Luke 12:13-21
July 31, 2022
The Parable of the Rich Fool
Bertram Poole
I want to show you a short clip from a movie
it’s
called Wall Street.
It came out in 1987.
It stars Michael Douglas and
Charlie Sheen.
Here’s the most famous part
of it:
“The point
is, ladies and gentleman, that greed —
for lack of a better word — is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the
essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for
money, for love, knowledge —
has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And greed — you mark my words — will not
only save Teldar Paper,
but that other malfunctioning corporation called the
USA."
This monologue has become
kind of an inspirational
speech for the time.
Almost a statement of that
generation.
People quoted it and still
quote it as justification for
taking what we can when we
can.
The character Gordon Gekko
was a hero for lots of people.
It was the rally cry for a
joy of personal and corporate
greed that took hold in the
1980’s
and we’re still living in the
shadow of today.
Ironically, the movie was an anti-greed movie.
I don’t want to ruin it for you,
but it has been out
for almost 40 years.
The main character, played by
Charlie Sheen
is almost destroyed and
everyone ends up in prison.
But people forgot about moral
of the movie and just
remembered the speech.
Greed is good.
No one likes to think of themselves as greedy.
We’re not Wall Street
Tycoons,
or if we are, we’re certainly
not like that guy.
We’re just doing a job.
But the fact is, we live in a
systems that are
based on consumption and
retention and keeping,
and either we succeed in that
system or we fall victim to it.
Jesus warns us, “be on you
guard for all kinds of greed”
The man in the gospel story today,
the one that inspired Jesus’s
parable
he is not particularly
greedy. He’s no Gordon Gekko.
He just wants his part of his
family’s inheritance.
Not an outrageous request. We
all want what’s rightfully ours.
But Jesus hears this and he
tells us to be on guard.
This small reasonable
request, he warns, is a slippery slope
greed leads to more and more
greed.
Someone recently wrote about this speech from Wall
Street
and
said that at one time, in 1987, we might have thought that
we could escape greed, but
now we realize that
it’s just part of our society.
We’ve fallen down that
slippery slope.
Humanity can’t escape greed.
I mean it’s just part of our lives , it always has
been.
We live in these cycles of up
and down in our economies
constantly. it’s almost
predictable.
Right now inflation is up and
the stock market is down,
so then people will start started tightening their belts,
not spending as much.
Possibly being cautious with money.
And then we’ll hear that consumer spending is down.
Companies are cutting jobs. We’re
not spending enough,
we have to feed the economy
more.
So then it’s our responsibility to
keep the wheels going in the
economy
To buy more, spend more,
invest more,
to put our money in the stock
market
so that those people on wall
street have more to gamble with
When does it end?
When I was thinking about it, this week, it’s like
our whole financial system is
this beast that’s now living among us.
One that we’ve created with
our own want
fear, and need, and
aspiration.
It started out just as a desire
for comfort,
security, control,
self-determination,
but then somewhere along the
way it turned into greed.
And at some point that greed developed a life of its
own
and it moved out of individual
hearts and out of our control.
And now it lives out there
and it threatens us,
and it’s constantly hungry,
it demands more and more.
And the only solution we’ve
found is to feed it.
Feed the beast so it doesn’t
get angry.
Feed it, just keep feeding
it.
We don’t need to be greedy
individuals ourselves.
But we either have to feed it
and participate in this system,
or we become consumed by it.
I have seen people who have fallen prey to
the beast and lost.
Some of us watched our
parents and grandparents
struggle because they didn’t
have enough
and we don’t want to end up
like that.
People who come to the church
because they have no other
place to go.
People who have to struggle to pay for anything who
live
paycheck to paycheck or even
worse.
Who don’t have enough to live,
and fall into debt,
or become homeless and can’t
find their way out.
So we spend our youth in school, studying
and trying to get into a good
college,
and then we work and work and
work
so we can be more secure,
Either we’re on the treadmill
and running fast enough
we just have to keep running
and running
or we get sucked under it and
run over it.
And some of us, if we’re fortunate enough and
the crops that we planted
were abundant,
If the beast approved of what we were growing,
then we look forward to the
day when
we don’t have to run any more
and we can sit back and say
to our selves,
now we can relax, eat, drink
and be merry.
Sounds a little bit like the parable that Jesus told.
Maybe a little too close .
And God said to that person.
“You fool, what’s going to
happen with all that
stuff that you saved?”
This response from God is not so much a
threat
as it is a
sadness about how this man spent his life.
How we spend our
lives.
But this is the American dream isn’t it?
This is probably
the dream of most people
in the world
isn’t it? “If I were a rich man”
To get the
storehouse of security, so we don’t
have to think
about the storehouse any more.
This is the dream
that so many people work for.
The one that so
many of us are living.
We either have it
or we want it. I’m part of it.
I’ve got the 401k
and the pension that I am working to build.
And I keep going
because I want to be comfortable.
Because I don’t
want to be a burden to anyone.
Because I don’t
want to be consumed by the beast.
So I keep feeding
it.
But this is what
Jesus is warning us against.
You fools.
This system that is based on greed is
broken.
The system where
some win and lose doesn’t work.
Where some end up
with storehouses,
and some end up
starving is not God’s vision for us.
Greed, for
lack of a better word, is not good.
Whether we’ve
ended up on the losing end
of it or the
winning end of it is irrelevant.
This is not God’s
vision for us, and yet,
we’ve been living
in it so long we don’t even notice it.
We are fools. We
have been fooled.
There’s not a
lot of Good News in this parable, frankly.
But Jesus does have a better vision for us.
The scriptures talk more
about money
and things related to money like wealth,
power, poverty, oppression, and greed than any other topic.
More than sex, family,
abortion, drinking, dancing or whatever
we were told when we were young
that the scriptures were talked about.
That’s because money is
idolized.
Meaning we put it in the place of God.
Money has a way of giving us a false sense
of security and self-satisfaction.
Money has a way of luring us into relying on it.
Basing our life around it, living or dying by it.
Trusting in it’s power, and majesty, and might.
And trusting in its ability to save us.
But Jesus has a vision of a
community that relies on God.
One that trusts in God’s abundance
and has the courage to act on it.
Jesus sees a society where we aren’t secure
in our security, but we’re secure in God’s abundance for us.
The path to a better system
for all of us
is a path that doesn’t trust in our own security,
but trusts in God’s love and God’s abundance.
Jesus vision is a system that is rich with God.
Jesus shows us the kingdom of God
where everyone
takes care of everyone else.
Where we pray
“Give us this day our daily bread”
and we are
satisfied and honored with just that.
Our daily bread.
This is Jesus
vision for us.
And we pray and we hope that one day
God’s will, will
be done on earth.
The bad news of this parable
is that no one leaves
this world with that storehouse of goods.
But maybe the good news in this parable
is really for all
those who couldn’t play the system,
Who come to the
church as a last resort.
Whose crops never
did produce abundantly.
For the brother
that didn’t get the inheritance.
The good news for
them is that
they didn’t need
to storehouse after all.
And maybe that good news for all of us
is that those who
have none here
will have all in
the Kingdom of God.
And for those of us who have enough right
now:
Basil,
the 4th century Greek bishop wrote,
"If you want storehouses,
you have them in the stomachs of the poor."
Invest in those who need.
The vulnerable,
the lonely, the oppressed.
Those who can’t
pay back dividends or money.
Invest in
generosity, and invest in people.
Invest in those
who fell under the treadmill of the system.
That investment is
a sure thing.
Because that is
where God’s heart is.
That is where our
real security lies.
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