Steve Lindsley

Luke 12: 13-21 (Selected Verses

Our story today begins with a request brought before Jesus.  Or maybe it’s more of a demand?  It’s a little hard to tell.   Jesus is out doing his thing, people coming to him with all kinds of needs, the majority of which were significant: things like food, shelter, healing, or even just a listening ear for a troubled soul.  And I guess it was only a matter of time before Jesus would run into someone like the man we meet in our scripture today.  A man who works his way through the crowd, and when he gets to Jesus and gets his attention, says: Jesus, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. 

That’s what he comes to Jesus asking for: tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.

In my study down the hall, I have a small assortment of little Jesus collectibles – knick-knacks that have been given to me over the years.  There’s the “walking on water” Jesus with wheels on the bottom.  There’s the keychain Jesus that doubles as a flashlight.  There’s a dancing Jesus that jiggles like a bobble head when you shake it.

My favorite of them all is the “Answer Me Jesus.”  Here it is.  Think of it as a kind of holy Magic 8 ball – the one you shake and provides answers to your yes/no questions.  You ask Jesus a yes-no question, then you turn him upside-down and look at the bottom, where there’s this plastic hexagon floating around in blue liquid, one side of which will be facing up with your answer.  Maybe the answer you get is “Hallelujah!” or “I forgive you” or “I still love you” or “Wait for a sign” or “Let me ask my dad.”

My favorite answer of them all, though, is “I died for this?!”

And while Jesus was very much alive in our story today; I have to think this sentiment echoes what he must have been thinking with this man’s request/demand to personally intervene in family matters. And the response Jesus gives is about as snarky a response as you’ll ever hear from him: Mister, what makes you think it’s any of my business to be a judge or mediator for you?  In other words: I died for this?!

And it isn’t just the request that irks Jesus.  Because Jesus is very much aware of something that man certainly knew; something that you and I probably don’t – that, according to Judaic inheritance practices at the time, the older brother received two-thirds of the family inheritance with the younger brother getting just a third.  Not the even split this guy’s asking for.  Which, as a side note, means we can probably safely assume that this guy is the younger brother, don’t you think?

So, it’s not just the hubris of being asked to insert himself into family matters that bugs Jesus.  It’s that this guy wants a 50-50 split which, by law, is more than he’s entitled to.  More than is his to ask for.

And that is what sparks the parable that Jesus tells.  A parable of a man whose land, we are told, produced abundantly.  And it’s very important that we pay special attention to a detail here because it impacts the rest of the parable and the message that Jesus is trying to convey.  Listen again: the land produced abundantly.  Not the man who owned it.  The land. Hold on to that thought for a little later.

This man’s land produced so abundantly, in fact, that he doesn’t have enough room in his barns to store it all.  And so, he has a bit of a problem – a nice problem, but it’s still a problem: what’s he going to do with all this bounty?

We get a little peek inside this guy’s head with the man saying to himself, here’s what I’m gonna do: I’m going to 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; relax, eat, drink, be merry.

Did you catch how many times the man says “I,” “me,” or “my?”  Eight times in a single verse.  It’s all about him.

So, let’s recap here: this man in the parable Jesus tells has a huge harvest to reckon with – a harvest, once again, that the land, not he, produced.  And his solution to address the issues created by this vast abundance is to tear down the existing storage and build bigger ones to store the harvest in full.

I mean, we see this mindset around us all the time, don’t we?  It is the mindset of scarcity, of not having enough – or more to the point, being afraid of one day not having enough.  It is a powerful, powerful mindset that can pervade every aspect of our lives if we let it – including the church.

It is also not true.  It is a lie.  A myth.  As one noted preacher explains:

The myth of scarcity insists that there is never enough (for ourselves), let alone (for) another. The myth of scarcity says that there is not enough food for all in the world to be fed, that we must fight and destroy in order to protect what is ours, that it is not our job to take care of others…and if you do not buy in, then you will be left out. The myth of scarcity has even invaded American churches, warning us that we have to hold on tightly to our salvation and our God because if just anyone can be saved, or worship God then there won’t be enough to go around.[1]

Now on one level, we get it. It’s the waters we’ve been swimming in all of our lives.  We say to ourselves, Man, I’ve got a lot of stuff, more than I have room to store.  I guess I’ll build some more storage.  Actually, scratch that – I’m going to tear down the storage I already have so I can build bigger storage.”  I get the logic of that.  I’m a product of this myth as much as anyone.

But here’s the thing: when I quiet the noise in my head, I find myself wondering something different – that it makes no sense to just store this huge abundance of stuff for some time later. Because if it’s a harvest, it’s going to spoil eventually.  And if it’s stuff, you know as well as I do that I will literally forget I even have it the minute I shut that storage room door – am I right?  And so, if it makes no sense storing it, it makes even less sense tearing down the storage I already have and building bigger storage for this stuff that’s going to spoil, this stuff I’m going to forget I even have.

Besides, if scripture points us to the truth – and we like to think that it does – this stuff really isn’t my stuff.  I did not produce this harvest – the land did.  Oh, I may have acquired a few things over the years, but the truth, if I take the gospel of Jesus seriously enough, is that none of it is ever truly “mine.” Everything I have one way, or another is a gift from God. Everything in my possession, in essence, is on loan to me from God.

 And it would be so great the man in Jesus’ parable came to that realization.  If he were able in that moment to let go of the myth of scarcity that had him in its clutches.  But he doesn’t.  And for that, he is called a fool.   And why, exactly?  Why is this man a fool?

Was it his greed?  Jesus mentions greed specifically in the lead-in to this parable.  And greed does make fools of a lot of us.  Years ago, a reporter asked John D. Rockefeller, at the time one of the wealthiest men in the world, how much money was enough.  To which Rockefeller chuckled and replied, “Just a little more.”

The parable of the rich fool has long stood as a warning against greed, and clearly this is one takeaway. But I’m not sure it’s the only one.  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether greed has anything to do with this man being a fool at all.

Go back to that little peek inside his head.  All those I’s, me’s, my’s.  This man is speaking exclusively to himself.  He is his one and only audience.  It’s not just that greed has taken over, that he’s gone all-in on the myth of scarcity.  No, it’s that he has literally lost the capacity to see other human beings.  That is what makes him a fool in God’s eyes.

And so beloved, it is time that we confront the myth of scarcity that embeds itself in so much of our lives.  We are seemingly surrounded by it at every turn.  And it is hard to let go of it; especially when the harvest we’ve been given is a bountiful one, especially when we have lots and lots of stuff, especially when our barns aren’t big enough to store it all, especially when the ones we build in their place are so big that the structures themselves, and the contents within, literally obstruct our view and keep us from seeing what God wants us to see.  Or more to the point, who God wants us to see.

Friends, we must rid ourselves of this dangerous and paralyzing myth.  For the sake of ourselves, for the sake of others, for the sake of God’s church, we must get rid of it.

In his book “We Aren’t Broke” – a book that challenges churches to rid themselves of the myth of scarcity and see the vast abundance God has placed in their midst – author Mark Elsdon shares a story told by author and speaker Shane Claiborne, who once spent time with Mother Teresa in Calcutta.  I’ve shared this story before; it bears repeating again.  One of his regular duties was helping the sisters prepare meals for the children there; children whose lives were wrecked by excruciating poverty – real scarcity.  One day Shane learned that one of the kids had a birthday.  Wanting to do something special, he snuck out and bought an ice cream cone for him – something he’d likely never had before.

And so, Shane pulled the boy aside from the rest of the group and in private gave him the ice cream cone and said, Happy birthday, kid.  Now let’s keep this quiet because I don’t have enough for everybody else.   I don’t have enough for everyone else.  Hear that myth ringing in your ears?

As it turns out, the boy would have none of that. Turning and facing the rest of the group, he yelled at the top of his lungs, Hey everyone, look!  We have ice cream!  We have ice cream!

The ensuing stampede both shocked and horrified Shane. What have I done? he lamented.  These kids are going to be so disappointed!  The myth of scarcity can be scary.

And yet this boy, standing in a swarm of kids with their eye’s laser-focused on that lone ice cream cone, spoke up and said, “Now listen, everyone, we have only one cone.  So, we all get one lick.”

And that’s when the kids formed a line, at which point the birthday boy proceeded to share his cone with every kid there – one lick at time – with his own lick being the very last.[2]

God, grant us the fortitude to get out from under the myth of scarcity that can be so debilitating.  It is no fun being defined by that which we can lose.  May we forever see the abundance all around us and share that abundance generously and with gratitude.  For when we do, when we share the abundance God has given us, we see who God wants us to see. May we never lose sight of that.

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, thanks be to God – and may all of God’s people say, AMEN!

* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.

[1] Attributed to Walter Bruegemann.

[2] Mark Elsdon, We Aren’t Broke, pg. 45-46.