Posts Tagged ‘barn builder’

Building barns for the future or living in the now

August 4, 2025

Pentecost 8 – 2025

Luke 12:13-21

Marian Free

In the name of God Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Amen.

In many rural communities today, and certainly in first century Palestine, farming land is/was divided evenly among the sons. The intention being that the land would remain in the family and that each son would be able to raise his own children on the produce of the land. As you can imagine, a major flaw with this system is that as the land is divided into increasingly smaller lots it becomes unviable to farm. 

An alternative practice is that illustrated in the novels of Jane Austen. Families who owned large estates “entailed” the estate on the eldest living male relative – usually a son, but sometimes a nephew or an even more remote family member. This meant two things one was that any other son, despite having been raised in privilege, had to find a way to make a living – in the armed forces, in the law or as a clergy person. Women, as Austen’s novels illustrate, were particularly vulnerable. They had to submit to a planned marriage to someone whose income was in a similar range to their father’s – love rarely came into it or, as a single (or widowed) woman she would be entirely dependent on the good will of relatives for her food and board.

We are no longer governed by such laws, but inheritance can be an ugly business as battles through the courts demonstrate. Rich relatives, even parents, can use wealth as a weapon to manipulate their potential heirs. Children who feel unfairly done by take their stepparents – even their remaining parent – to court. Those whose parent has remarried may have to witness a totally unrelated person (and maybe that person’s family) receiving the entirety of that parent’s estate. So often the division of an estate does not seem fair and more often than not, it leads to a focus on money and possessions to the detriment of relationships.

Inheritance is a messy business, so when Jesus is asked to tell someone’s brother to divide the family inheritance with him, Jesus judiciously refuses to be drawn in. Instead, Jesus chooses to reflect on the dangers of greed – of wanting more than we need, of being jealous of what others have, of always striving for the next thing rather than enjoying what we have in the present, or of focussing so much on our possessions (gaining them or protecting them) that we neglect our families and our friends and fail to enjoy the moment.

To this end, in response to the man’s question, Jesus tells the parable of the man with the unexpectedly large crop.

As is the case with all the parables Jesus doesn’t worry about details – the size of the man’s property, his marital or family status. The man is a generic “rich” man – the implication being that he already has more than enough. He is not, like the majority of his fellow Palestinians eking out a miserable existence on a minute piece of land. The rich man already has barns (plural) in which to store his excess crops, the problem is that now they are not large enough. So, he has a dialogue with himself[1] -the solution he comes up with is to pull down his existing barns and to build bigger ones.  (This, of course, is impractical – what happens to the stored and recently harvested grain in the meantime? Jesus’ parables are not meant to make sense, but to make a point.)

We, who live longer and who are encouraged to plan for our financial future, might see some wisdom in the rich man’s behaviour, but the point of Jesus’ story is that the man is so focussed on his future, so determined to build (not share) his wealth that he fails to enjoy his present. Planning for a future that cannot be manipulated or controlled, the rich man has not noticed the riches he already has.  All his preparation will be for nothing, for in this case he has no future, and he will die not having achieved his goal.

As we will see again next week, Jesus has much to say about being content in the present, enjoying what we do have rather than striving for what we do not have, being content rather than living in a state of discontent. Think of “give us today our daily bread”, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink” (12:22), “can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” (12:25).

Our situation and culture is very different from that into which Jesus speaks. There are expectations that those of us who can, will set aside funds so that we don’t become a burden on others and that is good and wise, but if building wealth for the future becomes our sole preoccupation we may miss opportunities (family time, travel, experiences) in the present. 

None of us know how long our futures will be. Like the rich man we may lose our life or our health at any moment and never have the opportunity to enjoy those things that we have put off. 

Interestingly, the evangelist has used this parable as a condemnation of greed, but taken without the commentary, and in conjunction with the sayings that follow, Jesus appears to be urging his listeners to live in the present moment , to take time to smell the roses, to appreciate the blessings and opportunities they have now and to trust God with both the present and the future. 

In a few verses Jesus will say: “For where your treasure, there your heart will be also” (12:34). What do you treasure and how do you make that known?

[1] Luke often provides an inner dialogue so that we know what the person in the parable is thinking.

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Wealth’s capacity to destroy relationships

August 3, 2019

Pentecost 8 – 2019
Luke 12:13-21
Marian Free

In the name of God, who pours out love and mercy in abundance and who, in the end is the final arbiter. Amen.

Some of you may know the author and illustrator Pamela Allen. She has authored a number of children’s books including Who sank the boat?One of my favourites is Herbert and Harry[1]. Herbert and Harry are two brothers who get along famously until one day, when they are fishing together, they haul up a treasure chest. In the ensuing battle over the chest, Harry is pushed into the sea and Herbert rows the boat and the treasure to a lonely stretch. Fortunately, Harry is a strong swimmer and manages to swim home. Herbert, having wrested the chest from his brother, feels desperately anxious that Harry might find him and steal the treasure.  He hauls the chest into the forest, but still does not feel safe. He hides the treasure among some tree roots, but still he cannot rest. He takes the treasure further and further from Harry, the land gets emptier and emptier and the hills higher and higher.

At last he reaches the highest mountain in the land, but still he cannot sleep for fear that someone has followed him. So Herbert digs a tunnel deep into the mountain, pushes the chest in and covers the entry with a huge boulder, but even that is not enough. He decides that he needs guns, lots of them. Guns are not enough; Herbert builds a fort.

In the end, Herbert has gained no pleasure at all from the treasure. His life has been consumed by keeping it to himself and protecting it from anyone who might wish to steal it. In the process, he has cut himself off – not only from Harry, but from all possible human contact and perhaps from his own humanity. The final illustration shows him completely isolated atop his mountain holding a gun, surrounded by walls from which protrude multiple cannons. Harry, on the other hand is pictured surrounded by grandchildren. Allen concludes: “Today, Herbert and Harry are very old men. Herbert still guards the treasure in his fort on top of the highest mountain in the land. But still, he cannot sleep. While Harry, who had no treasure, has always been able to sleep soundly.

In today’s gospel, someone from the crowd approaches Jesus and says: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” In response Jesus warns that: “life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” and he tells the parable about the rich man, who, instead of sharing his good fortune, plans to store it all up for himself. On a superficial level the meaning of the parable is quite clear: “it doesn’t matter how much you have; you can’t take it with you”. At a deeper level much more is going on here.

As Dennis Hamm (SJ) points out today’s brief parable is “a brilliant cartoon illustrating how greed destroys all the covenant relationships”[2]“with the earth, with the community, with one’s self and with God.

In order to see how Hamm comes to this conclusion, we have to examine the parable bit by bit. The parable begins: “The landof a rich man produced abundantly.” It is the land, not the rich man that has produced the abundance. This is consistent with the Jewish perspective that the earthis the source of food and that a successful harvest, like the land itself, is a gift from God. The rich man has lost touch with his relationship with the land and with his dependence on the Creator.

We read on: “And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” I have no place to store my crops. Not only has our farmer lost sight of the fact that the land and the harvest are gifts from God, but he has forgotten the wisdom that flows from this understanding – that divine gifts are not intended for one individual but that the produce of the land is intended to meet the needs of all. He has forgotten, or is choosing to ignore, his responsibility to the wider community. From his perspective the abundance is for him alone.

The farmer’s self-centredness is even more obvious in his interior monologue: “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. And I will say to my soul [psyche], ‘Soul [psyche], you have ample goods laid up for many years: relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” There is no mention of ‘we’ or ‘our’ here. It is all about me “my grain and my goods.” The comedic element of this section is heightened when we understand that “psyche” or “soul” is just as easily translated as “self”. In which case we read: “I will say to myself, ‘Self, you have ample goods – etc”.

Then God interrupts the selfish man’s thoughts. “But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life [psyche- self] is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”In the final analysis, the farmer is not the arbiter of his destiny, God is. Life itself is a gift from the Creator.

Like Hebert, the rich man gains no benefit from his wealth. In holding his harvest to himself, he cuts himself off from the land, the community, his own humanity and eventually from God.

Jesus’ point is that while wealth in itself may not be the problem, what we do with our wealth, or perhaps more importantly, what we let our wealth do to us can be problematic. In the worst-case scenario, Jesus’ implies, if we allow our possessions to control us they will separate us from the earth, from our family and our community, from our sense of self and even from God.

[1]Allen, Pamela. Herbert and Harry. Australia: Puffin Books, 1986.
[2]http://liturgy.slu.edu/18OrdC080419/theword_hamm.html

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Having enough – not more than enough

July 30, 2016

Pentecost 11 – 2016

Luke 12:13-31

Marian Free

In the name of God who has blessed us with all things good. Amen.

To save or not to save? To store up or not? We live in a nation that has a reasonable system of social welfare, but which also places an emphasis on the importance of taking care of oneself. Those of us who can afford the luxury are encouraged to take out medical insurance rather than place a burden on the public health system and to put sufficient aside so that we can live comfortably in what may be an increasingly long period of retirement. Our desire to ensure a basic standard of living for the less fortunate is balanced by a strong streak of independence and unwillingness to rely on the state.

In the last few decades, Superannuation has become big business and retirement has become, not simply an end to our working life and a time to relax, but an opportunity to do all those things that we haven’t yet done, a time for travel and adventure. As a result, our expectations of what we can or should expect to do when we retire, has increased exponentially. Our super schemes fill our in-boxes with information about how much we need to have set aside to ensure a comfortable retirement and our government gives us tax incentives to encourage us to top up our super funds.

What all of this means is that it is difficult for us to read the parable of the rich fool without some sense of gloom or even guilt. We ask ourselves: “Are we doing the wrong thing by setting aside funds for our future?” “Is it wrong to store up “treasure” against a “rainy day?”” “Will we be judged as those who have been more concerned about this life than the next?”

I have said on previous occasions that one of the concerns of the author of Luke is wealth. Luke has more to say about money than any of the other gospel writers. It is only in Luke that we find today’s parable and the account of the rich man and Lazarus. Only Luke records the story of Zacchaeus – the tax collector who gave away half of his fortune to the poor. Only Luke records disputes about inheritance – today’s gospel and the parable of the Prodigal Son. In his second volume, Luke records the fact that the early Christians held all things in common (Acts 2:43, 4:32) and tells the startling story of Ananias and Sapphira whose deceit in such matters resulted in their immediate death.

However, before we give everything away and place ourselves at the mercy of the state, or of our families, it is important that we understand what is going on here. The parable of the rich fool is Jesus’ response to a request to mediate on a matter of inheritance. We cannot be sure what lies behind the request. of the person in the crowd. In Jewish law a distant family member or a third-party was engaged to sort out inheritance disputes. Here, however, the fact that the petitioner is a member of crowd and the language that he uses which is similar to that found in the prodigal son suggests that the he is seeking his portion of inheritance before time – in effect wishing his father already dead so that he can have now what is due him in the future.

Jesus’ response to the person is to caution against greed – hence the parable.

The rich man is a landowner who almost certainly did not grow the crops himself. No peasant farmer would have had sufficient land to produce enough for his family, let alone a surplus. Nor would a peasant farmer have had sufficient land on which to build a barn, let alone barns. The rich fool is already rich – he has barns and they are already full but apparently he cannot imagine sharing his good fortune with anyone else, he will keep on building and keep on hoarding even though he has no need. His inner dialogue tells us that he is thinking only of himself: ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 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.” “I, I, I, me, me, me.” He does not spare a thought for those whose back-breaking labour produced the surplus. He doesn’t think for a moment of his tenant farmers who struggle every day to earn enough to feed their families and who, being deprived of their land, have nothing to lay aside for themselves and no future to give their children.

The rich man is already in a position to eat, drink and be merry. He has no reason to store up his crops except to further enrich himself at the expense of others – that is by selling it at exorbitant prices when the crops fail. In thinking only of himself the rich man of our parable is blind to the fact that he is emotionally impoverished. And even though he is addressing his soul, he is giving no thought as to what might enhance his spiritual life, nor is he giving any real thought as to what might bring him contentment and peace both now and in the future. Instead, he seems to believe that shoring up and increasing his wealth is the key to true happiness.

Researchers tell us that while having enough to live on is important for a degree of contentment, once a person earns over a certain amount their happiness does not increase and is some cases it decreases. It should be self-evident to anyone that money alone does not bring happiness. In fact recently an economist reflected on the “shocking fact” that people in the West have become no happier in the last 50 years, despite being healthier, wealthier and better travelled.

True happiness, as most of us know, lies in our relationships with our families, our friends and ultimately with God. We cannot be truly at peace if we are always striving for something more, if we are competing with others or if we are living in an imaginary “better” future rather than being satisfied with the present.

If we are not content with what we have in the present, will we know when we actually do have enough or will our lives be a constant struggle to have more and more? Jesus does not buy into the question about inheritance. He knows that greed eats away at the soul, isolates us from the community around us, and reflects a belief that we are better than God at looking after ourselves. Instead of entering the dispute Jesus tells a parable and concludes by reminding us that the source of all things is God and that it is in our relationship with and our trust in God that true contentment is to be found.

 

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