Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.
Jesus did not necessarily imply that the inheritance shouldn't be shared. But what he did wish to convey was that greed or the desire for wealth should not be the main motivating force of one's life. The desire for earthly treasure ought not displace the desire for treasure in heaven. The want of earthly inheritance ought not make one negligent with regard to heavenly inheritance. Thus what Jesus lamented was that a dispute about money had come to divide a family, brother against brother. He did not go into detail about who was correct (or at least more correct) and who was wrong. Rather he gave them and all a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of wealth.
Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
This man in the parable seemed to have no reference outside of himself. He didn't pause to be thankful for his good fortune. He had a long and involved conversation with himself about how to put it to use. No thought for others arose in his mind. Neither did he question God about the right use for the blessings bestowed on him.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
The point was not that one should never bother preparing for the future. We recall how Joseph helped Egypt prepare for the famine by having grain stored in advance (see Genesis 41:48). The point was that one ought not to use wealth to assuage the a vague anxiety about the future. Being prepared for things that were likely to happen was smart. But trying to have proof against all potential pitfalls was foolish. Along with wealth came a certain measure of control. But the suggestion to the sinful mind was that if some wealth allowed some control then absolute wealth would allow control absolutely. There would be no possible interruption, then, of unencumbered and uninterrupted hedonistic pleasure. Any potential imposition into one's circumstances, from the mildly inconvenient, to the drastically dangerous, could seemingly be solved with money. But, as the man in the parable learned, this was not so.
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Acting with prudence about the future was one thing. But trying to exert absolute control over the future was a way of playing God. But only God is God, and only he holds the future in his hands. There is simply no way to avoid every unpleasant circumstance. And in any event, the good things of this world are not such that we can cling to them forever. There is an expiration date for everything, though we know not when. The problem of the rich man was that he sought temporary things as though they could be eternal. He stored up treasure on earth because he forgot or was indifferent to the riches that mattered to God.
The difficulty with keeping true heavenly wealth in mind is that earthly accumulation seems to lead to more measurable results. This is why it is dangerous. Wealth can be an idol, but to some degree riches do perform, although they can never deliver on their ultimate promise. The only way to avoid succumbing to this form of idolatry is to have a higher, heavenly perspective.
If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
If we've already died with Christ then we need not run from death at all costs. Instead, we are free to give our lives for the sake of what truly matters: Jesus and his Kingdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment