Luke 12: 13-21
August 1, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Today’s Scriptures tells about someone in the crowd who comes up to Jesus and calls him, “Teacher.” This is a signal that the man is going to ask Jesus for some ruling to Jewish law. His question concerns an inheritance to which he believes he has a partial claim but over which his elder brother apparently has control, and he asks Jesus to instruct his brother to split the inheritance.
Settling estates in first-century Palestine is just as contentious as it is today. We all have heard about families whose siblings haven’t spoken to each other over twenty years or more because of a dispute over a will. How sad and ironic it is that the goods accumulated over the lifetime by parents, after their deaths, becomes the reason for the disintegration of their family. We have seen groups of siblings hiring lawyers, hunkering down, and squabbling for years over the terms of their parents’ will, in the end having not much left that wasn’t given to their lawyers. We know of people who are obsessed to possess as much as they can get.
There’s a real story of a man who died and left his five children and his church equal amounts of his estate. Six weeks after reading the will, everyone was invited back to the lawyer’s office to hear the reading of a codicil to the will (Some change or supplement to the will.). It was to be opened and read only upon the contestation of the original will. Three of the children had contested the will and were seeking to break it. The codicil read in part: “I had hoped this would not have to be opened and read, but some of you have decided to seek relief from my final will and testament. Therefore, I hereby amend my will to leave all who have joined in the contestation one dollar and the remainder to be divided among the remaining heirs and the church.”
There was much discussing and cussing. Threats to break the codicil were met with the calm measured voice of an old lawyer saying, “Don’t waste the only dollar you received trying a second time to circumvent your father’s will.”
Although at the time, I didn’t fully understand it but when my mother turned 70 years old, she invited the whole family back to Boston for a birthday party and to settle her estate. She owned no fine Chinese furniture when she immigrated from Toishan to America. She hardly had any cash except enough to arrange for her funeral. But what she did have were some jewelry and some US gold coins and silver dollars. After dinner, in a giddily demeanor, she distributed all of her jewelry and coins to each member of the family—everyone received something. In her wisdom and foresight, she removed all possibilities of the family squabbling over her estate.
Jesus Refuses to Get Involved
In Luke, two brothers were fighting over their father’s estate, but Jesus refuses to get caught up in the middle of their dispute. He said, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” Although there are lots of Scripture that shows Jesus serving as a judge over questions and misunderstandings, he refuses to get involved here.
Instead he warns them—puts them on alert, “Take care! Be on your guard…” Don’t be greedy. A good life is not measured by how much we own.
Jesus takes this occasion to tell a story about a spectacularly successful farmer who prudently built large barns to hold all of his crops, thus insuring himself a safe and secure future. He had so much that he would pull down his barns and builds larger ones.
There’s an interesting piece of information here that’s worth noting. For us, we would just build another barn. Why pull down the ones you have now and rebuild it to be larger? Evidently, the “barns” of that region were holes in the ground lined with stones and having a stone stairway spiraling down to the bottom along the side. The top was made of wood and sod much like the roofs of the homes. To enlarge the barn the stones had to be carefully removed and the hole dug out to a larger diameter. Then the stones would be replaced and new stones added. The stairs would be rebuilt and a new roof would be constructed.
This wealthy farmer was so obsessed with his possession that he would go to such considerable labor so that he can say to his soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
But Jesus said, “When you are so obsessed to possess, you are a fool!
Jesus isn’t interested in settling a dispute about which of the two sons gets the key to the Lexus. He gives no instructions on the wise use of wealth or on the fairness of Israel’s inheritance laws. He’s not interested in our upward mobility. Almost everything that interests us doesn’t interest Jesus.
What he does say is that when we are preoccupied with the sin of materialism, the obsession to possession, he calls us “fools.” If tonight is the day that death comes, what good are the things that you have stored in your big barns? Who will end up with them after you’re not here? This is foolish, says Jesus.
“How Much Does a Man Need?”
There a famous short story by Tolstoy, “How Much Does a Man (or person) Need?” A Russian peasant was told that he could have all the land he could walk around in the time between sunup and sundown.
So, with the rising of the sun the peasant began walking as fast as he could. By midmorning it seemed that he was moving too slowly. So he increased his pace and didn’t even stop for lunch.
As the afternoon heat beat down on him he hurried his pace even more. He felt that he simply must circle more and more land. By late afternoon he was soaked with sweat from head to toe. He was exhausted. He had walked around a huge section, but still he yearned for more.
So, he began to run. Breathlessly he pushed himself into a fatigue he had never known before. His heart beat wildly.
Then sundown was only a few minutes away so he ran faster. But, as he raced toward his point of beginning, a point that would make him the largest landowner in the district, he fell to the ground dead.
It’s no secret that most of us sometime in our lives will receive something from an estate. Most of us have enough possessions to fill our barns, garages, storage units, and houses. And in a large part, the values of our society would say that the prudence shown by this wealthy successful farmer should be the values we adopt too. I would like to retire with an ample pension so that I can “relax, eat, drink, and be merry.” We expect Jesus to praise the farmer’s good stewardship and prudence, only to hear Jesus call the farmer a fool.
How can we come to terms with Jesus’ story regarding wealth when our lives consist of an abundance of possessions? We find Jesus’ teaching in verse 15: “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Here, Jesus invites us, not to avoid a life of success, but to choose a life of significance—a life which is balance and meaningful.
Terry Mattingly at Palm Beach Atlantic University argues that we can uncover our priorities by asking three simple questions:
1. How do you spend your time?
2. How do you spend your money?
3. How do you make your decisions?
Answer those questions honestly, and you’ll have a picture of what or who is important in your life. I hope that the answers to each of those questions include God. Jesus reminds us that life isn’t what we have; it’s about who we are.
When we give of our most precious resource of time to God, we focus on our Creator who gave us life and days to live out the purpose of our existence. When we give of our resource of money and wealth, we focus on God whom we trust to provide everything that we need. When we make our life decisions that take into consideration the fact that God is actively working in our lives and we are filled with meaning because we have put God first instead of ourselves, we then have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. In the end, what we have isn’t going to matter much.
Rich toward God
You didn’t come here this morning seeking advice on shrewd investments. You didn’t come to worship thinking that here you would receive a program on how to make yourself healthy, wealthy, and wise. There are those who have tried to make Jesus do that sort of thing. Jesus just doesn’t play that game.
You have come here to be with Jesus. You have come here, not primarily to get something from Jesus, but rather to love Jesus. There are lots of people who are someplace else soaking up the sun, eating gourmet dishes, and being merry. But you are here. You are the sort of people who risks hearing what Jesus have to say, even when his words are tough. The good news today is that you are willing to listen to Jesus, to examine your life, to bend your life toward his will, and to seek richness in God instead of possessions on earth.
In Colossians 3:1-4, Paul said, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
We never heard from this unnamed man again, after Jesus refuses to settle his dispute. He may have wandered off, maybe in search of some other teacher who will tell him what he wants to hear. But you are different. You are willing to listen, to risk the truth, to change your life if you have to.
The good news is that when Jesus told these stories to his disciples, some stayed with him, despite the things he taught. He will answer our questions that are worth asking. He will refuse to answer our questions that demean the lives we are meant to live.
Through his wisdom, and his grace, he will give us lives worth living and take from us the stuff that’s not worth dying for. Our obsession for possession will only lead to cessation! Jesus will give us those gifts that we need and tell us the truth. The good news is, we have a Savior who loves to teach and to save, fools like us.
Let us pray.
Lord God, forgive us when we put more trust in our possessions than on you to sustain us, guide us, and grant us eternal life. Help us to not worry about how much we have but to believe how much we have been loved by you in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. May we measure our lives upon the grace and mercy of your love for us. Amen.