Monday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 23, 2023

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 the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”

“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”  From this plaintive cry we can gain some insight into the civil situation of the people who inhabited Galilee and Judea at this time.  There were few formal courts for deciding matters of this kind, or other matters on a local level.  The Romans allowed the Jews to run their cities and towns without interference so long as they paid the taxes and did not harbor rioters or rebels.  We see examples of what this meant on the occasions when the Jews sought to kill Jesus before he died on the Cross, as in his hometown of Nazareth: no police force existed to break up the mob with murder on its mind.  Likewise, few courts existed to handle property disputes and those that did exist were subject to bribery or arbitrary decisions, as we see in the Lord’s parable of The Unjust Judge (Luke 18, 1-8).  Most relied on custom and tradition, and a powerful person could get his way without legal consequences.  The man in the crowd appeals to Jesus as an unofficial but influential authority who could get him justice, evidently in a situation in which there was no court or it had ruled against him.  This kind of appeal brings to mind the times of Israel’s Judges, charismatic but in appointed leaders, before Israel had kings, to whom people appealed for justice. “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”  The Lord does not involve himself in legal affairs — doing so would only encourage more such appeals and with it a growing consensus that he was the political messiah the Pharisees taught the people to await.

“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”  Jesus takes this opportunity to teach on a deeper theme.  Now, though today nearly all people recognize greed as a vice, this was not so in ancient times.  True, the Ten Commandments marks coveting that belonging to one’s neighbor as a sin, yet greed in general was not condemned.  Many ambitious people strove for riches, possessions, and power.  But the Lord commands us not to give in to greed.  The desire for things, for more things, for better things, destroys the life of God in the soul.  Possessions can quickly become idols.  Preoccupation with acquiring things leaves no room for striving to please God.  And we are not able to pray while gazing hungrily through a store window.

The landowner in the parable asks himself: “What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?”  After God has given him a rich harvest, he does not ask God what he should do with the surplus.  His mind is wholly worldly.  “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”  He is like the rich man in the parable about Lazarus who does not so much as notice the poor all around him and would rather he be merry than that they not starve.  “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”  We ought to adopt St. Paul’s attitude: “The appointed time has grown very short; “From now on, let those . . . buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7, 29-31).  

“Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”  What is it that matters to God? James 1, 27: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  That is, to do holy work for his sake and to keep free from sin, holding on to our faith in Jesus Christ.