Jesus, get real. Money is what makes the world go round. But your talk about it doesn’t grease the axis. Come on. What the heck is wrong with having a good portfolio and your stuff? If someone works hard and has success, why not have it all? You want people to go live in hill huts or something? After all, God made us behavioral creatures. We live for our rewards, but you say this is all wrong? Troubled man, you certainly are.

It’s not the accumulation of wealth that’s the problem. You’re right though, Jesus had a lot to say about money. In some places he talks about it more than prayer. In the end, that being this blog and your life, it would pay for you to listen up.

Briefly, the Rich Fool Story

There’s this guy who wanted Jesus to resolve a dispute with his brother over their family inheritance. Whereas Jesus didn’t give him a decision, he does answer with a principle. “Watch out. Don’t be greedy for what you don’t have.” He follows with an example of a rich man whose vast financial success necessitated building bigger barns to hold all the crops his farms had produced. The rich dude planned to hoard all for himself and to, “Eat, drink, and be merry!” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night you will die.”

Financial Analysis

God might call him a Fool, but face it, this guy had good business acumen. He’d built a thriving enterprise and achieved high yields. His barns couldn’t hold all the crops produced. It made sense to build bigger barns. He’d be saving for his future, and his golden years would reap the fruit of his labor. Hard work and wise investments are smart. Right?

A Reckoning with Reality

Fool often carries the meaning of stupidity, but there’s a deeper issue in this guy. He doesn’t think it through, as in he was thoughtless about the end result, that is, his life. Interestingly, he congratulates himself with this bright idea and addresses himself as “Soul.” Then the very night he made the decision to proceed with his plan, he died.

God’s Currency

Too bad for him, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Still, was there a flaw in his proposal? Not that there was any indication he ever did anything illegal or shady. But consider this: in essence his plan was to hoard his harvest.

Not that he had a hoarding disorder. In fact, some forms of hoarding are viewed as adaptive behaviors and are triggered by the need to feel safer and less stressed as a barrier in a perceived possible emergency.  Think toilet paper and the start of the pandemic. We all felt the concern in some form or another.

In the rich guy’s case though the effect of his hoarding was not to contribute to the food supply. Hold back on the supply, and basic economics tells you the price is going to take a hike. Thus, he was hoarding not just to have it, but to have more. (Need it be mentioned how evident this is on the price of eggs…) So the rich get richer.

And the poor…go hungry. In Gaza and around the world. Back to what Jesus said to the brother upset over the division of his father’s estate. “Real life is not measured by how much we own.” God’s currency works on a different scale.

True Security

The Powerball jackpot lottery at the time of this writing is over $364 million. Stop right there. Sure, you can’t help but think what you’d do with that kind of money, but don’t. Understand the reason you even consider it is because you think it’d buy so much happiness and security. Jesus refutes that thinking here. It won’t last or do you any good when all is said and done.

The rich fool’s Soul ended the very night he came up with this scheme. God is a God of relationship. Love God with all you’ve got and your Neighbor as yourself.  (Luke 10:27-28) Neither God nor Neighbor was included in his scheme. Not even gratitude for his blessings was expressed. Leave it to your imagination as to how this was explained.

Return to the man that prompted this story. Jesus refused to be the judge or arbitrator as to his complaint against his brother on how to settle their father’s estate. Jewish law decided that, and Jesus didn’t have the inclination to get involved.

However, he did address the man’s greed for more. God’s final rhetorical question to the rich man was, “Who will get it all?” His heirs. See what wealth produces? Fractured families who fight over it. Love of brother kind of gets forgotten in the dispute. Not investing heavily in God and others leads to this dissension, and the outcome is rarely good.

Jesus cautions the brother and any who will listen, “A person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

Luke 12:13-21

Footnote

Maybe Jesus had so much to say about attitudes toward money and accumulating wealth because of how its desire impacted him. When the religious leaders had enough of his kind of trouble, they ramped up their plan to kill him. Ironically, the priests utilized greed to trap him.

All it took was thirty pieces of silver.

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