Amy C Walters

The Parable of the Rich Fool | Luke 12:13-21

While Jesus is teaching, a man tells him to intervene in a family issue. He wants his brother to share an inheritance with him. Instead, Jesus tells the Parable of the Rich Fool, demonstrating that greed is isolating.

Here in Luke 12, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are ramping up their campaign against Jesus. They’re looking for more ways to trap him and trick him and bombarding him with questions. 

But there’s also a huge crowd–thousands of people gathered around Jesus listening to him teach. And it’s in the midst of this teaching that a man in the crowd calls out to Jesus, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance between us.” 

Now, this seems like it might be somewhat reasonable. We would agree with the idea that they need to share. It seems fair. 

The man also assumes that Jesus is going to agree with him and rule in his favor. Jesus instead refuses to insert himself in this argument. He says, “Man, who appointed me as judge or an arbiter between you?” He’s not going to make a ruling. Instead, he’s going to give them something much more important: teaching on godly attitudes toward money and possessions.

Now, we don’t know if the other brother is there or not. Maybe he is, because it does say that Jesus says to them, “Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Jesus then goes on to tell them a parable.

It’s about a rich man–someone who is already quite wealthy. And in the parable, he gets even more. His ground produces a good crop, and this creates a problem for him. What’s he going to do with all of his crops and goods? 

This is a problem, if we were honest, that we all wish we had. I wish I had too much money coming in. I wish I had too many shoes to choose from or clothes in my closet. 

How does the man in the parable try to find a solution? He does a lot of talking to himself. “I know what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger barns. And I’ll place my crops there, my goods there. And I’ll say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years.” 

This man is looking to himself for answers. What about family? Does he consult any family, wife, kids, anything like that? We don’t see them in this story.

What about counselors or friends or advisors? We don’t see them in this story. 

What about God? Does he ask God what he should do with his wealth? Does he pray and involve God in this situation? We don’t see that in this story.

Instead, we see a lot of reflexives. Reflexives are pronouns that point back to oneself, myself, himself, yourself. This man is all about self.

He is entirely self-absorbed with this situation. He’s not looking around to see, are there other needs out there I should deal with? He’s not looking to his family to see what their needs are. He’s not looking to God to see what he should do. He’s only consulting himself. He’s only considering himself.

Now, God does interject himself into this story. The man does not invite him in, but God shows up, and calls him a fool, and he demands the man’s life from him. And God says to him, “Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” 

So this man is totally absorbed in his own empire and wealth and security. And God says, somebody else is going to get it now, because you’ve been so selfish. 

It’s ironic. Even though this man has accumulated all those things for himself, somebody else is actually going to get them.

Notice, too, the man in the crowd who calls out for Jesus’ help seems to indicate that this inheritance has come between him and his brother. No doubt they’ve had conversations, probably even arguments, over this inheritance. The money was dividing them.

So just like the rich man in the parable who was totally isolated and alone because of his greed, these brothers would soon be alone. They were allowing the inheritance to cut them off from each other. 

Our key truth for today is that greed is isolating.

We see this all the time even today, don’t we? People don’t speak to each other anymore because of some disagreement or argument over money, how it’s spent, how it’s distributed, who gets what. This has divided people throughout the centuries. You may even know of people in your life who are estranged from one another because of greed. 

So Jesus warns the crowd that if you’re going to choose possessions or wealth as your pursuit, if you’re going to choose your own security through wealth, then you choose it at the expense of your relationships. You are choosing money over people.

Conversely, if you find yourself isolated, if you look around and say, where’s my family? Where are the people that I loved? Where are my friends? And you’re having a hard time finding them, it may be a symptom of greed in your life. Not always, there can be other reasons. But it is a symptom and a reason to check your heart and to ask God to reveal to you, am I storing up possessions for myself? Am I being rich toward myself and stingy toward everyone else?