Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." 14But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" 15And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." 16Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' 18Then he said, '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. 19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' 20But 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?' 21So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."
I like the title that Bernard Brandon Scott gives to this parable: “How to Mismanage a Miracle.” He reads it as a stewardship/idolatry issue of the man claiming ownership of that which has been given to him as gift to benefit not just him, but the community.
“The parable cleverly equates the mismanagement of the miraculous harvest with idolatry.” Hear Then the Parable p. 140
In preaching on this text 3 years ago, I quoted this, I think from DJ Hall: “is it Christianity that has taught us to love consumption, over-abundance and waste?”
Loader opens with this line:
“The passage begins with the exchange about inheritance which serves as an introduction to Jesus’ warnings about greed (12:13-15). We might imagine that the reasons for attacking greed are because it deprives others. These are reasons enough. Here, however, the focus is what makes for a meaningful life. What is abundance in life?”
Willimon has a good sermon on this: http://www.chapel.duke.edu/worship/sunday/viewsermon.aspx?id=7
One could do a lot worse than take this sermon, and add some Gospel proclamation. . . perhaps focused on the abundance of God’s generosity. . . (That wasn’t a very generous thing to say, was it?)
here are some extensive quotes from Willimon
Christianity [has the goal] not to quench all desire, but rather to kindle your desire for the right thing.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rest in you.” These words begin Augustine’s autobiography of redirected passion, Augustine’s Confessions. Only God can satisfy because we are created by God to love God. Nothing else can ever satisfy the depth of that longing.
Our problem as humans is not that we are full of desire, burning with unfulfillment. Our problem is that we long for that which is unfulfilling. We attempt to be content with that which never satisfies. As C. S. Lewis says we are far too easily pleased.
...Our burning desire testifies that God has created us for himself, and we burn to be fulfilled. Our desire is boundless because it is meant to find its rest — that is, its perfect source and object--in God. Without the God for whom we were created, we are insignificant, nothing, therefore we relentlessly grab for this and for that, hoping to insulate ourselves from our nothingness.
...And the Christian faith reiterates that the problem is not that we desire but that we desire too little. Having no proper object for our desires, we breathlessly run toward everything. In our state of disordered desire, we transmute love into lust, achievement into acquisitiveness, and vocation into drudgery. Having no Creator tempts us to make our lives our creations, Unable to rest easy in God’s good creation, to see our lives as God’s good creation, we have much to do. (“I know what I will do. I will tear down my barns and fill new ones. I will say to my soul, take ease…”)
Might we say that this is a stewardship text?
Stewardship of life.
Stewardship of the Gospel.
A call to live in the abundant grace of God, and for that life to spill over into the lives of others.
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