Parable of the Rich Fool - by Revd Charmaine Braatvedt

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The Parable of the Rich Fool
by Rev. Charmaine Braatvedt
Sunday 7^th November 2010

“Someone in the crowd said to Jesus: ‘Teacher tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

How often we hear about family feuds over inherited money.

How many of you have experienced such a feud in your own families?

Tell the story of the feud in our family over inheritance.

Feuds over inheritances are very common. They are emotionally charged with all the pain and grief for the family member who has died and the significance of the inheritance is linked into the memories and traditions and family history. The inheritance is frequently seen as a way in which the person who has passed on may be able to continue to bless and in some way be present with the family albeit in a symbolic way.

So disputes around inheritance have the power to wind up the people concerned and generate bitterness and confrontation, grudges and angry exchanges that dameage the cohesion of the family and leave a trail of broken, hurting or destroyed relationships in their wake.

Clearly the person calling out to Jesus from the crowd finds himself in this position.

In those days as happens today, the arbitration over family feuds was done by lawyers and judges. It was inappropriate of the man to ask Jesus to use his influence and to get involved in this legal dispute with his siblings. The man was however was clearly desperately frustrated and Jesus recognises his frustration and then uses the opportunity to burrow down into the heart of what is upsetting this man.

What is upsetting him?

* Outrage at the unfairness and injustice
* Fear of losing out
* Anger at losing an entitlement

What is the danger for this man?

Consume all his energy

Distract him from what is really important in life

Destroy relationships and values that are important

Diminish the quality of his life.

So Jesus redirects his attention and energy and the attention of the crowd to a higher order of thinking, by telling a little story that reminds him and us of what is really important in life.

But first he issues two warnings:

The two warnings about the way we live our lives are.

* Watch out be on your guard against all kinds of greed for greed will make you so self focused that you will forget about God;
* a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of his/her possessions.

The truth of the matter is that we have a finite life span on this earth and t nothing we own in a material sense in this short brief life we live can be taken with us into the next life.

Let’s face it, the inheritance we are entitled to is sitting there because the person who generated that wealth had to leave it behind also. So to waste one’s life in the pursuit of wealth purely for the security and happiness it tries to promise us is a waste of precious time.

Jesus explains this to the crowd by pointing out that the rich man was a fool because he did exactly that .

Life Jesus says consists of more important things.

What is important in life?

Relationships

Family

Friendships

God

Our spiritual development.

Unfortunately the rich man in the story mistook the right use of his wealth. He hoarded his wealth for himself when it would have been wiser to use his wealth for the good of himself as well as others.

cf the NZ rich list building a $10million house on Seacliffe.

The man in the parable forgot that the best barns for his bumper crop were the hands of the needy, the homes of the widows, the mouths of orphans.

He was trying to provide for his future and yet ironically he failed to do the very thing he was trying to do. He failed to provide for his eternal future.

For Jesus, life is only well lived when we are in tune with God’s will and purposes, then we are truly alive.

The parable holds true in a psychodynamic sense also. If ou substitute the accumulation of possessions for the finer things in life: relationships, values, emotional richness, dedication to a higher cause, you become the victim of addictive behaviour.

By that I mean that an addiction is the substitution of inferior good for the real thing we desire.

In this case what the man desires is a secure future. The only way to achieve this in Jesus’ view is by being rich towards God.

Many psychologists today agree that every one of us has a deep longing for a relationship with god. However, all too many of us fill our lives with all sorts of substitutes for this relationship instead of pursuing the very thing we most long for.

In the parable, greed for material things is the compensation. The man allows his wealth to subvert his longing for God.

Jesus is not criticising his wealth, he is pointing out that greed is causing him to use his wealth in ways that make it a substitute for God and life without God, without an opening to infinity is pinched and confining.

So Jesus encourages us to search for God and if we allow this search to drive us we will view our money and our inheritance differently.

As we count our money or claim our inheritance in the light of our authentic search for God and his will and purposes, it will change how we experience our counting and claiming, our spending and saving and will help us to become rich towards God and generous towards those who are less fortunate than we are in all kinds of ways.

As we become rich towards God we open our spirits and free them from the chains of greed and selfishness and when in the words of the parable our souls are finally required of us we will be able to stand with confidence knowing that though we have left our earthly wealth behind we have secured an eternal future with God and that it is well with our souls!

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