Luke 12:13-21
The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Jesus warns us about the problems of greed on earth...We are not to be greedy...Sometimes, I must shamefully say, that I can feel more secure in what we own, than our LORD...I need to better Trust in the LORD...Jesus tells us to watch out for this, and be on guard against all kinds of greed...A man's life does not consist of his possessions...Our material possessions of our houses, cars, our bank accounts, and what we own is not what makes up our lives...Many times, we feel it does...Jesus understands this and even warns us about it here...
Also, Jesus not only warns us against greed, but all kinds of greed...There are more kinds of greed...Greed is an excessive desire to acquire more than we actually need...It could be money, houses, cars, I-pods, vacations, technology, TV's, or anything in possessions...There maybe a type of greed for power or fame, which is different than possession greed...But as Jesus teaches us, we need to be on guard with any excessive desire that we have...
Three things can help us with our greed...We can focus more on others than ourselves, and try to be more charitable...When we reach and fulfill a basic need, we can donate what we have beyond that...We can learn from St. Paul, who said he learned contentment...Contentment for St. Paul could be found whether he had plenty or had little...He found contentment in whatever the circumstance, he could find and say he was contented...We can keep away from greed, by focusing and trusting in the LORD...Jesus had few possessions...Look at what He owned...He was the farthest thing and Man from greed...And although He had so few possessions on earth, He is the most respected teacher, ever to walk the earth...We need to think and reflect on why He is so respected, when He owned hardly anything...Yet, for man the more he gets the harder it is to think about what he additionally should have and how he thinks about his possessions...Our thinking gets, it seems, more clouded, as we get more above our basic needs...Life and thinking seems to get more complex and confusing, when one has an abundance of possessions versus when they were poor...
Jesus teaches us the importance of the eternities...He teaches us the importance of the eternal soul...He teaches us the importance of His spiritual way of thinking, and the Kingdom of God...Jesus keeps us grounded, when we follow His teachings...We can spend all our temporary time on earth accumulating possessions, or we can spend it wisely with the accumulation of eternal knowledge and wisdom for our eternal soul...