Into the middle of Jesus' teaching a man with a question breaks. You can almost see him, standing there in the crowd, squirming with this question that is consuming his attention. It doesn't matter that Jesus has been speaking of eternal truths. The man is concerned with today and so misses eternity. Apparently his father had died and his brother was refusing to follow the commandments of the law which specified a certain division of the estate. That he should ask Jesus' opinion is not surprising. The rabbis were often sought out to give rulings on points of law, including those related to family money matters. But notice what the question says. In the background it is quite clear that the man has decided what his rights are and now wants Jesus to enforce that decision. Jesus declines to get involved. Instead he gives the man, and the crowd, an answer which must have sounded peculiar.
"Beware of covetousness." That's the traditional rendering of this word. Covetousness. A strange word, not one that comes trippingly off the tongue in the conversation of most of us. I can't think of one occasion in the past month where I have used it. Maybe your speech is a whole lot different than mine but I doubt it is part of your regular vocabulary either. Covetousness. Sometimes it gets translated as "all kinds of greed". That's not bad. It's certainly closer to where you and I live, but it's not quite on. Covetousness really means "wanting more of what you already have enough of". Wanting more of what you already have enough of. Saying it that way may help us to find ourselves in this strange story from long ago. After all, I doubt that most of us would call ourselves greedy. Not a nice word, not a word we use about ourselves. But wanting more of what we already have enough of. That sounds a lot more like you and me than is comfortable.
This farmer has done very well for himself. Remember please that he's done nothing illegal. This is no slum landlord or drug dealer, he doesn't cheat his employees or mistreat them. He's a hard worker, an upstanding citizen. This is lawful profit. This isn't someone hanging around in back street alleys exchanging manila envelopes of insider trading information. Through a combination of skill and luck and plain hard work, his investment and labour have paid off. He's got this massive crop in. And in typical fashion he calls in the architect to help him plan bigger barns. The hours pass, finally the architect says, "look, I've got to get home. I have been out every night this week". "Leave the plans with me", says the man, "I'll keep working on them. We'll pick it up tomorrow." So he continues to work with his drawings and his figures. His wife comes in to say "goodnight, don't work too late" and he barely hears her, so caught up is he in the vision of the future.
The hours pass, and he senses what seems to be a knock at the door. But before he can answer the door there seems to be someone in the room with him. "Who are you?" "I'm death" the presence replies. "What are you doing here?" "I've come for you. Ten, nine, eight." "Wait a minute, I'm not ready. You didn't warn me." "Oh yes, I warned you. I warned you when that young man had that boating accident. When the friend you started farming with died of cancer. I warned you, but whether or not you were listening, who can say? Seven, six, five". "Wait, wait, I'll give you half of all I have." "What is that to me? Four, three." "Wait, I'll give you everything I have. I'll start all over again. I'm just not ready." And death counts him out of the picture. In the morning, his wife finds him slumped over the papers. The pressure building up in his system had simply been too much for his heart. The little pain he felt and ignored had been the warning of something more massive.
At the farmer's funeral many fine words were spoken. He was an example to the community, he was a big barn builder, always willing to help his neighbour in times of need, a strong supporter of community charities. A fine man, a fine man. But that night, the angel of God walked through the cemetery and wrote on the man's headstone the letters "F O O L". "So are all of you", Jesus said, "who are rich in the things of this world but have no treasure in heaven."
Notice what's happening here. Don't make the man worse than he is. He's not unlike most of us in his passions and motives. Notice too that what happens isn't a punishment. The message of the parable is not, God doesn't like people who work hard and are successful. What happens to the farmer is not a denial of any of the good, loving, charitable actions which may have characterized his life. The parable is simply an observation of the way life is for all of us, rich and poor, successful or struggling. This is one of those facts of life.
It's not an easy story. Certainly not one I might have picked for a pleasant summer Sunday, had I had my way. But there it is. And, if we can cut through the layers of familiarity, especially those of us who have heard the story over and over again, we'll find rare gold for the living of our days. I think that Jesus' teachings around money and possessions may be harder for our age and generation to follow than many of his commandments that we may put more emphasis on. Oh we often concentrate on the other ones, but these may be the tough ones. After all, we are brought up to consume. My daughter before she learns to read, is being bombarded by all sorts of messages which tell her to have, to want, to need more and more things. We are trained to be consumers and when we don't consume we're told that because consumers don't have confidence the economy is faltering. Which being translated appears to mean - if you're not buying it is your fault that your neighbour is unemployed. So Jesus' words, "beware of covetousness" beware of wanting more of what you already have enough of, go against the grain in ways which are deeper than we may always comprehend.
So what's the rich man's problem? Why is he a fool? Notice a couple of things. In the first place he's all alone. Those of you who, like me, have been in the Middle East may notice how peculiar that is. Anthropologists and ethno-historians point out that, particularly in the Middle East, it is extremely rare to be alone. Middle Eastern life is often very gregarious. You live in tight knit communities. The smallest transaction is worth endless debate. Having been part of such discussions there is often a subtle pressure not to introduce the detail which will end the discussion. The message is, we have a wonderful discussion going here, why close it with something as mundane as a decision?!
In any event, a respected man makes up his mind in community. This fellow talks to himself. He has no friends, no cronies. His money has allowed him to build a vacuum and live in it. His speech, full of "I" and "me" and "mine": my goods, my grain, my barns, my soul is not a sad speech but a pitiful one. He's arrived, he's finally made it, but there's no one to share his joy, no one to hear his arrival speech. He speaks to the lonely audience of his own soul.
Jesus' point of course is to show that the farmer's formula for the good life, "eat, drink and be merry", is sheer stupidity. For like everything else he has accumulated, even his soul is on loan, and now the owner wants it back. And the sting of Jesus' words lie in the question at the end of the parable. "Who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" They show just how lonely and empty the man's life truly is.
The Romans had a proverb: "Money is like seawater; the more you drink the thirstier you become". Yet money, or the things which money secures, are a passion for many people. Lee Ka Shing made billion of dollars , and the casino magnate, Stanley Ho made billions. It was much more than either could possibly spend. If you spent a thousand dollars an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, you'd need over 100 years to spend a billion. Why the drive to pursue more money when they already had more than they could count, let alone spend? Surely not happiness since each of them became more and more unhappy as their wealth increased.
But you don't have to be a Lee Ka Shing or a Stanley Ho. All material things are given to us by our creator to be enjoyed. But it's easy to become enslaved by them. We find ourselves driven by the urge for more, more, more. More to eat, more to drink, more to wear, more to entertain us, more to distract our minds. And every time we surrender to that inner urge for gratification we lose a little bit more of that inner freedom that allows us to exercise one of the chief human powers - the power to choose. Beware of covetousness.
A very rich man died and left his inheritance equally to his two sons. Now one son had married young in life and had a large and happy family. The other was still a bachelor. The night after the division of the estate the single man sat thinking in his living room. "Why did my father make such a mistake? Here's my brother, with all those mouths to feed, so many to provide for and no real joy in it. While I'm quite comfortable, I've got more than I could ever use. Why divide the estate equally?" The other brother, when the children were tucked in bed and his wife was off at some project of her own mused: "Why would my father divide the estate equally? Here I am, surrounded by a loving family and all that joy, while my brother sits alone over in his house. I have my family to care for me, while he will need financial security for his future. Why divide the estate equally?" So each man, that very night, resolved to place the majority of his inheritance in a suitcase and take it over and hide it where the other brother would find it and use it. As they were doing just that, they met between their two homes and realizing what each had intended fell into one another's arms, meeting in love as their father had hoped they might. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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