Greedy People - A Reflection on Luke 12:13-21

 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 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.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 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. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 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?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” 

Leo Tolstoy once wrote about a farmer who was not satisfied with what he had. He wanted more. One day he received a unique offer. For 1000 rubles, he could buy all the land he could walk around in a day. The only catch was that he had to be back at his starting point by sundown or he would forfeit everything. So, early the next morning the farmer started walking. He began at a fast pace. By midday he was very tired, but he kept going, covering more and more ground. Well into the afternoon he realized that he was very far from the starting point and he better get back. 

 

He quickened his pace. As the sun began to sink low in the sky, he began to run, knowing that if he did not make it back by sundown he would have lost so many acres and acres of land. As the sun began to disappear from sight he saw the finish line. Gasping for breath, he called upon every bit of strength left in his body and staggered across the line seconds before the sun vanished. But, then, he collapsed from exhaustion. In a few minutes he was dead. Afterwards, his servants dug a grave. It was about six feet long and three feet wide.

 

This was, of course, a piece of fiction, but there is a true life story of a greedy man to be found in Scripture. His name was Judas. Know him? He also was a greedy man and it cost him his life too. He sold out his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. We can end up selling our souls for much less. Greed is a terrible sin because it is extremely possessive. It takes our basic need for security and ownership to perverse levels, making us work for things, rather than have them work for us. We end up craving things, very often belonging to others, accumulating them, and then refusing to part with them, having become immensely attached to them. 

 

What are you attached to? Is it your collection of books or movies? Do you find it difficult to lend them? And if you do, are you able to rest easy until they are returned? How about the curios that adorn your showcase? What if one of them breaks? Does your heart break with it? What about a treasured item of jewelry? If it goes missing do you turn your house upside down trying to find it, getting increasingly desperate when you can’t locate it? What about your house, itself? If you had to suddenly leave it one day, how difficult would it be for you to walk away and not look back? 

 

There is nothing wrong with having possessions. In today’s story, the rich man’s problem was not that he had goods and grain, or that he wanted to enjoy them. His problem was that he was not rich toward God. Being rich toward God does not mean we give him all our money — what’s he gonna do with it? — but looking after his people here on earth. As we saw a few days earlier (see How Clean Are You?), we need to look after “the priest, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow” even before we took care of our own needs (see Deuteronomy 26:12-15). That’s how we are rich toward God. 

 

And then, he is even richer toward us.

Watch a video of this reflection by Aneel Aranha here:  https://youtu.be/yL39sNzgiBU