Can I be honest about my desire for material abundance and the security it promises?
Gospel Reading: Luke 12:13-21
For Sunday, August 1, 2010: Year C - Ordinary 18
I don’t see the problem here. It was a bumper crop, a good year. What does a farmer do with a bumper crop, puts it in the barn. That done, he relaxes. He can afford to. He has earned his contentment. His soul is happy and then he dies. Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?
A Cartoon Fool?
I feel two ways about this text: It is too easy and it is too hard. It is too easy to make the rich farmer into a cartoon fool. I love to find a reason to say that rich people are bad as much as the next gal; but maybe he is no different than the Norwegian bachelor farmer character Garrison Keillor often makes reference to. He is alone on his land; he works hard, is frugal and finds pleasure in a good yield and a full barn. Simple pleasures really. Seemingly not a life full of relationships, but maybe the abundant life looks different to some folks.
There is no indication that the farmer is a bad man, that he is cheating anyone, or breaking any laws. But he is characterized as greedy, because he has a lot and he is keeping it all for himself when there are many in need. He tears down and builds bigger. All these things are abhorrent to my liberal sensibilities. I bet he is not even an organic farmer. To get such an abundant crop, he must be planting genetically modified grains. He should be focusing on the spiritual not just the physical.
The parable is prophetic word for the rich.
Living in the Land of the Rich
But that’s why this parable is too hard to hear. When I read its plain meaning, the implications for my life are overwhelming. I clearly live in the land of rich men that produces abundantly. I feast on that abundance daily. I take a part of every paycheck and store it up. I bet I spend as much on food in a day as most people in the world spend in two months.
I don’t know the exact numbers, but I do know that the free community meal program I am involved in was just shut down for lack of funds. The demand in the last year has risen from 50 to 300 people a meal in the last year. It cost less than a dollar a person to provide the full protein rich breakfast we serve them.
Every random, large-dark-roast-coffee-to-go or craft beer I drink would feed three to five people. If my family stopped buying organic, sustainably raised, food and instead shopped at the big box, chain, grocery store, we could probably save enough to feed all three hundred once a month.
This parable is a prophetic word for me.
Foolish Culture
Can you blame the fool for the foolish culture that formed him? What points to the Good News in this text for me, is the original person in the crowd, that said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” This fellow was speaking the truth about what he desired to Jesus.
Assuming he was the younger brother, according to the law (Deuteronomy. 21:17) he was entitled to a smaller portion of the inheritance than the eldest brother. He is demanding more than his legal share (as in divide the inheritance in equal halves). He wants more. He wants what he thinks he deserves. It only seems fair to him. He does not think he is making an outrageous or ungodly request.
It is only in speaking his desire, what he really wants to the Christ, that he hears the words that can transform him. “Be on guard against all kinds of greed.” Like the kind that tells you don’t want to be rich, just comfortable; able to give your family a secure life. Jesus makes possible another kind of comfort and security.
The Hardest Question
I have to tell the truth. I think I am the guy who reads this parable as a prophetic word for myself, but I live my life like I read this as a prophetic word for the rich other guy. I don’t want to care about the abundance of possessions, but I do. Herein lays the hardest question in this text for me: Can I be honest about my desire for material abundance and the security it promises? Do I repress that desire it in the name of my “understanding” of the “correct” interpretation of the text?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
