It would be easier if Jesus made the rich guy a thief or a swindler or a criminal of some kind. You know, the kind of person who exploits their position and their power for their own gain. Like they use political clout for their own advantage, to the advantage of themselves and their friends. For those greedy for power, they twist religious belief to their own advantage, or target somebody because of their race or color or creed or status, to create “those” people, an imaginary enemy to be feared and exploited. It would be so much easier to dislike someone for whom greed has obviously corrupted their soul.
But that’s not who Jesus lays out for us in his
parable. He works hard. He did not make his money “the old fashioned
way”, by inheriting it (lol). “The
land of a rich man produced abundantly.”
He was good at his business, and lucky.
This is where he has invested his talents. And it has proven to be to his financial
advantage.
He’s got so much, he decides on the capital investment of
enlarging his storage capacity to meet the demands of his surplus (how does
that sound for trying to speak ‘economics’?)
He’s got a plan for all this stuff, ‘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.’ It’s easy to dislike Jesus’
rich guy because he’s hogging the wealth.
It would be SO much easier if he were exploitative and arrogant about
his wealth. But it is easy to see the
jealousy lying at the root of feelings of dislike. The man earned his treasure and he’s made the
choice that he is going to sit on it, save it up for himself.
Then our rich man evolves a plan when he comes to this
realization, ‘And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up
for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ I can identify with
that plan. Imagine winning the
lottery? Whatcha gunna do? Get off the merry-go-round of life, like the
man says, “Eat, drink, and be merry.”
That is where he is going to put his time, use his riches, invest the
results of his talents, to fund the stereotypical ‘lifestyle of the rich and
famous’. Leisure, lazy, whatever catches
his fancy. Maybe there is a party
circuit, like Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Damascus or something.
“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?”
It would be easier if the rich man was a villain. Easier to look at him in a negative light, to
consider him one of ‘those’ people. But
its not easy because we live in the United States, and there is an American
dream of freedom and prosperity. Economically,
that is defined by the ‘free enterprise’ system, the capitalist system. Someone once said that we do not live in a society of the rich and poor, but live in a society
of the rich and those aspiring to be rich. There is some powerful truth going on there.
The passage concludes with “So it is with those who store
up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
So there’s the ‘hook’, if you will. For Sunday’s sermon, a consideration of what,
based on the parable Jesus has given to us, does it look like to be “rich
toward God?”
Peace,
pastor pete
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