“Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Supposedly this is a quote from John Wesley. I say supposedly because there is some dispute from historians. He said something similar to this, though, so I guess we can take it as close enough.
Earn all you can. That is certainly in step with our times. We focus on income for so many things, we define ourselves or rate ourselves based on how much we have coming in. One of the most popular issues of Parade magazine is the “What people make” issue each year. We measure our worth on how much we make. So, when Mr Wesley tells us to make all that we can, he is preaching to the choir. Singing our song.
But he steps out of line when he moves on to “save all that you can.” It has never been a favorite pastime of ours, this saving thing. Personal saving as percentage of income hit a high right after the financial crisis in 2007, reaching a high of 8%. But lately it has slowly been declining, now around 3%, which is only marginally higher than just before the bubble burst and we all panicked. Now we are feeling a little more comfortable, so we are officially back to spending more than we make, as a nation.
Which means that the whole giving thing is under threat as well. National giving rate for 2012 was about 2%, which is a little bit below the saving rate, and is still lower than it was before the recession hit. 2% amounts to a significant amount of money, really. But, it is all we can?
OK, so what does this economics lesson have to do with the bible study for this week? Well, we are looking at another passage from Luke, which automatically raises our economic antennae. But the truth is I’m not really sure that the theme of this passage is economic. Well, I mean, it is but it isn’t. Sort of. I mean, Jesus seems to avoid the issue at the beginning and then dives into it at the end. Hmm. Well, take a look for yourself.
Luke 12:13-21 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." 14 But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" 15 And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." 16 Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' 18 Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' 20 But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."
“Who set me to be a judge...?” Well, um, didn't you? Or God? Or...someone, isn't that the plan, after all? And then, doesn't he end his story time by passing judgement? What does he mean by rejecting the plea that comes from someone in the crowd?
I don’t know. Let’s skip ahead to the parable itself and see if there is anything that makes more sense. The parable of the rich fool it is called. And he is named that by no less than God, so I guess we can take it as a given. But what did he do that was so foolish. He had at least two of the three Wesley suggestions mentioned earlier. He had a good year, the land produced abundantly. And faced with an abundance he decides to save it. He builds bigger barns to have a place to store it all, to keep if for that proverbial rainy day.
You can’t help but think of Joseph, way back in Genesis, who builds bigger barns to save all the grain that the land of Egypt produced abundantly. That wasn't presented as a bad thing. He didn't get a voice from above calling him names. So, what is so different?
Well, you don’t have to look to hard to see the abundance of first person pronouns in Jesus parable. The conversation the rich man has is in his head. He even talks to himself, like some ditzy celebrity referring to himself in the third person. “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” Joseph’s efforts were to save a nation, the rich fool’s efforts were only for him. No one benefited but himself.
And yet there seems to be another issue here. It isn't that God has a thing against saving, or even against relaxing and being merry. The challenge is a little different. “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.” Your life is being demanded of you? What does that mean? We always assumed that it meant it was his time to die. And it was the old “you can’t take it with you” kind of approach. And maybe that is what it is. But then why doesn't he just say that ? Why not just say, “you’re dead, dude!”?
I know, bible talk. But I tend to think that there is something in that bible talk and we ought to take a moment and listen to it. “Your life is being demanded of you.” Here’s an even more curious thing. In the Greek it is not a passive verb (being demanded). It is a third person plural. It should read something like “This night they are demanding your life from you.”
They? Who is this they? What they is in the story? No they, just a rich fool and God. And the stuff. The barns full of stuff. The stuff he can’t decide what to do with for a moment. They stuff he is afraid he is going to lose if he doesn't do something quickly with it. The stuff he is counting on to give himself some relaxation, some joy, some meaning for the rest of his life, however long or short it may be. The stuff is the they that is demanding his life. And he is listening to it. Being drained by it.
Hence the fool designation. He isn't a fool because he has stuff. He’s a fool because the stuff has him. It has become his world. He can see no horizons, only barns and bigger barns. And he doesn't even realize it. “Be on guard against all kinds of greed.” It is subtle, Jesus says, various, it captures us when we aren't expecting it. It doesn't look like the same kind of greed we see in someone else, it is unique to us. It feels like a case of justice to us, “tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” It is only fair. Right?
Jesus tells us that we have to work some things out on our own. We have to take our own temperature particularly when it comes to the stuff in our life. He is asking us to make a choice. To choose to follow him, not the stuff that we think will provide for us. To choose to follow him, and not to turn inward against a world that might try to take our stuff. To choose to follow him and to use the stuff to help us follow.
And how does that happen? How does stuff help us follow better? Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.
Ah, right. All I can? All. Not just some, not just the leftover, not just what I figure I don’t need anyway. All I can.
Are you ready to follow all you can?
Shalom,
Derek
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