What Shall I Do?

August 5, 2007     Proper 13 C

Hosea 11:1-11             Psalm 107:1-9, 43

Colossians 3:1-11         St. Luke 12:13-21

Bible readers are very familiar with stories of enmity between brothers in ancient Mediterranean families: Jacob and Esau (Genesis 27); Joseph and his eleven brothers (Genesis 37). Inheritance was often a key cause of the enmity.

The brothers praised in Psalm 133:1 for living together in unity illustrate the situation where a father died and did not specify a division of the inheritance.

According to Roman law, a division of inheritance was required only if both parties wanted it. Judaic law allowed the division on the petition of a single son (see Luke 15:12), but it was shameful because it effectively expressed the wish that the father were already dead.

In today's story Jesus is invited to be a mediator, a very difficult but highly honorable role in this culture. Conflicts can easily escalate to blood feuds that no one wants.

The key role of the mediator is to head off the blood feuds. Ideally the mediator is a kinsperson at least five links removed from the disputing parties. Above all, the mediator should be a person who, because of personality, status, respect, wealth, influence, or other characteristics, can create in the litigants a willingness to conform with his decision.

Jesus responds to the honorable invitation in two ways. First, he adopts the customary role of cultural humility. Paying and receiving compliments is dangerous in this culture. Jesus protects himself against envy and the evil eye by his feigned humility: "Friend, who set me to be judge or arbitrator over you?" Second, Jesus gives the real reason for his refusal. He suspected he was being drawn into a conflict driven by greed.

"What shall I do? I have not enough room to store my crops." The land of a rich man produced abundant harvests, and he thought to himself' "What shall I do? I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones."

Now why did that land bear so well, when it belonged to a man who would make no good use of its fertility?

It was to show more clearly the forbearance of God, whose kindness extends even to such people as this. He sends rain on both the just and the unjust, and makes the sun rise on the wicked and the good alike.

But what do we find in this man? A bitter disposition, hatred of other people, unwillingness to give. This is the return he made to his Benefactor. He forgot that we all share the same nature; he felt no obligation to distribute his surplus to the needy.

His barns were full to bursting point, but still his miserly heart was not satisfied. Year by year he increased his wealth, always adding new crops to the old. The result was a hopeless impasse: greed would not permit him to part with anything he possessed, and yet because he had so much there was no place to store his latest harvest.

And so he was incapable of making a decision and could find no escape from his anxiety. "What shall I do?"

In Jesus' parable about the man with the bumper crop, God is not pleased with his plan to "save for the future" in bigger barns. God calls this man a fool! The man deserves God's judgment.

The man is clearly a landowner, a minuscule minority in Jesus' world. He appears to live on his land and share in the work of the land. When he realizes the magnitude of his crops, he plans to tear down his barns and build bigger ones.

But his "future planning" is condemned by God and even by the words of the fool himself. "You have ample goods laid up for many years," said the fool. "Relax, eat, drink, and be merry" (v. 19).

He stores for future lean years, but not simply for his own pleasure. When the village smallholders have to come to him and borrow grain, he will charge an exorbitant price in hopes of confiscating even more land for himself.

What should the fool have done? The same anyone else in that position should have done: distribute the surplus to others, immediately.

Jesus is telling the landowner: You are the servant of the good God, a steward on behalf of your fellow servants. Do not imagine that everything has been provided for your own stomach. Make decisions regarding your property as though it belonged to another.

Possessions give you pleasure for a short time, but then they will slip through your fingers and be gone, and you will be required to give an exact account of them.

What shall I do? It would have been so easy to say: "I will feed the hungry, I will open my barns and call in all the poor. I will imitate Joseph in proclaiming my good will toward everyone. I will issue the generous invitation: ?Let anyone who lacks bread come to me. You shall share, each according to need, in the good things God has given me, just as though you were drawing from a common well'." 

It is not what we possess, but rather what possesses us that defines who and whose we are. We can express our identities by what we drive or the clothes we wear, but they are an expression of and not our true identities.

The fellow says to himself that now he can take his rest. This is his second big mistake. The first is that he conveniently forgot where his harvest came from. Resting for him means that he will not have to plant again, not have to rely on the lands again, and not have to realize his dependence on God.

Rich in the things of this world depends upon how we look at them. Everything has God's creative fingerprints on them and when we miss that truth we identify them as what makes us rich. As has been said, "What we ultimately take with us is all that we have shared."

I delight to hear the very young children defiantly announce, and often, the second word they learn, "mine!!!!!" All parents know the first defiant word that initiates their active vocabulary. The "fool" of this parable lived those words and apparently suffered the consequence. May we not do the same.