Another sermon on parables. It did not go as well as I would have liked. If I preached it again, I would start with the Tom Long quote used in the conclusion and make the sermon about what we see as we look at the world. Most of the material below could have been included in the sermon, but it would have been restructured.
“The Land of a Rich Man”; July 20, 2025; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church; Luke 12: 13-21
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then 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. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
Introduction: we are still in our summer of parables. This parable seems to be more is straight-forward, except I kept having questions that made it seem less straight forward!
Move 1: in fact, before I could even get to the parable in this reading, I found myself puzzling over the question before the parable.
a. someone asks Jesus to tell his brother to divide the family inheritance.
1.. Maybe it’s a straight-forward question about inheritance rules, but it feels a little like the person asking the question is asking one of those questions that is not really a question, but a request for Jesus to set his brother straight,
which, by the way, means helps him out financially.
2. And then Jesus seems to sidestep the question which his own question: “am I supposed to be the arbitrator or judge for you?”
3. Actually, I want to say, “yes, jesus, that is what I think you are supposed to do!”
but I can tell from the way Jesus asks his question that I a
Must be missing the point.
b. So what is behind the man”s request and Jesus’ question?
1. the person asking the question might be turning to Jesus because he believes Jesus has a godly perspective on the laws or customs,
but his question is centered in the world as the questioner sees it,
the world as we see it.
a request for Jesus to engage the world as the man and his brother understand the world.
b. When jesus deflects the request with his own question, he is putting the man on notice,
putting us on notice,
that he is not here to provide us the correct answers
or the best way to interpret the world’s rules and customs.
1. Jesus is here to transform our understanding of how we see the world.
2. Jesus is here to point out the kingdom of God and call us into it.
3. So Jesus tells a parable.
A reminder that as we approach this parable we should be looking beyond our worldview for signs of the kingdom of God.
Move 2: Jesus tells us a story about a rich man who has to figure out what to do with an amazing harvest.
a. From a business standpoint, what do you think of the rich man’s decision to build new warehouses?
1. it seems to make sense doesn’t it?
2. Lots of product,
a harvest better than imagined
building new storage units makes good business sense.
we might even wish we were in the rich man’s position of having to grow our storage capacity.
3. bike riding through giant warehouses on Mingo Rd. They were built several years ago and have been waiting for some companies to come fill them.
4. denton currently has 30,000,000 sq ft of warehouses, with 7.5M sq ft still available.
a sign of future prosperity for the city of Denton!
4. Even from a biblical example, the rich man seems to make a good decision.
5. Remember, Joseph in Egypt.
he interprets the dreams about seven years of good crops and then seven years of famine
so he sets up a plan for Egypt to store lots of the harvest over those seven years I bet he built numerous storage warehouses.
when famine arrives, Egypt not only can survive but thrive because of all the food that had been stored up under Joseph’s direction.
In fact, Joseph can invite his father and extended family, the Israelites to Egypt to share in the stored foods, thereby saving Israel.
Storage of the abundant harvest led to God’s saving action.
Isn’t that what the rich man in the story does?
Move 3: so maybe Jesus wants to know if we can see the kingdom of God through the man’s actions.
a. If we look beyond our worldly perspective, we might notice the great harvest and see God at work.
1. The abundant crops are a gift from God.
2. So the question shifts from how does the man best ensure the future using the abundant harvest to How should the man respond to this amazing gift from God?
3. Which might lead to a question for each of us:
What do you do with God’s blessings in your life?
Thanks a kingdom of God question!
b. The rich man’s response is to store it all for his future use.
1. Suddenly, what makes really good business sense as the world evaluates the man’s decision fails to make sense as an appropriate response to God’s gift of an incredible harvest.
2. As we live our lives, the parable asks us how we are choosing to use what God has given to us.
b. We are also reminded that from the kingdom of God perspective, the future depends on God’s plans, not the man’s ability to save out of his abundance.
the abundant harvest is seen as God’s gift, not as surplus for the man to keep to ensure his own future.
1. If there is a miraculous harvest, the question should not be how can the rich man store if for his future purposes,
but how can the incredible harvest be put to use for God’s purposes?
for the future of the community?
in fact, it seems as if the rich man were rich before the abundant harvest, so he should already have been thinking about how to use his wealth fo God’s purposes!
2. We remember again Joseph who used the seven years of good harvest to support the community and even save Israel in the lean years.
3. But the man is tied to the values of world he knows and focuses on his own harvest and how to ensure his own future.
4. The question for the listener - are we going to choose to live by the world’s standards,
or do we see the world differently because the kingdom of God is at hand?
Move 4: We might also note how the man takes over the story.
a. We see his intentions become much more egocentric.
1. He even begins talking to himself about things, instead of talking to God!
2. Scott argues that the correct translation when the man speaks to himself should be “self,” not “soul” (the NRSV uses “soul”) because its context indicates it is the mans’ whole self not, just his psyche.
3. It seems that the only thing that matters to the man is what he thinks and how his actions impact him and his future.
4. It turns out the rich man is not going to be another Joseph in the business of saving Egypt and Israel,
because he is only looking after himself.
b. then God interrupts the man’s conversation to tell him that death has suddenly arrived for the rich man.
1. this is the only parable where God is a character!
2. this does not turn the parable into a judgment parable about whether the man will get into heaven or not (we can find that in last week’s parable about the rich man in purple).
3. In this week’s parable, death arrives to point out how hard it is to predict what the future will hold.
Death arrives to reminds us of the impermanence of life.
Death arrives to point out the foolishness of not seeing the kingdom of God that has already arrived,
not seeing the claim the kingdom of God makes on us as we live our lives today and make plans for the future.
b. Tom Long notes that a wise pastoral counselor told him, “I think most people do the best they can with what they see. So the crucial issue is, what do they see?”
1. The rich mans sees a harvest that is his and his alone;
the rich man sees a future that he can control by the decisions he makes today.
2. Jesus tells the story to invite listeners to see a world where the kingdom is already at hand.
to see a world where God calls us to make decisions that reflect God’s desire to care for all the world and all the people.
to see a world whose future rests in God’s hands, not in our desires to preserve our own fortunes and ensure our own future.
Conclusion: What do you see?
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