Sermon for August 3, 2025: Where’s the Storehouse? based upon Luke 12:13-21

Luke 12:13-21 (New International Version) The Parable of the Rich Fool

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

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     Have you ever had someone try to loop you into an argument that you don’t want to be in? That sure seems like what is happening to Jesus at the beginning of this reading. A random person asks him to help settle an inheritance dispute. We all know how messy arguments over inheritance can get. They can break families. Because questions of inheritance deal with family and cultural traditions, individual ideas about loyalty and fairness, and the connections between love and money, the emotions of the people in the family can be intense. They must be if you ask some random traveling teacher to get involved in the argument.

     In notes on this text, Marion Soards’ points out that there are rules about how to set up an inheritance when you have more than one son in Deuteronomy 21:17. It says that the elder son is to get twice the inheritance. Then person in the crowd, likely a younger son, wants the inheritance to be evenly split. Jesus opts not to wade into the specific argument, and, instead tackles the issues that were making the question about inheritance emotionally complex. He said, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” If you want more than what was coming to you, why is that? Do you have greater need? Greater fear that you won’t have enough in the long run? Do you think it would be more fair? Or, do you think having more stuff makes your life more meaningful?

     Jesus said you can’t let your stuff give your life meaning. Jesus doesn’t want to wade into the argument about how much inheritance these brothers should get. He does want to talk about a person’s relationship to the stuff they have and what that can mean for their relationship with God. Jesus talks about all this using a parable about a rich man with a good farm.

     The rich man had a good year and the land was pretty productive. Jesus said that the farmer then tried to figure out what to do with all he had grown since he’d grown so much more than normal. What he decides to do is to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. The scripture tells us that the man said, "I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years: relax, eat, drink, be merry." God intervenes with a reality check: "You fool. This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" Talk about a rude awakening. Jesus takes a somewhat surprising turns and says, "So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." How do we know that this rich man hasn’t been rich towards God?

     Look, I thought we were supposed to be saving money? Fidelity says to save 15% of your income for retirement and start as soon as possible. Jennifer Wyant points out that many of us in Western Cultures have learned that amassing wealth so that we can eventually “eat, drink, and be merry” in retirement is the dream scenario. It’s not like, as she points out, Jesus tells us that this guy got his money by cheating people. He just had a lucky year and was trying to make the best of it. Wyant argues that his mistake wasn’t in how he made the money, but in “what he believed it could do for him.”

     I might argue that sometimes money can buy happiness. Or, maybe not exactly happiness, but having enough money would lighten an enormous load on tons of people. Money may not be able to give your life meaning, but it does keep food in bellies and roofs over heads. It is certainly easier to think about what makes life meaningful when you’ve got enough food to eat. That being said, money can’t fix every problem. And, being worried about protecting your money can cause a lot more.

     In the book of Luke, which, of the four Gospels, is the most explicitly concerned about the well-being of the poor, the author of the Gospel is consistently suspicious of the wealthy. In her commentary on this text, Meda Stamper points out so many examples from other parts of the Gospel.

     There is Zacchaeus in Luke 19, who is wealthy because he took advantage of people in his role as tax collector. We understand him to be committed to Christ when he promises to give half of his possessions away and pay back those whom he defrauded. His wealth was an impediment to his faith. In Mary’s song, God sends the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53). In Luke 6:24, they will receive woe rather than the kingdom of God. There’s an awful rich man who gets eternal torment after death in the Lazarus story in chapter 16. And, like Zacchaeus, the rich young ruler in chapter 18th will only get eternal life if he gives away all his stuff.

     In Luke, wealth is a burden and a distraction. It makes you focus on your own well-being too much. Elizabeth Johnson, in her commentary on this text, points out that this rich man doesn’t talk to anyone but himself about what to do with his unexpected bounty. He talks to himself about his money. He congratulates himself on his good fortune and good planning. He tells himself to relax because he's got his own future figured out. Where is everybody else? I mean, he's a farmer with a lot of land. It is very unlikely that he has done all this work on his own. Why isn't he consulting with anyone else about these important decisions in his life? He doesn’t even give a perfunctory thanks to God, like singers do when they get a Grammy.

     As Johnson notes, “The rich man’s land has produced abundantly, yet he expresses no sense of gratitude to God or to the workers who have helped him plant and harvest this bumper crop. He has more grain and goods in storage than he could ever hope to use, yet seems to have no thought of sharing it with others, and no thought of what God might require of him.”  A foundational action in the Christian faith is to share what you have. This man says nothing about what he could do for others with the abundance he has done nothing to earn. Meda Stamper points out that the only other time the word fool is used in Luke is in Luke 11:40, where Pharisees are said to be foolish on account of greed and neglect of the call to work for God’s love and justice. This man is likely called a fool for the same reason.

     Have you ever heard the phrase “a budget is a moral document?” It means that we can see what a person or a group’s priorities are based on how they spend their money. People and groups put their money in what they think is most important in their lives. Do we fund independent journalism, or do we build a fancy ballroom? Do we feed poor people, or do we build detention centers? I’ve known churches to ask, “do we spend our money on upkeep of a building or do we spend it on serving our neighbors?” We’ve got all manner of barns and storehouses. How do we know we’re storing the things the way Jesus wants us to?
Let us remember the example of the old-fashioned barn-raising. If a building needed to go up, a family assumed they couldn’t do it all by themselves. They would put the call out for help, and everyone who had time, tools, skills, and food to share would show up. They’d work together and, in the end, have a functioning storehouse. But, the work was only possible because the people did it together. What we have is not our own and we can’t take it with us. May we use what we have for God and God’s creation. In doing so, we will be a part of the kindom coming in this world.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Jennifer S. Wyant: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18-3/commentary-on-luke-1213-21-6
Marion Lloyd Soards' notes on Luke in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: The New Revised Standard Version with Apocryphya, ed. Michael Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Meda Stamper: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2923
Elisabeth Johnson: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1725