Lent Reading: Week 2, Day 4 (March 21)

Reading: Luke 12:13-21

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; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 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 my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

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 whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Reflection

What words for our culture with all our focus on money, "building wealth," financial security, "freedom 55," inheritances, etc.

In this passage Jesus again (as he always does) changes our paradigm for seeing life: life is not primarily about being rich towards ourselves but, rather, life is meant to be lived being rich towards God.

But the question is: how can we be rich toward the God who has and owns everything?

Part of the answer to this question is to live life in a way that does not consist of the things mentinoned in the parable: 

• "greed"
• "abundance of possessions"
• "barns to store our surplus grain"
• "plenty of grain laid up for many years"
• "Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry"

In short, to live a life that is "rich towards God" is to live a life that is not self-centered and self-focussed. To live to life "rich towads God" is to live life in the Kingdom of God.