Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who has appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” (Luke 12.13-15)
Two days ago someone in the Chicago area won the third largest jackpot of any U.S. lottery game. The winning ticket is worth $1.34 billion, an almost impossible sum to say much less to imagine. If the holder of the ticket chooses a lump-sum cash option, he or she will receive $780 million, also an unimaginable amount of money. Otherwise, the $1.34 billion prize will be spread out over an initial payment and then 29 annual payments.
The largest jackpot of any U.S. lottery was $1.586 billion, won in January of 2016. The second largest was $1.537 won by someone in South Carolina in 2018. For almost anybody except the super-rich, it is difficult to comprehend having that kind of money. But, given the number of tickets sold on the last day of the current lottery, raising the lottery from $1.28 billion to $1.34 billion, apparently many people would like to have it.
And that fact alone may reveal a great deal about us. It would be easy enough to find people who would want to hold the winning ticket for that cool billion dollar plus. But how easy would it be to find someone who would say they have no interest in having so much money? Most people, it seems, are like the little granddaughter who was asked by her grandmother who, dipping ice cream into a bowl for the girl, asked her “how much would you like?” The girl thought for a second and answered, “Give me too much!”
It is timely, then, that Rabbi Jesus offers us another perspective today when the evangelist Luke tells us of the time that the Rabbi was confronted by someone in a crowd who demanded that he tell the man’s brother to share an inheritance with him. Rabbi Jesus, always astute, answered the man, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
While Rabbi Jesus did not involve himself in this trifling matter, he did use the occasion to offer another of his profound teachings, telling the crowd in front of him, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Knowing he can bring home the point most clearly by telling them a story, Rabbi Jesus offers the parable of the rich man who, already having plenty, believed there was no such thing as too much. Finding himself with a big harvest and not having enough storage for it, he decides to erect bigger bins. “This is what I shall do,” he says to himself, “I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.”
As he tells of the rich man, Rabbi Jesus can see that his listeners for the most part understand the rich man’s reasoning, summed up in the man’s statement that now he can “rest, eat, drink, and be merry” because he has “many good things stored up for many years.” Greed, it is safe to say, is not the property of a paltry few, but the goal of a good many.
At this point in the story, Rabbi Jesus injects the voice of the Most High God, who says to the rich man, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?” Interestingly, this is the only time in the gospel texts that God is said to call someone a fool, something in itself worth remembering.
Ending the story, Rabbi Jesus simply says to the crowd, “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God,” a summary statement that no doubt brought a frown to the face of more than a few and that left just as many to ponder their own principles and priorities, wondering if they, like the rich man, were chasing after the wrong things in life.
If the story stirs up in us the same unsettledness, then it has served its purpose, the Galilean Teacher always the first to remind us of what is important in life and what is not important, regardless of and, more often than not, contrary to what the world teaches us. His point is inarguable–while the rich man thought he was the smartest man alive, God thought the man was nothing short of a fool for building bigger barns.
Cleverly, the story has tucked within it a keyhole into the man’s soul, allowing us to discern one of the main problems with greed. It is this–greed is self-absorbing, forcing us to focus only on ourselves, blinding us to others around us. That point is manifested in the rich man’s self-dialogue in which he uses the word “I” six times and the word “my” five times. His wealth is all about himself.
The man spends not a moment entertaining thoughts of those who may have labored in his fields to bring about the abundant harvest, or those around him who have had a poor harvest and are in need of assistance, or those who, unlike the rich man who has too much, must endure life without ever having enough to live on. For this same reason, It is not without significance that greed is considered the second of the seven deadly sins, surpassed only by pride, another vice that elevates oneself above others.
Not only is greed all about oneself, or as the rich man says, “rest, eat, drink, and be merry,” but it also excludes God. A person consumed by greed leaves no space in his soul for God, the greedy person gauging how he can get much more either by hook or by crook, but never expressing gratitude to the God whose generosity is the ground and origin of all that is good. The two–greed and gratitude are mutually exclusive, genuine gratitude being the greatest antidote to greed.
Another story that complements but does not compete with Rabbi Jesus’ story of the rich man tells of a different man. This man, aged and alone, lived quietly and contentedly in the woods. He was beloved by the people of the nearby town because his door was always open to anyone in need. He taught several generations of children the wonders of the woods and streams and ponds that surrounded his cabin.
Then, one day, the old man was approached by a group of investors who were intent on buying his property because there was a vein of valuable minerals on his plot of land. However, since money meant nothing to the old man and he only wanted to live quietly in his little cabin, he declined their offer. Persistent, the men assured the man that a fortune could be made. Also, they said they’d offer jobs to the people in the town. But the old man would not change his mind. When the townspeople learned about the proposal and the possible prosperity that it might bring to them, they turned on the old man, although they had always admired him. Now their anger towards him grew, escalating into threats, a group of them telling the old man that “unless he was out of the place by sunset, they’d drag him out.”
So sunset came and the old man was still in his cabin. When the mob came to the door, they were met by the town’s minister, who said to them, “This old soul realizes he is going to die before this is over and so he has asked me to come out on his behalf and read you his last will and testament.” The crowd was silent, although impatient, as the minister began to read from a piece of paper.
He read, “I leave my fishing rod to you, Pete. You caught your first bass with it when you were seven. I leave my rifle to you, Jim. I remember how I taught you to shoot with it. I leave my tin whistle to you, Sara, grateful for all the beautiful melodies you would play on it.” And so the preacher continued down the page, naming the people to whom the old man wished to leave his few possessions, including his boots, his knife, his cooking pot, and his worn Bible, each item left to the person to whom it would mean the most.
One by one, the townspeople hung their heads in shame, returning to their homes that night, surrounded by the silence of the night and weighed down by the guilt in their souls. They had come to see that the old man had risked his life to teach them what is true wealth in this world and what is not. He had challenged them to see life, not through the eyes of greed, but through the eyes of gratitude.
As I said, the two stories work well together, both of them stark in detail, simple in message, asking us to focus, not on amassing more for ourselves, but on finding those things that really matter in life, the intangibles that make life worth living, such as love, kindness, friendship, generosity, respect, gratitude. A person who has these things does not need bigger barns, his or her heart already big enough to hold these things securely.
Earlier this year, an 86-year-old woman made her weekly visit to the local Mini Mart in her hometown. The store cashier encouraged the woman to buy a lottery ticket. The cashier helped her as she purchased a ticket and cleared up a mistake she had made. The woman, Marion, told the man that if she won she’d take care of him.
Although the woman did not win the $500,000 prize, she did win $300 and she kept her word. Carrying some balloons in her hand, one of which had the cashier’s name on it, she entered the store and went up to Walter, the cashier, and handed him an envelope with $150 inside it. Later explaining to others why she did it, she said Walter had been so gracious and sweet to her when she needed his help. Here was a woman who not only kept her word, but who chose to share, not to hoard.
As we ponder this parable that Rabbi Jesus tells the crowd today–and we should give it more than a passing glance–we are left to ask ourselves if we, like the rich man, are always putting up bigger barns, needing more storage for the things we have. If we find ourselves anything like him, then we also have to hear the Most High God’s painful pronouncement of the man as a fool, as clear a clarion call to changing our course as we will find in scripture.
The truth of the matter is that the truly lucky among have no desire to win a billion dollar lottery. The reason is simple. We have enough sense to realize that we already have won the lottery, even if we don’t have a dime to our name.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 