16 where Jesus says. “the land of a rich man produced abundantly.” Greed is about the acquisition of stuff. And that certainly follows. “My barns are too small, let me big bigger ones, a place for all my junk.” Well, not junk, the man is not a generic hoarder, but a hoarder of goods and grain.  It is the greed of stuff. I got it, I am not gonna share it.

            In the grand scheme of things, this man is blessed by God.  He’s rich by legal means.  His land produces abundantly. We have seen it in micro form in the vegetables shared in fellowship.  I believe we are going to see it one of these days on Tom’s tomato plant out back (it’s the one with the cross).  But what is different is the man does not recognize God in the process, he wants it, he's going to store it, he's not going to share it, it's all his. Seems like the most obvious development of life not being, not consisting in the abundance of possessions.

            So if that is how not to get rich in God, how do we get rich in God? When it comes to our possessions? The governing principle might be found in the story of the rich young ruler. This is a guy who gains the love of Jesus with all the correct answers about faith.  He also has a lot of stuff, and Jesus tells him you need only one more thing period go, sell everything, and come follow me. Left the guy stumped, because he had so much.

            But it is not the stuff that is bad, it's when the stuff gets in the way of our relationship with God. When the goods and the money and the love of those things is greater than our love of God. We forget that everything we have is God's blessing. The rich man in the parable has clearly forgotten that. So, devoting our stuff to the work of God, instead of to ourselves, that's the flip. That's the connection to being rich in God?

            Behind the abundance of possession, it seems the rich man is good at what he does. He's got a head for business, he's got a head for agriculture, he's got talents. The goods and grains are the rewards of those talents. He uses those talents to get rich. The man's a planner, you can look at his current storage and realize he needs more. He puts a plan in place to pull down the old barns, build new barns, and even with that investment in capital expenditures, they'll still be overflowing with grain and goods.

            All kinds of greeds, Jesus says. Like this include using his talents to get rich, using his talents for himself. I can do this stuff, I do it for me. So what's the flip side of that? I might be influenced by the fact that the Pennsauken library is currently moving from one facility into a new facility, but I think of Andrew Carnegie. One of the richest men in the nation in his day, and he turned those talents from making money for himself to laying the foundation of a Free Library system across this nation. He did it well.  It exists and still thrives today.   

            The rich man of Jesus, he is no Ebenezer Scrooge. There's a line in A Christmas Carol where his nephew comments that Scrooge, while being fantastic in business, although there is no commentary on the ethics of his business practice, does not even use his riches to make himself comfortable. He lives in a couple of rooms on the second floor of a light industrial complex somewhere in London. This rich man, he's got a plan. I am going to retire early and I am going to eat drink and be merry.

            The Bible of Jesus has a whole book about this, the book of Ecclesiastes. Rich guy, Uber rich, has done everything under the sun, And what is his response to all of that? Ecclesiastes 1:2, “Vanity of vanity, he says, Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”  I like the way my Jewish Study Bible translates it. “Utter futility! Utter futility! All is futile! What real gain is there for a man in all the gains he makes beneath the sun?”

            So the rich guy is all set, is going to retire early and get on the party circuit for the next 20, 30, 40 years. Except, God says to him, you fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. All the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

            Being rich in God may be the centerpiece of this passage, but the climax is that we do not simply die, but our life is demanded of us.  So to the grand question of existence, “Is this all, is there nothing more?”, the answer is, quite clearly, there IS more.

We stand before God. We stand before the one who gives us everything. And the gospel is clear that God gives over that throne of judgment to our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's Jesus we are facing.  Lok at the example of Jesus, he gave everything, his talents were invested into his ministry for us. His time was given to us, recorded in the gospels for the generations to come, all invested into God's plan.  And he gave us something far more valuable than riches, than possessions, He gave us His life, his blood, his body, spilled for us, broken for us, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the remembrance of that event which we celebrate as Holy Communion this very morning.

Our lives will be demanded of us before He who tells us to guard against all kinds of greed, of time, of possessions, of ability (all gifts of God).  But not simply He, our Jesus, who warned, us, but He, our Jesus, who showed us by His life, death, and life again, what it means to give all to God, to be rich in God.  The riches of God being eternal life, being perfected as children of God, of living in the perfection of the Kingdom of Heaven, renewed from all sin, death, decay, evil, and brokenness.  Living in the joy of the Lord always.

Which are, in fact, the ultimate goals of those who seek to live a life that does consist in the abundance of possessions, but not in Christ, but in the vain hope they can do it themselves.

Some rando in the crowd called out to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  Jesus replied, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”  In other words, “That is not my job.”  And then, in explaining why it is NOT his job, Jesus lays out for us what is His job, that we gain the inheritance of heaven.

            So here’s a challenge for us this morning.  As Jesus’ First Presbyterian Church here in Merchantville, when we come to the Lord’s Table this morning, what considerations, what decisions, can we make, as individuals in Jesus and as a Community of faith, to live into this Way of life, into this inheritance that Jesus has laid out for us?  What shall be our response?

            Now, some might call this a “Stewardship sermon”.  That is not what this was intended to be.  If anything, I might call it a “Why Stewardship? sermon.

Amen.