The Delusion of Greed

Luke 12:13-21, Colossians 3:1-11

          There is nothing like a good estate dispute to show a family’s true colors.  I think you all know what I’m talking about.  It is a strong family that is not destroyed by the greed bogey that arises whenever a will is read.  Certainly, we can understand Jesus’ apparent reluctance to get involved in this man’s case and then more or less calling the man greedy with the parable he told.  But…unfortunately for you folks you are going to have to settle in and listen while I tell you that this passage isn’t about a petty will dispute, but rather it is a passage that can and will cut right to the core of our beliefs about wealth and why we accumulate it.   

          The first thing I need to point out about this passage is that the man wasn’t coming to Jesus to get him involved in a petty will dispute.  He came asking Jesus to get his brother to be fair to him according to Kingdom of God values rather than what the law said was fair.  We all know about how people can use the law to their own advantage even when it is in conflict with any standard of morality.  This becomes particularly evident at tax time.  There are tax laws that benefit the wealthy simply because they are wealthy while people who really need a break are taxed at a disadvantage. 

          This man came to Jesus to ask him to make a judgment.  In that day people came to Rabbi’s and wise men to ask them to make judgments in disputes.  But, in this case I can’t help but believe that this man was one of Jesus’ followers and he was asking Jesus to enact his Kingdom of God rights for him.  One of the first things that Jesus had to say about himself in Luke’s Gospel was "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."  He was coming to Jesus the Messiah and asking him to do what Jesus the Messiah had said he had come to do.

          The “year of the Lord’s favour” is otherwise known as the year of Jubilee.  In ancient Israel every forty-nine years the land was supposed to be redistributed equally among the people according to the original family allotments decreed in the Book of Exodus.  Jubilee was the only way this man could get possession of land that in all moral fairness was his but this man’s brother was withholding this man’s share from him and using the Law to his own benefit to do it.  Dt. 21:15-17 states that the firstborn son to man who has two wives can get a double portion of the inheritance.  In a family with only two sons this double portion would be the whole thing.  So, this man needed a year of Jubilee to get his inheritance.

          In response to the man’s request Jesus sets out to show him that life is not found in wealth of possessions but in being rich towards God.  Jesus asks the man, “Who appointed me judge or arbitrator over you?”  Well, if Jesus is the Messiah, then the obvious answer to that question is, “God did”.  That being the case we must ask ourselves; “Would God want his Messiah to arbitrate an estate dispute tainted by greed or would God want his Messiah to make a judgment about human greed and how we look at wealth and possessions?

          In the parable that follows Jesus demonstrates that when wealth and possessions are one’s life’s pursuit rather than knowing God and seeking to do his will, we are without a doubt putting ourselves in the place of God.  This man in his desire to have his share of the family inheritance, though he had right to it, was in fact sinning the sin of playing God.  This becomes obvious when you notice his request of Jesus was not a request, but a command.  He said, “Teacher, tell my brother.”  “Command my brother.”  This man was telling, not asking.  So, Jesus, the Teacher, helps him to see the error of his ways with a parable about a rich fool who considered himself to be a god unto himself.

          The first place the rich fool’s false godhood shows up is his relationship to the land.  He had a great land perhaps maybe even a kingdom and that particular year the land brought forth a really good crop.  Though the land is the producer, the rich fool calls them his own.  This sounds very much like us and our belief that we are entitled to the private ownership of land and that what my land produces belongs to me and I can do what I want with my land.  When we take this attitude of ownership over the means of our sustenance and well-being, we put ourselves in the place of God. 

          We as Christians must take to heart that all that we have is not our own, but rather is entrusted to us by God.  We who say we trust and are faithful to God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and to Jesus Christ his Son must be very wary of how we buy into this culture of greed.  We are simply servants entrusted with a great estate, God’s estate.  When by God’s grace that estate produces generously, we cannot consider the surplus to be our own and tuck it away somewhere so that if we don’t use it we can pass it on to whomever we choose. 

          Consider the rich fool.  For him to be “rich toward God” he should have shared the surplus with the people of the land.  Yet, this rich fool never considers that maybe God had a use for that surplus somewhere on “God’s estate”.  There are at least two instances where Jesus tells a rich man to go sell what he has and give it to the poor and then fall in line and follow him.  But, the rich man is unable to do it due to his love of wealth and the false securities it provides him.

          The next thing this rich man does is speak to his soul and direct it to be happy as if his soul were his own.  What’s the “soul”?  The “soul” in the Bible is not this immortal blip of energy that departs us when we die.  That’s Greek paganism.  The “soul” is the entirety of our existence as relational persons created by God to be in relationship with him, with others, and the Creation.  At death the soul ceases to exist unless God in his free choice by grace chooses to keep it alive until the resurrection.  

          In the Bible, an immortal soul living forever in heaven is not our end.  Resurrection into a new creation is.  Our existence as persons, our soul, is a gift from God.  We do not tell ourselves how to be fulfilled.  We do not kickback on a delusion off self-determinism, that devil of “I did it my way” that plaques our culture, we do not kickback on this delusion and tell ourselves at the level of our very existence, “relax, eat, drink, and be merry.  I myself have made it so that you have nothing to worry about.” 

          Like that rich fool, we could die tonight and be called before the God who gave us life and commanded to give account for how we have lived it.  We do not go before God and say, “I was your faithful servant.  I did it my way.  Look at my wealth.”  That is ludicrous.  The right answer to give would be, “I did it your way.  I was as good a steward of your estate as I could be.  Look at how I shared and distributed your wealth to those who needed it.”  Yet, only Jesus can give that answer and he gives it on our behalf and it is he who shares his inheritance with us “lucky bums” as Karl Barth said.

          Our culture is so screwed up in its ingrained, indeed inbred, belief that being faithful to God means being good, working hard, and growing wealthy.  In fact, we are twisted enough to believe that if we are good and hard working enough in our own endeavers, God will bless us with wealth.  Our souls, our lives are not our own.  We belong to God to serve him and not ourselves.

          The Apostle Paul tells in Colossians.  If we belong to Christ Jesus, if we are indwelt by the Spirit of God, then we are to set our hearts and minds on things above where Christ Jesus’ reign is in effect; the reign of compassion, of justice, of kindness, of faithfulness, of humility, of patience, of self control; a reign that is discovered in the community of faith, in prayer and Bible reading and study, and in obedience and faithfulness.  We who are made alive in Christ are dead to this world and its ever-pervading greed.  Beware of greed.  It has very subtle cunning, deceiving, and powerful ways.  It’s an addiction.  Our existence is not found in possessions but in the life-giving Holy Spirit of God.  Our calling is not to be good, successful people who grow wealthy.  Our work is to put to death all our forms of idolatry, especially greed which is the desire to posses and call things, even other people, my own. 
           Put on the new self, the “new you” that God himself is renewing by the working of the Holy Spirit in and among us to be more in the image of Christ Jesus.  The Holy Spirit leads us into a relationship with Jesus.  By getting to know Jesus and sharing in his love for the Father and the Father’s love for him and us the Holy Spirit changes us.  We grow in the image of Christ as we love and serve one another, as we worship and pray alone and with one another, as we read and study the Bible alone and with one another.  Without these works of faith we do not know whom we are trying to be faithful to nor how we are to be faithful.  We simply persist in the delusion trying to act like God.  Be set on things above.  It is there we will find life.  We have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God.  Go find it.  Amen.