Being Rich Toward God--Luke 12:13-21 (I)

"Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And 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.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then 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. 19 And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But 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.”

This little story is a beautiful example of how Jesus dealt with a common human problem and how he, in the process, redirected the conversation so that it became a teaching tool for a crucial point of his ministry. The best way to understand the story is to watch it slowly unfold verse by verse. There are at least four interesting dynamics in the conversation, dynamics that give up their mysteries through careful study.

I. Dynamic # 1--Coming to Jesus for Help

By this time in his ministry, Jesus had developed a reputation as one who helped others. Luke says that he not only healed people but he went around teaching and proclaiming the kingdom of God. Reports of his activity circulated as early as Luke 4. People therefore came to Jesus in droves. But the motivations with which they came were probably as numerous as the needs they felt. Some would come to him in desperation, hoping for a cure for their servant or child. Some might come to challenge him or justify themselves, like the lawyer who provided the context for the parable of the Good Samaritan (10:25-37). Others came to Jesus with a complaint. We saw this in a previous exposition of the Mary/Martha story (10:38-42).

What, do you think, is the motivation for the person who came to Jesus with the problem here? It isn't mentioned. Is he genuinely interested in Jesus' helping him with a problem, or is he trying to "bait" Jesus? We don't know, but he provides the occasion for Jesus to give one of his more memorable teachings. The problem the man faced was a common and significant one--how to divide the property between siblings. People have been warring since time immemorial on that one. The man seeks Jesus' help to divide the inheritance. In the dynamics of conversation, the "ball" has shifted to Jesus' "court." The man has put Jesus on the spot. Jesus now needs to respond to this expression of human need.

II. Dynamic # 2--Jesus Answers the Question and Moves On

One of the lessons I taught my students over the years is that you don't always have to answer a question directly in order to give an answer to your interlocutor. The one who asks the questions can often determine the flow of the encounter, and sometimes it is best not to let the other person control that flow--especially if you perceive that the conversation is a 'loser' or is going in a direction you don't want it to go. I like Jesus' honesty here. Note the dynamics of how he handles the question--to divide the inheritance between two brothers. First he, as it were, stops the flow of the "ball" in his court and then he "redirects" the ball back to the questioner. He stops the flow by his words in v. 14; he redirects it in v. 15.

First, however, we need to ask why Jesus doesn't want to intervene to help the man. Let us suppose that the man is sincere; that he really faces this familial and legal conundrum about property division. Why doesn't Jesus intervene? Because it would be a complete loser for him. It would be like a policeman trying to intervene in a domestic disturbance--both parties then turn on you as you are trying to help. In addition, if Jesus had laid out the principles of the "law of inheritance," the interlocutor would have had more questions--such as, well, how does this apply to me? or, now that it applies to me, how can I get my brother to agree to these principles? Or, how can I enforce these principles apart from my brother's wishes? In other words, if Jesus had taken up the man's challenge and entered into his life, he faced two problems: the first is that his intervention might provide the occasion for the brothers both to turn on Jesus; the second is that Jesus' intervention would just open a Pandora's box of more questions until Jesus had actually become the man's attorney. Jesus had enough of a sense of himself to know that he wasn't sent to enter into people's lives in that dimension.

Thus, one of the things that interests and amazes me about Jesus as I study his life is that he has an instinctive sense of what he ought to be doing; of when he ought to enter in and when he ought to keep his distance. It is as if he asked himself, when the man put the request, "What is the man really asking me to do?" People's requests are often not simply the request that is on the surface; it may lead to ten other requests before you know it.

Notice the way that Jesus handled the man's request. He didn't say, "Sir, if I answer your question, I will be obliging myself to answer many more questions or, alternatively, I will be opening myself to the anger of both you and your brother if I recommend a course of action which you don't like." That is, Jesus doesn't give an explanation for why he doesn't want to intervene. I like this about Jesus, because I think that one of my weaknesses is that I sometimes try to "overexplain" why I don't want to engage in a course of activity. Often people don't need or deserve an explanation.

Well, it is slightly more complex than that here. Jesus' explanation is "who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" The word translated "friend" in the NRSV (v. 14) is really anthrope in Greek--"man." It isn't a term of endearment or "connection." It is simply, "Guy, who made me judge?" Jesus may be a healer or teacher or proclaimer of the message of the kingdom, but he isn't a judge in domestic disputes. He knows this about himself. He knows his task and his limitations. Thus, Jesus really isn't a "problem solver." Do you have a clear sense of what you are about it in life? My three-fold "mission" now that I have "paid my debt to nature" is to have fun, to learn and to be of service to others. Almost everything I do now has these as my touchstones.

The effect of Jesus' abrupt rhetorical question in v. 14 is to stop the conversation in its tracks. Jesus won't be honoring the request of the man. But here is where Jesus' genius shows forth. He will now "hit the ball back to the other court" by his response in v. 15. He will redirect the conversation by reframing the issue the man brought to him. The man wanted to speak about inheritance, but Jesus wanted to reframe it to speak about greed. Though the topic isn't the same, there is a family resemblance between the two themes. It isn't as if the man had come to Jesus asking about inheritance and Jesus had talked to him about varieties of flowers that grew around the Sea of Galilee. He will stay with the subject of money, but he will give it his own "twist." Jesus wants to talk about greed and about the way that preoccupation with money can make one impoverished in the things of God.

We can tell that Jesus is quite sincere about his point because he uses two verbs to warn the man in v. 15. He says, literally, "watch and be on your guard against excess..." as if excess is a wily and deceptive foe that you have to guard against with all vigilance. Notice that I translated the word pleonexia as "excess" and not "greed," though they are similar concepts. The word Luke uses is the same word Plato uses in the Republic to describe people that are fully out of control in gorging themselves and living in excess. Actually Plato, that aristocratic philosopher, equated the pleonectic life with the political condition of democracy. Well, maybe he wasn't too far wrong! In any case, Jesus' warning is that one ought to be on your guard against pleonexia.

But then, in the remaining words of v. 15 he explains what he means by the term--that life doesn't consist in the abundance of possessions. Actually, the Greek of this line is really "stretched out," as if Jesus is giving us an abundance of words to get his point across. In addition, the word "possessions" appears at the end of the line in Greek, while "abundance" appears at the beginning. It is almost as if Jesus is holding the hearer in suspense. It is as if he is saying, "The good life doesn't consist in abundance...........of possessions." It leaves open the possibility that there is a right kind of abundance in life. Indeed, the point of the parable that follows is precisely this: there is a right kind of abundance.

We still have two more "dynamics" to go.

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