Text: Luke 12:15-21
Introduction
This passage of Scripture is troubling. It may not strike us as troubling on the surface. Indeed we are likely to say the obligatory “Amen” on reading or hearing this passage read in worship. (Remember Amen means “so let it be” or “I agree, I concur, I endorse”).
But a bit of reflection and some concentration quickly betrays just how troubling, how subversive, how revolutionary, how radical and how disturbing this passage is.
I. It is troubling and disturbing because it goes against the dominant orientation of our culture—a market driven experience. Everything in our culture seems to drive us to possess things, to seek satisfaction, ease, comfort, and improved quality of life in ever increasing and improved material goods. Against this we hear Jesus’ words: A person’s life is not about things he or she owns.
II. It is radical because it flies in the face of the unwritten, undiscussed, and unacknowledged philosophy of our times (as I heard someone put it some time ago): Get all you can, anyway you can, can all you get and then make sure others cannot get to the can. Against this we hear Jesus’ voice loudly and clearly: An individual’s life is not about possessions.
III. The text is subversive because it defies the spirit of our times; it violates our sense of national greatness. For although we glibly trumpet that America is great because of “democracy and values,” the truth is we know our greatness lies in the juggernaut of our productive engine. We not only consume and pollute more than any other nation, but we produce more than anyone else. And it is not all bad. We have developed and invented machines, tools and devices that have made life easier not just for pampered suburban wives but also for struggling families in third-world/poor nations. Although we have been rallying around the flag and singing, repeating, praying, mumbling mantra-like “God bless America,” deep down we must know we are not always addressing God or paying homage to Him, but saying something about ourselves: we believe God must be on our side to protect our way of life, which very much revolves around the things we own-or that own us. Against this we discern the persuasive voice of Jesus saying: Life is not about goods and commodities—not about things.
Illustration: Just recently we saw the eroding power of this mad grab for things when a recent large lotto jackpot was won by a family in New Jersey. A number of workers at a nursing home believed they had won the jackpot as part of a workers pool. Their reason for thinking they had won? Well the worker who had purchased the ticket did not report to work on the day the after the lottery. And one of the winning tickets had not been presented for payment yet. Ergo their fellow worker had absconded with their potential winnings. For a number of days speculations were bandied in the media that the missing worker had “gypped,” bamboozled, defrauded his coworkers. To make a long story, short the man was innocent—he had missed work for reasons having nothing to do with the lottery, and the true winner finally came along. The 19 putatively defrauded workers, meanwhile, had already signed up the legal sharks who smelt blood and money. They were going in for the kill. Imagine the strained relationships, the plans some people started to make-- the depression and sense of frustration when it turned out that millions were not coming their way after all. Beware of covetousness: life is not about things, possessions, money.
And so this passage is one we would rather were not in the Bible. But it’s there. In our face. And less we take comfort as a church (I am referring to the entire Christian church now) that the surrounding culture is the problem, a bit of soul-searching reminds us that we are not only very much marching to the beat of the cultural drum, but we have refined and sanctified the ideologies, the philosophies, the script by which we live and govern our lives.
Illustration: Recent story on TV: woman whose son had been saved from drowning by another mother. The grateful mother told the media if she had money should would send her son’s rescuer on a nice long holiday cruise.
Turn on the TV to the Sunday morning services and invariably you will get a service that reminds you that God wants you to have, to have, to get, to acquire, to be prosperous.
And even those of us who are wary of the so-called “prosperity Gospel” (which is no Gospel really)—might sometime find ourselves in situations where we take comfort in those passages that suggest that our God really might come to our rescue with promotion, wealth, material possessions. The Old Testament is very helpful here.
“It is he [God] who gives you power to get wealth” (Deut. 8:18).
We relish the Bible passages that inform us that Abraham had wealth in the currency of the day: sheep, oxen, cattle. Genesis 13:2 “And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.”
“I will make you the head and not the tail (Deut. 28:13). Of course we know this is about advancement in employment, our position on the totem pole and the increased earning power that attends that.
We love Psalm 50:10, where God says he owns the “cattle upon a thousand hills.” Of course since he is our Father, what is His is ours.
We delight in Psalms 37:4, which says, “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Of course we know what we desire in our hearts: More things! Better things! The kinds of things our neighbors already have!
· But just when we think we have figured out God to be an indulgent Father or Grandfather or Uncle who dotes on us, we hear the jarring note of Luke 12:15: Beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. Your life is not about things you own.
· Just when we think we have cornered God, backed him into a corner, where we demand of Him: “put up, pay up or shut-up. Deliver on your promises of wealth!”—just then Jesus crashes the party with his sobering words: “Human life is not about possessions. Not about things.”
· Just when we thought we understood God as a fabulously rich partisan, ready to deliver the goods to us, ready to make others go green with envy until they too want our generous God—just then, we hear the clarion warning of Jesus: “Beware of covetousness; Life is not about getting things, accumulating things, possessing things-and being possessed by things.”
· Just when we thought we had succeeded in making God in our image, in the likeness of our denomination and our theology or the latest TV-evangelism fad; just when we thought we had triumphed in pressing the Scriptures into the service of our desires, our wants, our passion for living up to the joneses;
· Just when we thought we had prevailed in making the Bible say what we want it to say; Just when we thought we could get the Word to bless our cravings and our crass pursuits in the rat race (our apologies to the rats), we hear the haunting corrective from Jesus Himself: “Beware of covetousness. Your life is not about possessing things.”
· Just when our victory parade has reached beneath the windows of heaven and we look up in expectancy, confident that the windows were about to open and on us would be poured the wealth and material goods we are sure that the Bible says God owes us (a la Malachi 3); just then—Jesus rains on our parade with the disconcerting note: Beware of covetousness: Life is not measured in possessions, cars, clothes, jewelry, houses, TVs, computers, boats--things.
Yes this is a disturbing text; a subversive passage; an undermining word; a wake up call.
For we realize that although we sing a lot about going up to heaven to walk on streets of the New Jerusalem; the truth is we are tied in our affections to Wall Street and 34th Street and 14th Street—not forgetting 125th Street ---in one way or another-whether we know it or not.
Beware of covetousness. For a man’s life... Covetousness is desiring what others have; living up to others’ standards; burning out yourself just to feel as good and satisfied and comfortable as others; living with a sense of entitlement and disregarding the needs of others; it is consuming more than we should while disregarding those who have little or none (Thomas Aquinas). It is living as if the claims of God and the needs of others came after all our wants are satisfied.
Yes this passage of Scripture is troubling, subversive, threatening. We are tempted to say, “Lord say it ain’t so Jesus.”
Like the mad man running from the tombs we want to say, “What have we to do with you Jesus? Have you come to torment us?”
Say it ain’t so Jesus. Don’t you see you are hurting your mission—shooting yourself in the foot? Don’t you know that that the best way to get people to follow you is to make a lot of promises; and the best way to keep them is to deliver on those promises?
Come on Jesus. Everyone with a grain of sense knows that life is about things. Whom are you kidding? Everybody who is anybody knows that we measure how important a person is by the number and cost of the things they own. Stop tripping Jesus. We all know that a person’s life consists in the abundance of things they have.
That’s how the world does it. That’s how we do it in the church.
But the Word of God stands fast. Against all our puny protests and temper tantrums, the words of Jesus remain: “Beware of covetousness. Life is not measured by things.”
And less we think the passage in Luke is an isolated one think again:
1. Matthew 6:19-21, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
2. Matthew 19:23, "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven."
3. Matthew 19:24, "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
4. James 2:5, "Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?"
5. Be contented with such things as you have (Heb 13:5). Godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim 6:6).
Notice again this is not a wholesale dismissal of riches, nor a blanket indictment against material possessions. Jesus is not asking us all to become homeless or start to give away everything we have (Although he may actually ask some to do something like that).
To make the point concrete, to give it flesh and not leave it as an abstract discussion, Jesus then illustrates with a parable about a successful man.
What is amazing about this parable, to me, is that this man fits our time so very well. So allow me to do something that is always dangerous: to contemporize the story, which will not take too much effort because as I said this man fits into our age so well. It is as if Jesus really is telling this parable to people in the 21st century.
This man was successful: His ground brought plenty. His business holdings were productive and profitable. His factories, offices and other enterprises were churning out goods and services and raking in huge bucks. The business was a success. He had name recognition, market share and brand loyalty among customers. His TV ads played in all markets: children, youth, baby boomers and golden years-ers (my word).
He was boss-- CEO and Chairman—the driving force, the visionary that had spurred this company to be the corporate giant that it now was. We can say he was the IBM, the Wall-Mart, The Philip Morris, the Enron—the Microsoft and Bill Gates of his day.
But he was not satisfied. He had even bigger dreams. But first he needed a picture of his true worth. So he called for his Chief Financial Officer (CFO), brokerage firm, tax attorneys, corporate counsel, his accountants, his economists, his market advisers. He had one demand of them: I need a picture, a summary of my entire holdings. How big am I? And I want it ASAP.
And so the financial people got to work: they got on their computers and churned out spreadsheets, colorful graphs and charts; they got snapshots of the market for different periods. They had estimates of lands, buildings, business holdings, and subsidiaries in far flung places of the world. And so they came back to the boss in quick time with their figures, charts, their computers with online access to the stock market to gauge for any changes; they put up their charts and their PowerPoint presentations. And they started to talk and talk and talk-jargon—big ideas, big market and financial concepts.
And the boss said: “Hey guys I just want the bottomline. What am I worth? How big am I? Just the figures please.” And I can imagine the financial wizards looked at each other as the CFO summarized and passed a sheet with some straightforward figures to the boss.
The boss’s eyes flickered for a nanosecond. He knew he was big but he had no idea it was that big. There were so many zeros, he had to go back and count a few times before the true figure registered. Phew! Wow.
Then the Bible said he did something: he talked to himself. I like to think he dismissed his financial team with a flick of this wrist--and spent some time thinking. He had a plan.
He would get even bigger. They thought he was big now—wait until his plans came through. He intended that every waking moment –and even when most people are asleep--someone somewhere would see a logo, a product, a token, hear a jingle or a slogan, that identified his company.
He wanted a branch in every corner of the globe. He wanted to be so big, no one would dare take him on. He would be the scourge of, Wall Street, of Washington and other capitals. Environmentalists would fear him because he could strike back at anyone who crossed his path. Congressmen and women would take his bribes and dare not rock his boat. He knew how to buy them or bury them.
That was the plan. He would also rationalize some current operations. That means he would get rid of some lines that he considered unproductive. Close down some factories where he had workers for too-long. The longer you have workers the more expensive it becomes. He got a fit every time he saw how much he had to pay out in salaries and social security and health benefits and contributions to pension funds. “Most of these people are just lazy parasites,” he must have thought.
Yes he would go even more global. He would be bigger and better and badder. Yes he knew what he wanted done now. Then he would throw a big cocktail party, where everybody who was somebody would be invited. Life was sweet. Life was good. He felt cool... But God called him a fool!
He was a fool not because he was rich or ambitious. That is not the point. Jesus is not attacking riches per se, or sanctifying poverty. This is a question of values and priorities.
Notice: This man had no place for God in his plans. He thought to himself. He had done it. He had been a success. He had climbed the ladder of success. He had done it --and he did it his way. No time to think about God. He was responsible for his success. He cared nothing for heaven or the claims of God.
He was a fool because he also shows a callous disregard of others.
Surely he couldn’t have succeeded all by himself. I will do this. I will do that. In my contemporized version I’d say: this man forgot about the financial people who kept watch over his books. He selfishly forgot the managers and middle managers who worked long hours, sacrificing family time to meet quarterly deadlines and see that his business is kept afloat. He conveniently forgot the young high-school children working at minimum wages in some of his businesses. He forgot the ordinary clerks, messengers, mailroom clerks and the janitors who do the backbreaking work to keep his premises and business operations going. He had no thought for anyone else: He thought all to himself (Luke 12:17)!
But just when he thought he had a winning hand against God and humanity; just when he thought he was about to play his final big act and dream of retirement and ease, God called him a fool.
He was a fool because he made plans for the future without guarantees about the future.
He was a fool because he had not made the most important will a human could make.
Here’s how Jesus ends the story about this man. Luke 12:20, Jesus makes it clear that in his parable it is God who speaks to this man: “This night your soul/your life/your breath is required of you. Then who will get all the things you are planning and boasting about?”
This man was a fool because he forgot or recklessly disregarded the fact that night falls for all of us sooner or later.
He was a fool because he had no place for God. He was a fool because he was callously dismissive of other humans. He was a fool because he made plans for the future without the God of the future. He was a fool because he did not plan for nightfall.
Beware of covetousness Jesus says. Life is not about owning and possessing and getting and accumulating and hoarding. Think of relationships: with God and with others. Take God into your plans. Plan for what happens when the chilly hand of death strikes at nightfall. Don’t be a fool.
“Whose shall these things be?” God asked the fool.
The truth is we are all building something that either God or Satan is ready to lay claim to: Characters.
Character is not what people think about you. I am not talking about how your neighbors regard you. How your colleagues see you; how the government categorizes you. I am not even concerned about how religious people classify you.
Character is who you are on the inside. It is who you are and what you do when you are alone and no one is looking. It is the face that stares back at you in the mirror of the Word of God. It is that voice you sometime hear when you are alone and looking in a physical mirror and you seem to feel someone else is in the room. The real you.
Think of what you are doing. Think of the things you are breaking down, and the things you are building. Whose shall these things be when night falls? Who will lay claim to the character you have built when night falls and you go to sleep?
Think! Think! And remember as you build your character, Jesus’ words: Beware of covetousness, for a person’s life does not consist in possessing things!
