“Someone in the crowd said to Him, (Jesus) “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then He said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” And He told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ 

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:13-21.

I got my knickers in a twist about an inheritance, a while ago. A relative was being appreciated and praised much more than I was. Jealousy is the strangest thing! Song of Solomon says: “… jealousy is as cruel as the grave.” I get that. That stuff kills off any desire for reconciliation, and focusses on me and what I think I have, or, what I think I don’t. I didn’t know I could be jealous … until I was. These things sneak up on you, but I think that resentment and gossip can easily let them in. Yes, I’ve repented!

This parable is one of many that Jesus taught that probably doesn’t get preached on all that often in the Western world. We all like our things where I live, and if our pastors know what’s good for them, they won’t preach about this particular parable in Luke! Actually, we’ve got a whole lot of things in the Western world. Boats, caravans, trips overseas, big houses – to mention a few. The kind of stuff others in poorer countries cannot imagine. Yeah yeah, I know people gotta live somewhere. but we are rich in so many material things. BTW, God is not against people having things, He just doesn’t want our things to own us! That’s called a conflict of interest.

This parable the Lord told, pretty much sums up our current society today. We’re the more more generations. We like excess, like the person in the parable. This man worked very hard for what he had, and so do we. It never occurred to the guy in this story to give away some of that surplus grain. Nope. It was all his. He earnt it and it was up to him to enjoy it. He had no thought about the fact that God Himself had given him that excess, his lack of recognition of the Lord’s generosity tripped him up. The thing was, at that moment, he was undervaluing something that was far more important – the state of his soul before God. 

Personally, I think that this particular person expected the Lord to side with them on the matter of that inheritance. They thought Jesus would agree with them, that their brother was trying to cheat them. Sadly I understand that, sometimes human beings love to take polls. When we are unsure, we ask 20 people what they think about something or other, and get 11 for and 9 against. This individual wanted Jesus to come out on their side. Fat chance. They were saying: “It’s not fair!” But Jesus went right around the complaint to the heart of the matter. GREED. 

There may be many poorer people in this world who feel that this world’s wealth distribution is not fair on them. That’s true! OR … alternatively, they could be too busy trying to find food and water for today to even care! It is up to those who have to care for those who don’t! Just because the Lord Jesus once said that we would always have the poor with us, that doesn’t mean we should ignore them. (Matthew 26:11) Some of them probably live in our neighbourhood. Our Heavenly Father loves generosity – He’s a generous God and He wants His kids to look and act like Him.

Despite our man-made boundaries, great and grand cities, and fabulous houses, Jesus is telling us that those material things don’t actually matter – it is how we TREAT each other that counts – plus remembering Who gave us what we have in the first place! Jesus went straight to the heart of things, but we all get so tied up in this thing and that situation we forget that we are gone in a heartbeat. The Lord is telling us to keep an overall view of this life, not a reactionary, situational one. He is explaining that we need to value sharing in this life we’ve been given – far more than the things we earn, or have.

All we really have is who we are, not land, or houses, or money or position etc.  Jesus was saying in the Aussie vernacular: “Ya can’t take it with you!” Bye. 👋🏻