In the early years of my marriage, my wife and I were quite nomadic. After our wedding, we moved into a little apartment in Irvine, California, as Cindy finished her undergraduate studies. Halfway through the year, we needed to move into a room in our pastor’s home due to financial difficulties. Then we traveled to St. Louis, where I began my education to become a pastor. After two years in a small basement apartment, we moved to Bremerton, Washington for my vicarage. A year later, we moved back to St. Louis, this time to a campus apartment for my final year of study. I suppose I should add that during those first five years of our life together, we had two children. But even with the kids, all the moving enabled us to be pretty mobile, and we did not have too much stuff. There was no room for it, no time to acquire new stuff, and no money to get it if we wanted to.

In fact, I remember when we moved to Georgia, to my first call, and subsequently our first home. When we got into our house, we wondered how we would ever fill it up. There was so much space. All our living room furniture filled only half the living room. But as many of you know, with more space, not to mention more kids, eventually comes more stuff. Without moving every few years, we slowly began to accumulate a lot of things. But something else happened over those years. As we found some financial independence, we also learned that the things which began to fill our lives were gifts from God. I am not saying I understood this right away, but as we matured in our faith, we were challenged to see how our possessions were blessings from God. We now had more stuff than we knew what to do with, easily filling our home, not to mention the attic and the garage as well. God gave us more than we needed.

Now, the interesting thing about the stuff we accumulate is the question of what we will do with it. What is its purpose? What is its goal? For many, the wealth we amass throughout our lives will be given as an inheritance to our children. We hand on from the abundance of what we have. I remember a few years back having a conversation with a guy who was dealing with his father’s estate. He was tasked with executing the trust after his death, and what unfolded was profound opposition which deeply divided the relationships he had with his siblings to the point that he told me there were members of his family he would probably never speak to again after it was all said and done. It was not the stuff but the attitude toward the stuff that turned this blessing into a curse.

And it is our attitude toward the temporal blessings of God which comes front and center in the parable of the Rich Fool. It begins with a man saying to our Lord, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” To which Jesus gives a stern warning. He says, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Our attitude toward our possessions can, in fact, twist and distort our lives. Shifting our understanding of what is important and even why we were blessed in the first place.

So, Jesus tells a story of a rich man whose property produced a superabundance of crops, much more than he was prepared for. He was given a gift, a gift from God far beyond what he needed. He had nowhere to store the crops for the barns he had. The barns that had served him well up to this point were not big enough. His solution? Well, he decides the best thing to do is to tear down the barns and build bigger ones; more room for his stuff. And the language here is significant. We read how the rich man says, “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” He has more than enough. His labor is done. He has laid up all his goods. Now is the time to relax, to feast on the great abundance of wealth he has been given.

Notice that this man is alone. His conversation is not with loved ones, and it is not with friends, family, or community leaders. His whole conversation is within himself. His entire concern with the use of the gifts he has been given is for himself. He is good. He has more than he needs. He does not have to work anymore; everything is taken care of. It is time to eat, drink, and be merry. And then we read, “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” God, the giver of the gifts, the one who circumscribes the life of man, says to this guy that his time is up. Just as he gets his barns full, just as he is ready to bask in the abundance of his possessions, God marks the end of his days. And because of his attitude toward his blessings, he is labeled a fool.

The question that lingers is what will happen to all the things he had prepared? Whose will they be? It is a waste of the gifts God has given, lost to a man consumed within himself. Our Lord teaches us that the fool is the one who only lays up treasure for himself. The call, therefore, to the man who wants his share of the inheritance, the challenge that goes out to all of us is not to concern ourselves with laying up treasure for ourselves, but in being rich toward God. It is to be turned from focusing only on ourselves to the care and provision of others. The call is to use the blessings we have been given as a means to bless others.

In this text, we see that the things of this life, the gifts we have received from our Father in heaven, are blessings for our life together. You have been given life and salvation, given hope in the promise of eternal life. These gifts are poured out for you in the blood of your Lord, who empties Himself out, so you are well cared for. In turn, you are called to love, forgive, and have compassion for one another. You forgive because you have been forgiven, and it is the same with the temporal gifts of this life as well. They are given in abundance so you can share them. Being rich toward God means trusting in what He has promised, for He has marked the length of your days. He will call you home in His time and in His way. In the meantime, you are free to use what He has given you.

Being rich toward God looks like being rich toward one another.