“A Fool And His Money”

“A Fool And His Money”

Text: Luke 12:13-21

© August 5, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

Over in England there is a man by the name of John Brandrick. And John Brandrick is really angry. He’s angry because he’s still alive. You see, back in 2006 doctors had informed them that he had pancreatic cancer and that he probably had only about a year to live. And so, figuring that his life would be over soon, John Brandrick quit his job, stopped paying his bills, and spent all of his life’s savings living it up.

But recently his doctors told him that they had made a mistake – that he didn’t actually have pancreatic cancer after all, but only had pancreatitis, which isn’t fatal. And so John Brandrick is really angry because now it looks like he’s going to live for many more years, but he’s broke because he had taken all of his money and spent it.[1]

In the parable that we listened to today in the Gospel of Luke, we met up with a man who dedicated his life to making sure that that kind of thing never happened to him. The storyline of the parable is rather simple and straightforward. Once upon a time there was a rich man who had a tremendous bumper crop. And as he considered what to do with all that food – since it was far more than what he alone would need in the foreseeable future – he ended up deciding to tear down the barns that he already had and to put up new, bigger barns in their place so that he could store his crops for many years to come.

In other words, he did exactly what many of us do. When some extra money comes into our lives, many of us set it aside so that we’ll have it in the future. We might not put our wealth into a barn like the man did in the parable, but we put our money into savings accounts or CDs or pension funds or into IRA accounts or stocks or mutual funds. We put our money in those places so that it will be there in the future when we want to spend it.

But if that man did the sensible thing by storing up his crops in his barn, why does God come along at the end of the parable and declare that man to be a complete and utter fool? I think we find some answers to that question when we take a look at the conversation that that man had with himself when he was trying to figure out what to do with all his wealth. In particular, notice how many times in just a few sentences that man uses the word “I.”

The Bible says: “The man thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 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. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” (Luke 12:17-19)

I believe the reason God called that man a fool was because as far as that man was concerned, he was the only person who mattered. When it came to deciding what to do with his wealth, he didn’t even consider giving some of what he had to help people who were in need. He didn’t even consider giving some of what he had back to God to help the work of God move forward in the world. No, all that man could do was think about himself and how he wanted to keep everything he had just for himself so that one day he could take it and spend it on things that he wanted.

When it comes to money and wealth, are we ever like that man? Here’s a little test. Complete this sentence: I am…. How did you finish that sentence? It turns out that most Americans tend to finish that sentence by stating some personal trait, such as “I am sincere” or “I am strong.” But in contrast, when most Asians are asked to complete that same sentence, they say something about their social identity. Most Asians answer by saying something like “I am the second oldest daughter in my family” or “I am a student at such-and-so university.”[2] In other words, whereas most of us Americans have been programmed to put the spotlight on ourselves, many Asians do a better job of realizing that there’s a whole world beyond ourselves that we’re a part of and that we’re supposed to be connected to. And they do a better job of realizing that how we relate to other people and how we relate to God need to be priorities for us, instead of us thinking only about ourselves.

Now, I know that some people are probably thinking, “Hey, I’d really like to be more giving. I’d really like to be more generous when it came time to give to other people or when it came time to give to God. But my problem is that I just can’t afford to give.”

I can’t afford to give. If you put two families side by side, and the one family has an income of $20,000 a year and the other family has an income of $100,000 a year, which of those two families is more likely to say, “We can’t afford to give.” The answer, researchers have found, is that it’s far more likely for the family making $100,000 a year to say that, to say “We can’t afford to give.”[3]

Why is that? Just this last week I was talking with someone and they told me that up in Cranberry Township, where a lot of houses have been selling in recent years for $500,000 to a $1 million, if you go inside many of those houses you find that there’s furniture in only the first-floor rooms; the upstairs rooms are often almost completely empty. It turns out that many of the families that bought those houses spent so much money just to buy the bigger house – the bigger barn – for themselves, that they’re finding it really difficult to afford to pay for other things, like taxes, utilities, and furniture. And so even though they may be living in a $1 million dollar house, many of those people are in the category who say, “I can’t afford to give.” But, of course, the reason they can’t afford to give is because of choices that they’ve made, choices that they’ve made about how they use their money.

Some of us might be tempted to say, “Well, if I were rich, if I had a lot of money, you wouldn’t catch me doing that sort of thing. No, if I were rich, if I had a lot of money, I’d be generous with it. But the problem, of course, is that I’m not rich.”

But is that true? In your mind, or on a piece of scrap paper, do a quick, rough calculation. Do a quick, rough calculation of how much wealth you have. Add up things like your bank account, any investments you have, what your car is worth, what your house is worth, and how much money you’d have if you sold all the stuff you have. Approximately how much money would you end up with?

Well, if you added up those numbers and your total is $2,200 or more – congratulations! Because if your total wealth is $2,200 or more – and I would hazard to guess that the overwhelming majority of people sitting in this sanctuary right now fit into that category – then that means you are richer than half of the people on the face of the planet. If your total wealth is $2,200 or more, there are at least 3 billion people around the earth that you have more wealth than, and in the eyes of those 3 billion people, you’re rich, whether you think so or not.

And what’s more, if your total wealth is at least $61,000 – and I would guess that there are quite a few people in the congregation who probably fit into that category – that means that you are in the top 10% of the world’s richest people. In other words, if your wealth is at least $61,000, there are more than 5.5 billion people in the world that you are richer than.[4]

Simply put, we can keep saying that we aren’t rich. But billions and billions of people around the world know that we’re lying because we are rich, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. And so the question we need to answer is not “What would I do with my money if someday I became rich?” Instead, the question we need to answer is “What am I doing with my money right now, because I am rich?”

When it comes to how we use our money, what are our priorities? Is our main priority spending money on ourselves? Is our main priority to eat, drink, and be merry? For a lot of people, that is their main priority. But if we are to live like Christians, if we are live as disciples of Jesus, then we need to have other priorities, and those priorities need to include a willingness and an eagerness to give to people in need, and a willingness and an eagerness to give to God. And if we’re not willing and eager to do that, if we allow greed to control us, then we need to beware, Jesus says, because the day is eventually going to come when we’re going to discover to our shame just how foolish we’ve been.