Guard Against All Greed
Who is at the center of your life? What is holding you captive?
Is it money, material wealth, promiscuity, idolatry, administrative and political power?
Does anything drive a wedge between you and God?
The parable of a rich fool is about a man who failed to recognize that he was accountable to God for all he owned.
A prelude to this parable was a request made by someone (name unknown) asking Jesus to intervene in their family inheritance controversy. “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” On the surface, this seemed to be an innocent and good plea.
We can make the following assumptions based on the inheritance laws and customs at the time of Jesus:
The father has died without leaving neither a written will nor an oral will.
There was an estate held by the two brothers.
The person (petitioner) must be the younger brother
According to the inheritance law it will not be divided until the older brother agreed.
The younger brother is ordering Jesus to pressure his older brother into making the division.
The older brother had refused to divide the inheritance
From this gospel passage, the petitioner wants the visiting Jesus to intervene in their family dispute.
How did Jesus respond? “Friend, who made appointed me as your judge or arbitrator?”
Jesus is a reconciler and not a divider. Jesus refused to get involved in the family dispute. Rather he used the opportunity to caution and teach against “greed.
Self-centered cry for justice is understood to be a symptom of a sickness. Material possessions belongs to God who gives them as gifts to humans.
Jesus used the parable of the rich fool to drive home his message. Through this parable Jesus reminded us that God is the giver of all life and will demand from us the account of our stewardship at the end of our earthly life. Depending on where you stored your treasures, your souls will be taken to that destination.
As you made your bed, so must you lie on it.
We choose here where to go.
From the gospel passage we know that the rich fool’s land produces a bumper crop. His game plan was to expand his storage facilities in order to preserve all his surpluses for himself.
The rich fool dialogued with himself. “What shall I do?” he asked.
There is no mention of his employees, who have done and will do the work. He knows only “my crop, my barn, my grain, my goods, and my soul.”
Life is not a right but a gift, on loan. The rich fool failed to account for his mortality. He failed to secure both his life and his possessions.
Life is on a loan from God. it is a gift, not a right. The rich fool assumed wrongly, that he owned his soul/self. He discovered his mistake when God suddenly asked for the loan of his life to be returned.
Our everyday life is full of choices. Let’s make the correct choice. The wealth we receive from God is for His service (God and our neighbor).
Have a wonderful week
