Luke 12:16-21
The Lord said this parable: “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” As he said these things, he cried out: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In our Gospel reading today we hear the parable of the rich fool, where the rich man is delighted with all his wealth. We meet him on an occasion where he is even wealthier that he ever has been before. His lands have produced a harvest of extraordinary size; so great that he can not fit it all in his existing barns; so much that even if his land were never to produce another harvest, he would have more than enough to lead a life of luxury and ease for many years. And, so, he intends to pull down his old barns build new ones of greater size in order to store up the vast amounts of good things that he now has. And then he will relax and enjoy a life of comfort, a life in which he will spend his time eating, drinking, and being merry.
He has earned his wealth, and he intends to enjoy it. But what he does not know is that he is to die that very night. He will enjoy nothing of all this wealth he has amassed. Unfortunate enough in the ordinary way of things. But more troubling is the fact that our Lord declares that his behaviour has been that of a fool; and that he dies one who is not rich towards God. In other words, he dies condemned; and Paradise will not be his.
For what is he condemned? The Church Fathers give us several reasons.
The first is for ingratitude. This man has had many blessings in his life. He is already a wealthy man to begin with. He has a large and fertile estate of land. And he has barns enough to store the crops they yield year by year usually. And then comes a bumper crop, more than his barns can hold. What is his first thought? Is it to give glory to God? It is not. His first thought is about what is he to do with so much, a harvest to great for his barns to hold. He next thought of how he is to solve this problem, which is by tearing down the old barns and building bigger ones. And his final thought is gloat over all his goods, imagining how he will enjoy them in the years to come, of how he will eat, drink, and be merry. Never once does he give thanks to God.
The next thing that the Fathers point to is his greed. He has blessed with this great gift from God, a bountiful harvest, far more than he ever expected or can use for himself. Does it cross his mind to share it? Does he even for a moment think that there are many of his neighbours who live in poverty and go hungry? He does not. His only thoughts are for how he might use this great blessing that has been bestowed upon him to make his life, which is already one of ease and comfort, one of even greater ease, one of even greater comfort. He intends to eat, drink, and be merry and has no thought for those around him who might be hungry, thirsty, or living lives full of misery.
Now, of course, the rich fool has not carried out any of these plans yet. He has not pulled down his old barns. He has raised up the new. He has not piled up all his goods with a big sign out in front saying ‘for me and me alone’. He has not yet begun his life on endless merriment. Indeed, he has not even told anyone of his plans, for the conversation he has is with himself, between he and his soul. No one else alive knows what his intentions are.
But God knows, as the Fathers point out. God sees His intentions; but he does not strike him down for them. Rather He sees into this man’s heart and calls him a fool because of his plans. All this wealth that delighted the man so much will benefit him not at all. His time on this earth will end that very night, and every scrap of it will be for his heirs to do with as they will. And the opportunity to use the wealth which God had blessed him with in ways that would have made him rich toward God will be gone also. He had not even the intent to use it in such a way.
For none of us knows when our lives will end. Which is why we should live each moment as if it were our last and try to ensure that in the moment that goes before it that we are rich towards God. For one day that last moment will come; and it is how we have lived before that moment that will decide where we will be in the moment after it. Amen.
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