At the beginning of Luke 12, as a crowd of bystanders begins to trample one another, Jesus begins to speak to his disciples. After a short time, a man in the crowd gets Jesus’ attention and demands something from him.
In Luke 12:13, the man says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus first asks who made him a judge, then he begins telling a parable about greed and then says, “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
The parable is about a rich man whose field yielded an abundant harvest. The man’s current farm equipment could not contain the sheer amount of crops.
He decided to tear down his current barns and build even bigger ones to store the grain
In Luke 12:19, the man explains, “And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.””
The following two verses describe the end of this sad tale, “‘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.’”
This parable is extremely short, but its meaning is exceptionally clear. The Lord lavishes blessings upon blessings to us as his children. It is a vile injustice for us to hold on to these things and make them our identity.
Rather than hoard our blessings, we are called to give back to the Lord, his kingdom and his people. We are to use our blessings as a ministry to others and to share the Gospel. It is a sad travesty to see people whose entire identity is caught up in their belongings.
We are called to live humbly and love truly, regardless of material possessions. The greatest example for us to learn this from is Jesus Christ himself. He has every ability to be rich and live a comfortable life, but he traded it all in for the sake of lost sinners in need of a savior.
He laid down his riches, kingdom and heavenly glory to make his humble abode here among us. If Jesus was willing to give so much for us, we should be willing to live a life of service and gratitude in return to him.
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