The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 31, 2022

Luke 12, 13–21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”  Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”

This reading begins with an interesting situation.  A man said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”  This reveals that a man who perceived himself to suffer injustice was seeking assistance outside the law.  Either he had not yet gone to the law, or, more likely, he had, and the authorities had not given him what he thought he deserved.  He then goes to the Lord, as one having moral authority, but the Lord does not usurp the power of the duly appointed authorities.  Thus, the Lord answers, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”  The Lord does not bring anarchy into the world, but order.

“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”  The Lord Jesus adapts for those called to live in the world his counsel of selling one’s goods and giving to the poor as a condition for following him.  That is, we are all called to follow Jesus, but not all in the same way.  Singleness of purpose does not imply uniformity of means.  The key here is that possessions are not to hinder us from serving him, but are best used in this service, according to his will.  The Lord goes beyond possessions, though, and teaches against greed, which gnaws at the souls of so many.  It seems to arise out of a certain neediness, a certain desperation for security.  It is never appeased, but only grows worse as we continue to feed it: the more we have, the more we want.  Our obsession with saving ourselves shuts God out of our lives except in ways that border on superstition, such as promising him something if only he does not smite us.

“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.”  We should notice here that the man in the parable was already rich.  His bountiful harvest makes him even more rich.  He does ask a reasonable question regarding his surplus: “What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?”  He rightfully sees a problem: he does not have space for it all.  He needs to do something or the harvest will go to waste.  “This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.”  The man comes up with a reasonable answer.  He had better hurry, though, or his crops will rot in the field.  “There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”  Here is where the man gets into trouble.  He sees the harvest only as a means to indulge himself.  He does not see the harvest as a gift from God and then ask the real question: Given that God has already given me enough to live on, what should I do with this abundant harvest?  What is God’s will?  He does not ask this question, and that night he is faced with reality: he will die and his wealth will not bring him any joy but will be carried away by others.  We can see him as a precursor to the rich man who refused to feed Lazarus, and was cast into hell.

Current at this time, though its influence was beginning to wane, was the philosophy of Epicurus, who taught that though the gods existed, they did not involve themselves in human affairs and so no need existed to worry about pleasing them.  Also, death was the end of life, but since worry about death brought nothing but misery, worry about death ought to be avoided.  The business of life was to become self-sufficient and to live well.  The person who did so could then spend his time studying philosophy.  Christians battled these ideas as the Faith spread into the Greek and Roman worlds.  It is possible that the Lord gave this parable with the future in mind or because whiffs of this philosophy had entered the thought of the Greek-loving Pharisees. (One of the ironies in New Testament times is that despite the Pharisees and Sadducees claiming to represent the Law in its purest form, both groups liked Greek things).

Let us continually seek the will of God and pray that we may accomplish it.  It is by his will that we exist at all, and it is by doing his will that we will enjoy an eternal rest.