“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
It might seem like such a request from the man in the crowd actually honored the authority of Jesus, using him as a reference to whom his brother would have no choice but to listen. But this man had already come up with his own judgment and arbitration and only wanted Jesus' stamp of approval. His brother wouldn't listen to him so he would try to put his decision into the mouth of those to whom he would listen. Jesus seemed to respond by saying that he was not the judge and arbitrator of this case because the man had asked for it. Rather, as Moses was appointed by God to be judge of Israel, so too was Jesus given an authority by God, one which was still greater, to be the judge of the living in the dead. Since he did not serve at the behest of this or any man he would give a just judgment and not defer to the preferences of those involved. By comparing himself to Moses Jesus also implicitly warned against the temptation to murmur against him or reject him.
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
When we bring our problems to Jesus we may find that he reveals things within us that need to change. Perhaps, like this man, we have something that we feel is a matter of fairness or justice or something which at least represents a lack of generosity on the part of another. In some way there seems to be something about someone else about which we wish Jesus would take action. But often he turns the tables on us, shifting the focus inward instead. We frequently believe we have reasonably noble motivations for what we ask but Jesus often reveals that our request truly issues from things like greed and inordinate desire and that we are merely masking them under a pretense of desire for justice.
Then he told them a parable.
The man in the parable was described as rich already even before his land produced a bountiful harvest. It was clear that the fruit of his fields was actually more than he could store, and therefore more than he could use, at least any time soon. Rather than receiving such abundance as a sign of favor from God and making use of it to help others he could only think of himself. He built larger barns because by doing so it would be less essential for him to work hard in the future. If anything went wrong he would then have a contingency plan in place. But it turned out that he was so worried about the exigencies of this life that he wasn't rich in what mattered to God. He was anxious about what he would eat or drink without realizing that such disordered concern could not add a single day to his life (see Matthew 6:25-27). What he tried to accomplish was not merely prudent planning, but was actually the desire for excessive and unrealistic control that riches sometimes represent.
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?’
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”
What matters to God? "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (see Micah 6:8). Riches are a lower good than family, which is a lower good than God. When we ask Jesus to arbitrate our case we should be prepared for him to reorder our hierarchy of goods so that they correspond, no longer to our fallen human nature, but to reality. He will do so precisely because of the great love he has for us.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
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