An old miser who made his fortune in mining for precious metals is lying on his death bed and he calls in the local vicar (who he has never met in his life). He says, “Vicar, can you say some encouraging words in my hour of need. I have worked so hard all my life for everything I have. And it pains me to have to be parted from it. Oh, if only I could take all my precious gold with me beyond the grave.” The vicar replies: “Oh, I wouldn’t worry if I were you. The place where you’re going, it would only melt anyway.”
That’s from the Clergy’s Guide to Comforting Deathbed Advice…
Well now, in Luke’s gospel there’s a story Jesus told about a rich man who is about to die. We had it acted out for us a few moments ago. The shocking thing is, to be brutally honest, God’s comments to the rich man at death’s door in the parable were not all that different to the vicar’s in the little story I just told you.
What would God say to you if today was the last day of your life? What would he say to you about the stuff you have and the way you use it?
Background
The teaching of this parable is a matter of life and death. So let’s take a good look at it, starting with the background.
Question: Who did Jesus tell this story to? Answer: Two brothers (v13-14).
Question: What do we know about them? Answer: almost nothing at all. We don’t know where they’re from, what their names are, how old they are or what they look like. We don’t know anything about them - except one thing. We do know that they’ve just come into a bit of money.
Question: Was there anyone else that Jesus told this story to? Answer: yes, a crowd (v13).
Question: What do we know about the crowd? Answer: It numbered “many thousands” (v1). So there’s a big crowd and Jesus is teaching.
Ears to Hear God’s Word
Do you know that when you preach, you can tell when people are listening? I was giving Kathryn Belmont a bit of feedback this week about the talk she gave at the evening service last week. And she told me how unnerving it was to look at people as you preach, from the first minute, give no indication from their body language that they actually want to be there. Some are visibly indifferent. If you’re not used to it, it can be a bit unnerving. She wondered if she was saying anything wrong. (She wasn’t, it was an excellent talk).
But every preacher in every church knows that some are hungry to hear truth and others aren’t. Are you hungry to receive truth this morning?
Even Jesus found that. Even the Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest preacher there has ever been, who spoke with authority and power, who confounded his critics with his wisdom, who delighted children with his stories, even he could not keep everyone’s attention when he was preaching.
Because, in Luke 12.13, someone in the crowd seems to interrupt Jesus. In any case, he completely changes the subject, indicating he hasn’t been listening to a word Jesus was saying. And he comes with a problem. There’s a family feud about a will. And, as you know, where there’s a will, there’s arguing relatives. But the man doesn’t really ask Jesus for advice on what would be a fair split of the family assets; instead he makes demands. “Hey, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
It’s not a good idea to order Jesus about. Jesus is Lord. He is not an errand boy at our beck and call. “Lord, give me good health. Lord, get me a job. Lord, make my train come on time. Lord, I’ll take it black with two sugars. Lord, come here, Lord go there...” Do you ever pray like this? It’s the wrong way round isn’t it?
On Guard Against Greed
So in reply, Jesus (as always) answers on his terms. He doesn’t get into a discussion about inheritance law. Jesus doesn’t say, “Well now, if he gets the house, you should at least get the furniture, the car, the jewellery and the coin collection.” No; Jesus (as usual) goes to the heart of the matter.
You see, Jesus (as ever) sees right through all the talk. He knows that this question about the inheritance is just the public face of materialism and greed.
Jesus replies, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he says to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
If you were having to fend off a ferocious pit-bull “Watch out!” is what you would shout to people around so they took up a defensive posture and “Be on your guard” is what you would say to warn people that they need to be armed with sufficient hardware to beat the animal back.
“Watch out! Be on your guard,” says Jesus because nothing is more deadly to your spiritual health than a consuming focus on worldly wealth and possessions. There is a world to be won to Christ before he returns in glory; he has not called his church to a life of ease and comfort.
So Jesus tells these men that the really important thing here is not for him to solve their little problem. The really important issue is for them to change their hearts.
How often do we go to God asking him to change our situation rather than asking him to change our hearts?
Who Owns All Your Stuff?
And so Jesus tells them a story about a rich landowner who has a massive harvest. In fact, there is so much wheat, barley, corn and oats that he doesn’t have space to store it all. So he thinks, “My barn is not big enough. What I need is a hangar.”
It does not even occur to him that all the abundance and blessing from God might be shared with others. When it comes to giving, do you stop at nothing or do you stop at nothing?
The American author and pastor Gordon MacDonald once said, “One of the greatest missing teachings in the church today is that nothing we have belongs to us.” That’s what’s so important about harvest. All we have; family, friends, job, house, car, food, happiness, freedom… is a gift from God to be shared.
But that’s only half the truth. The full truth is that, in the economy of the Kingdom of God, your enjoyment of blessing is multiplied, not diminished, by giving it away. And the reverse is true; the more you try to keep blessings to yourself, the less pleasure you get from them.
Blessings from God are like manure; if you spread them around all over the place they help everything else grow better but if you hoard them in a big pile indoors they begin to stink.
This man supposed that everything he had was his. Wrong! That’s a common misunderstanding – even in the church.
Nothing shows more vividly what we think of God than the way we spend money and use our possessions. Nothing speaks more eloquently about whether we are God centred or self-centred than the way we handle our stuff and talk about our bank balance.
Look at v17-18 again.
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.”’
That’s 6 uses of the word “I” and 4 uses of the word “me” in just 5 short sentences. The man in the parable is embarrassingly self-centred. Even when he uses the word “you” he is talking about himself and, tellingly, there is not one mention of God and not one mention of anyone else.
What If This Day Were Your Last?
Kathie was driving on the autoroute A10 out of Paris about 15 years ago. We were heading off on holiday down to the Vendee coast. I was in the passenger seat. Anna, Nathan and Joseph were in the back. Ben had not been born at that time.
We were travelling at 130km/hour in the middle lane of the motorway when the car started handling a bit strangely. Just as we were talking about that and wondering if it was the road surface or something, suddenly the car veered sharply toward the hard shoulder. Kathie desperately tried to steer straight and avoid an accident but the car just spun out of control, right across the carriageway, turning a full 180°.
It’s strange how life seems to go into slow motion at times like that. Everything must have taken about 3-4 seconds, but I remember thinking to myself, “Well, this is it. This is where I die. I’ve often wondered what it would be like and here it is. Oh my, we’re all going to die together; my wife and my three children as well. I only hope it’s over quickly and doesn’t hurt too much. Lord, have mercy on us all.”
It was a burst rear tyre. We ended up pressed against the central barrier and facing the oncoming traffic. Miraculously, none of us had a single scratch. The car took a slight hit when it struck the barrier – but even that was nothing much.
About half an hour later we were being towed away, a little shaken, to a garage and I remember thinking to myself what it says here in v20. “This very night your life will be demanded from you.”
A close shave with death puts everything into perspective. Winston Churchill once said “We make a living by what we get; but we make a life by what we give.”
Aristotle Onassis was a shipping magnate and financier born in 1906. He owned stocks and shares that secured control of 95 multinational businesses on 5 continents. He owned apartments in London, Paris, New York, Monte Carlo, Athens and Acapulco as well as a castle in France. He owned the entire islands of Scorpios and Sparta. He had deposits and accounts in 217 banks worldwide.
Everyone wanted a piece of his wealth. People could retire in opulent luxury on just 1% of his assets.
But Onassis just kept adding to his astronomic fortune. Shortly before he died in 1975 he said this: “I’ve just been a machine for making money. I seem to have spent my life in a golden tunnel looking for the outlet which would lead to happiness. But the tunnel kept going on. After my death there will be nothing left.”
‘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 those who store up things for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
As they say, there is no prize for being the richest man in the cemetery.
Ending
I’ll end with some good news, some bad news and the truth – and I’ll give you the good news first.
The good news is this; Jesus has given us an absolutely clear, explicit and unambiguous warning of what’s to come. We have been told. We can read it here in black and white. Nobody will say, “Well, I didn’t know, nobody told me, this isn’t fair.”
The bad news is this; Jesus says here that this is how it will be (not might be or could be in a worst case scenario). This is how it will be with those who store up things for themselves but are not rich toward God.
The truth is this; everybody here today is rich (by New Testament standards). We are all in the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population. The rich man in the parable is not just a City fat cat or dotcom tycoon. He is me and you. Only you know in your heart, as you open it to the Lord, if you are going to be rich towards him.
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 16th October 2011
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