Dear friends in Christ.
John G. Wendel and his sisters were some of the most miserly people of all time. Although they had received a huge inheritance from their parents, they spent very little of it and did all they could to keep their wealth for themselves. John was able to influence five of his six sisters never to marry, and they lived in the same house in New York City for 50 years. When the last sister died in 1931, her estate was valued at more than $100 million. Her only dress was one that she had made herself, and she had worn it for 25 years. The Wendels had such a compulsion to hold on to their possessions that they lived like paupers. Though they were undoubtedly some of the wealthiest people of their day, they had completely missed out on the true wealth that can only be found in the Lord our God. In fact, as we study our Gospel lesson this morning we will hear Jesus calling on us to find our true wealth in the Lord our God.
To do this, to find our wealth in the Lord our God, we want to take a look at what Luke has recorded for us in our Gospel lesson, so I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 12:13, which can be found on page 1031. Now, before we begin reading in Luke 12, let me give you a little bit of background. Very recently Jesus had been at the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany which was just a couple of miles to the East of Jerusalem. Jesus had taught his disciples the Lord’s prayer as we heard in our sermon last week, and now Jesus was most likely traveling around the region of Perea, which was the area to which Jesus had sent the 72 disciples in preparation for his coming there. As Jesus traveled through the area preaching and teaching the crowds that gathered continued to grow larger and larger, even as Jesus gave the people many warnings and took the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law to task by pronouncing woes on them—stirring them up and causing them to oppose his message of salvation through faith in him. Now, as we come to the parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:13 a crowd of many thousands of people had gathered to hear Jesus and Jesus began teaching them to find their wealth in the Lord their God. “13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 “Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:13–15, NIV)
Obviously this man had a problem with his brother and the dividing up of the inheritance from their parent’s estate, and he wanted Jesus’ help in the matter. At first glance this might have seemed like a natural thing for him to ask, after all, Jesus was the Rabbi of Nazareth, and Jewish Rabbis were often asked to act as judges in legal disputes because they were so well versed in the Law. However, when Jesus responded to this man’s request, Jesus revealed that he was not about to encroach upon the work of the legally appointed judges. He was not about to involve himself in the midst of a dispute on the division of inheritance when his mission to the world had to do with much more important things. His mission was to teach the people to find their true wealth in the Lord their God, which is exactly what Jesus did! In such a simple way, Jesus cut right to the heart of the matter calling on those two brothers, along with that crowd of thousands, to guard their lives against greed and find their true wealth in the Lord their God as he began to tell his parable. Take a look at verse 16: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ 18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’” (Luke 12:15–19, NIV)
Did you see what Jesus did with this parable? In such a clear and concise way, Jesus tells us that there is nothing wrong with being wealthy. There is nothing wrong with having a great deal of material possessions. There is nothing wrong with planning for the future and making the most of the money and possessions that you have been given here on this earth. That, in fact, is the very thing that this rich farmer had done. The Lord had blessed him with wealth. He had given this man wisdom and aptitude as a farmer and as a business man, and now the Lord had blessed him with a bumper crop. Because of this bumper crop he had to build bigger barns to store his grain and all his goods. He could see that from this harvest he would more than he needed for a long time, which meant that he could essentially retire, take it easy, and enjoy his retirement. The problem, however, was that though this man had been blessed by the Lord with great wealth, he did not possess the true wealth that comes through faith in Jesus. Rather, his life essentially consisted in the abundance of his possessions. His life consisted in the desire to acquire more and more. His life consisted in an attitude of greed and not in an attitude of trust in the Lord, or thankfulness for all his possessions. Instead, in his pursuit of possessions, he had fallen into idolatry, placing things before the Lord God, which is why verses 20 and 21 are so poignant: 20 “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?’ 21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20-21, NIV)
Though this man had been extremely shrewd and wise in all of his business dealings and his acquirement of wealth, somewhere along the line he had lost his true wealth; faith in Jesus as his Savior. Though he may have though he had plenty of time to enjoy the finer things in life and then re-establish his true wealth in God, that very night was his last on earth. Not only did he lose everything that he had prepared for himself to others who would claim it, and possibly fight over it when he was gone, but he also found that the result of replacing his true wealth in God with the wealth of the world was that on his death bed he would be cast out of the presence of the Lord and found himself suffering the torment of unbelief forever in hell.
This is our Savior’s warning to us today! He is not warning us against being wealthy! Rather he is warning us against replacing our true wealth of salvation through faith in Jesus with the endless acquisition of things. He is calling on us to understand that our lives as his children do not consist in the abundance of our possessions but in the abundance of his grace. He is calling on us to recognize that everything we have is a gift from our God. It is no ours to possess but ours to manage! Whether he has given us great earthly wealth, moderate earthly wealth, or little earthly wealth, God gifts are for us to manage. They are for our use in providing for our families and for others. They are for our giving back to him.
Yet, how often haven’t we acted just like this foolish rich man? How often haven’t we pushed God out of our thoughts while we planned our financial futures? How often haven’t we put away money for that new car, new house, new computer, dream vacation, or even retirement, yet we couldn’t find anything to give back to the Lord? Or look at it from the other side of things. How many of us are suffering under the weight of credit card debts, because we simply had to have that new toy now and we couldn’t wait until we had saved for it? How many of us are suffering under the weight of car payments because we just had to have that brand new car that we couldn’t really afford? How many of us have found that the money we had planned to give to the Lord has been reduced because suddenly we need it to make ends meet?
If we are honest with ourselves, then we must admit that we have acted like the foolish rich man in the parable on many, many occasions. We must admit that there have been times when even we, Christians, have though that our lives consisted in the abundance of our possessions rather than in the true wealth of God’s Word. But even though we have acted in this very way, our Savior is speaking to us and assuring us that he has forgiven us. He is assuring us that through faith in him we have been washed clean of every greedy longing for more and more stuff. He is assuring us that through faith in him we have once again found the source of our true wealth in the Lord our God. Though we may have to deal with the consequence of our actions that brought the debts upon us, now that we have been reminded of the source of our true wealth, we can give thanks to the Lord our God for all his gifts to us. We can live as managers of the wealth we’ve been given, not setting our hearts on their increase, but setting our hearts on the Lord. In this way, whether our wealth increases or decreases in this life, our focus is on our God and Savior who has made us his own through faith in Jesus Christ.
Though the Wendles completely missed out on the true wealth of salvation through faith in Jesus, today we have been reminded of that very thing. Today we have rediscovered the true wealth that our God has given us—the wealth of salvation that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior who gives us all that we have. Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
