A reflection on the Rich Fool (Luke
12: 13-21)
13 A man in the crowd said to Jesus,
"Teacher, tell my brother to divide with me the property our father left
us." 14 Jesus answered him, "Friend, who gave me the right to
judge or to divide the property between you two?" 15
And he went on to say to them all, "Watch out and guard yourselves from
every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of the things you
own, no matter how rich you may be." 16 Then
Jesus told them this parable: "There was once a rich man who had land
which bore good crops. 17 He began to think to
himself, "I don't have a place to keep all my crops. What can I do? 18 This is what I will do,' he told himself; "I
will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, where I will store the grain and
all my other goods. 19 Then I will say to myself,
Lucky man! You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life
easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!' 20
But God said to him, "You fool! This very night you will have to give up
your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?'
" 21 And Jesus concluded, "This is how
it is with those who pile up riches for themselves but are not rich in God's
sight."
This time last year... do
you remember this time last year?
We were lamenting the poor
harvest; we had so much rain that crops were rotting in the fields; nothing was
ripening; and everyone felt really down because the summer had been long and
wet and cold.
Fast forward to this year!!
What a difference!
A warm and wet spring gave
way to a long hot summer, with just enough rain to keep everything growing, and
now there is a bumper harvest – the beast season for all sorts of things for
quite some time.
It’s been the same in the
manse garden too; you’ve all received the courgettes; and some have also had
tomatoes; and broccoli and caulis and tatties.... now as the season is changing
the fruit trees are heavy laden; the tomatoes are falling over they are so
heavy; we have apples and pears in abundance – for anyone who cares to come and
collect them!
Today’s parable about the
Rich Fool, is the one designated for Harvest celebrations in the lectionary;
and to my mind it just seemed to fit in with the present glut our gardens are
experiencing.
I could so easily fall into
that category of let’s get another freezer so we can have apples and pears all
through the winter, without considering sharing them with others; and the
plenty I have isn’t necessarily just the fruits of our own labours on the land
either.
Think of all the things we
work hard for; our homes; our families; to have a little money set aside for a
rainy day. We go out to work; we give or time our talents and our service – and
we are rewarded accordingly. What we do with our wages – whether you work for
the minimum or indeed you have more than you need – what we do with what we
earn is up to us.
The other thing we were
doing this time last year was celebrating our church family; our church
community as we began our Stewardship Campaign.
Some of you will remember it well; others will remember the meal; the
entertainment – and maybe that it was “just the Kirk asking for money again”.
Stewardship is not about fundraising.
Let me say that again!!Stewardship is not about fundraising.
Fundraising is the gathering
together of funds for a specific purpose or project – but the church isn’t a
project! The church isn’t something that just needs money to be thrown at it.
The church is much, much more than that.
Another thing stewardship
isn’t: it isn’t something that rears its head every few years and we just
ignore meantime. Stewardship is about every aspect of our lives – day in day
out. Stewardship is about prayerfully using the resources we have to hand. One
year a rich full harvest; another year things may not be so good. Stewardship
means we use our wealth: every aspect of wealth, carefully and considerately.
No spare money? Use your time and talents! Not much spare time – ok then, what
can you do? Be honest with yourself – because God knows the answer!! God asks
us to be generous, not greedy; to be to be happy with what we have, not to
yearn for what we want.
The Rich Fool missed the
point about stewardship and about generosity.
Jesus began the parable with
a statement: "Watch out and guard
yourselves from every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of
the things you own, no matter how rich you may be."
In the same way that the
Rich Fool, thought because he had so much he could kick back take an easy ride
and not make any effort; we too can fall into that trap.
We are asked to be good
stewards; all that we have is not ours to squander, we are trusted by God with
what we have; trusted to use it well; to manage it; to grow it if we can. We
can of course, use what we have for our own needs, but if we can share some of
that bounty along the way then we are sharing God’s riches; sharing God’s
blessing.
The end of the summer; the
start of the autumn wind down into winter is a good time for taking stock; what
do we have; what do we need; what can we spare?
We give thanks for the
glorious spring and summer season; we store up supplies for winter and we share
the excess with those who have not.
And. We give thanks for all
the ways God blesses us; for the challenges we face and conquer; for the
difficulties that arise and the blessings that come from trusting in God.
We can choose to be a Rich
Fool, who holds it all back ‘just in case’ but never really enjoys the fruits
of his labours
Or we can be a Fool for
Jesus – willing to trust and share from what we have – the fruits of all our
different labours – a rich, rich harvest of plenty.
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