Scripture: Luke 12:13-21
The new Superman movie, as you may have heard, has been a huge box-office hit! Many of us have seen it. Lisa and I saw it last weekend. Now… please cover your ears if you haven’t seen it, because what I’m about to say might be a spoiler. But it turns out that in this new movie… Clark Kent… is really Superman!
I know! Who could ever guess with those glasses?
But seriously, what I’m about to say is not a spoiler. I mean, one time, many, many years ago I gave away some important plot point near the end of the Disney-Pixar movie Monsters University, the weekend after it came out, and my family has never let me live it down!
But unlike that occasion, this isn’t a spoiler… because you already know that Lex Luthor is Superman’s arch villain… hellbent on destroying the Man of Steel.
But we learn in this new movie the reason why Lex wants to destroy Superman. It’s because of a well-known green-eyed monster. At one point Lex says the following, “I’m aware that envy consumes my every waking moment…” But “envy,” according to Lex, isn’t a character flaw. On the contrary, he says, “My envy is a calling. It is the sole hope for humanity.”
Yeah right! If envy… or jealousy… or—to use the word that Jesus uses for it—covetousness is “the sole hope for humanity,” we are all in trouble. And Lex Luthor, of course, is in eternal trouble, unless he repents of this covetousness and turns to Jesus!
So that’s what this sermon is about… It’s about Jesus’ warning in verse 15—“Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And the sermon is also about the shocking parable that illustrates this danger.
But first, what’s going on in today’s scripture?
Verse 13: “Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’”
We can infer from his words that this man in the crowd is a little brother. The younger of two sons. In the ancient Jewish world, an older son would have been the executor of his father’s estate. He would also be responsible for dividing it up according to Old Testament law.1 Under that law, the younger son was entitled to one-third of the estate, the older two-thirds. Except in this case, it sounds like—for whatever reason—the older brother isn’t obeying God’s law. He is unwilling to give his younger brother his fair share. So maybe, the younger brother hopes, Jesus can help settle the dispute.
And listen: The problem that the younger brother is complaining about… I’m willing to bet that nearly all of us, of a certain age, at least… have seen this problem lived out within our families… We likely have firsthand experience with it. I certainly do—in my family, in my pastoral ministry.
It will hardly surprise you to know that I’ve seen plenty of families become divided over a parent’s estate. Happens all the time! Like, I almost want to say it happens every time.It’s the rule rather than the exception! Family members fight over estates!
Jesus sees clearly the potential harm. See, he discerns what’s going on in this man’s heart—and he perceives, as he often does in the gospels, that this man has a potential problem far deeper than the one he’s bringing to Jesus.
Jesus names the problem: covetousness—a breaking of the Tenth Commandment. One of the biggies!
Like Lex Luthor in the new Superman movie, covetousness is in danger of taking over this man’s life… It’s what’s driving this man’s desire for justice. That’s why Jesus warns him to “take care and be on guard against it” because covetousness so easily and often disguises itself as righteous indignation. Covetousness has a way of sneaking into our hearts and making us say, “I deserve this. I am entitled to this. I know my rights, and I am being treated unfairly!”
And the man is being treated unfairly! But, you know… two wrongs don’t make a right.
So Jesus tells this shocking parable, in part, to awaken him to the danger… to enable him to change the path he’s on…
The start of the parable describes what we might call a very good problem to have. Verse 16: “The land of a rich man produced plentifully.” It’s a problem because he doesn’t have room in his existing barns to store all the grain!
But let’s stop right there! The land… produced plentifully…
This is the passive voice. And Jesus is tipping us off to the most important principle in this parable: This man is not ultimately responsible for the prosperity that he enjoys! After all, he did not make these seeds, which in combination with sunlight, water, and the soil’s nutrients produce abundant crops. And there are so many other things that brought him to this place of prosperity over which he had zero control! And this is an understatement.
More than a few preachers and commentators over the centuries have noticed how many times the word “I” appears. Six times. And the farmer isn’t any less self-centered when it comes to his use of the word “my,” which shows up five times in these verses.
When Israel was on the cusp of entering the Promised Land, Moses warned them,
Beware lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth. 2
And this is one root of covetousness: the mistaken belief that we are ultimately responsible for our success, our prosperity, our material blessings. The farmer thinks, “I did this. This is mine. This belongs to me. After all, I’ve been fighting and scrapping and competing with other people for everything I possess—for years. And now I want what I have coming to me! Now I want what I deserve!”
It’s in this context that Jesus says, in the very next passage after today’s scripture—in the very next verse!—see verse 22—“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.” And then Jesus talks about the ravens in verse 24… “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.”
God feeds them… But make no mistake: As Dallas Willard points out in his masterpiece on the Sermon on the Mount, The Divine Conspiracy, “[These birds] are among the busiest citizens of the earth.” They put forth great effort, “but our feathered friends do not seem to worry about the physical supports of their life, such as food and water and shelter. They simply seek it as they need it and take what they find. And that is how we should be. Having our treasures in heaven frees us to live simply in the present so far as our vital needs are concerned. We work hard, of course, and we care for our loved ones. But we do not worry—not even about them. Having food and clothing and God, we can be content.” 3
Oh, brothers and sisters… Don’t you want to be content? Of course you do! Everyone in the world does!
I listened to a sermon on this text by pastor John Piper, and he says that when the rich man said, in verse 19, “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry,’” the man is showing us what he truly treasures other than Christ: that the rich man treasures relaxation… food and drink… and partying—or “making merry.”
But I’m not so sure the rich man treasures those things most of all…
Besides, is there anything wrong with wanting relaxation? Of course, we may rightly ask, “Since when does more money, more wealth, more prosperity ever buy that?” Look at the lives of the most successful men and women we can name! They may be able to afford the most expensive vacation homes at the most exotic tropical resorts… but are they really able to relax?
Instead, it seems like the more success we have, the more trouble we have… the more things we have to worry about!
The Bible warns about this… Proverbs 15, for instance:
Better to have little, with fear for the Lord, than to have great treasure and inner turmoil.
A bowl of vegetables with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate. 4
More money doesn’t help us relax!
But we all, in our own way, want to relax. There’s nothing wrong with that. This is the very meaning of Sabbath rest. This is the heart of the Fourth Commandment. When God gave us the commandment about the Sabbath, he was telling us that we could completely walk away from our busy work lives—as important and necessary as work is—and somehow we’d still be okay. Why? Because our heavenly Father will take care of us! Our heavenly Father will run the universe just fine without us! He doesn’t really need our help! So we can trust him.
So God created us to relax—that is, to be able to rest deeply, to know contentment, to know true peace… He just uses a different and better name for it: Sabbath.
Likewise, God even made us to be merry. That’s an old-fashioned word that we don’t use today, but we understand it. The author of Ecclesiastes says, “And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful…” 5 And look, I know that “joy” is much deeper than “being merry”—although make no mistake, joy will often include “being merry.” Joy is much deeper than that, but it’s also… much better, much more durable, infinitely more valuable!
And this kind of joy is—praise God—available to every single one of us through faith in Christ! The Bible says, in fact, that joy is a fruit of the sanctifying work of the Spirit in our lives!
All that to say, what the rich man in the parable wants is perfectly okay…
And by the way, God has blessed this man with an abundant harvest. There’s nothing wrong with being a good capitalist and making as much money as we possibly can—recognizing of course that the gifts with which we’ve made made the money are all from God. And of course God gets to tell us what to do with our money! It’s not our own!
And there’s no reason to think that his impulse to build bigger barns to store grain is a bad idea, either. I don’t know… He’s going to employ people to build those barns, which will be good for those workers. And by storing the grain, he’ll be able to make it available to hungry people. That would be good.
So it’s beside the point to criticize the man for being successful. That’s not his mistake here!
This rich man’s tragic mistake is that he actually believed that his unexpected and unprecedented windfall of earthly treasure meant security… safety… peace… happiness… joy… for the rest of his life!
“Whew! What a relief…Now I don’t have to worry!”
It’s not that the man treasured “relaxation, eating and drinking, being merry” so much as what these goods symbolized: a life free from fear… a life free of anxiousness… a life free of worry.
That’s what this rich farmer treasures more than anything! He treasures it more than he treasures God.
And we can sympathize, right! I also want a life free from worry and fear… You do too! We all do!
The only question is, where is freedom from fear located?Where does it come from? What are we trusting in to give us a life free from fear, anxiousness, and worry? In what or in whom do we have faith to supply that kind of life?
Let’s face it, dear friends: it’s easier to have faith in what we can see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and touch with our hands… than to have faith in God.
It’s easier to trust the things we can see rather than the God we can’t see.
Remember Israel on the border of the Promised Land. The twelve spies who go scout out the land. Ten of the twelve come back: “The land is great, just like God said, ‘flowing with milk and honey.’ But the people there are giants. They make us look like grasshoppers by comparison.” It wasn’t until 40 years later that God finally showed them: giants or no giants, he would give them the victory.
The lesson? It’s easier to trust the the things we can see, rather than the God we can’t see.
Remember the servant of the prophet Elisha? The large Syrian army comes to arrest and maybe kill the prophet—and his servant, while they’re at it. So the servant is panicked:
When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 6
The lesson? It’s easier to trust the things we can see rather than the God we can’t see.
Remember the disciples on the storm on the Sea of Galilee, with Jesus sleeping in the stern of the boat?
But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 7
The lesson? It’s easier to trust the things we can see rather than the God we can’t see.
And what about us in our own lives? Our company is downsizing… Our child is sick… We can’t make ends meet… The diagnosis is scary… The relationship is over… There’s been an accident… We’re losing the house… losing the client… losing the business…
These are all things we all can see! And it’s easier to trust the things we can see rather than the God we can’t see.
And here, friends, lies the seductive danger of money… Not only can we see it, if we want to—hold it in our hands or look at it in a bank statement—but also… Money only buys the things that we can seeor things we can experience! That’s all money can do! And that’s what makes it feel so powerful… and that’s what it makes it so… trustworthy.
Because it’s easier to trust the things we can see rather than the God we can’t see.
And so money lies to us constantly about what it can do for us. It’s lying, for instance, to the younger brother in today’s scripture. Think about it: We don’t know the circumstances, but his crisis has only come about because his father died. Say his father lived for another twenty years: he would not be experiencing this anxiety about money. He would have to get by for those next twenty years without this extra money… and I bet he would survive just fine. So when money tells him, “You need me. You can’t miss out on me. You can’t live without me. I am your security. I am your safety. I am your future. I am your life”—we know for certain that money is lying.
And isn’t that what money said to the rich farmer in the parable, too: “You can’t lose me! You can’t live without me! I am your life!”
In fact, the farmer thought this money could give him life until the very author of life took his life away from him!
What is money saying to us right now? How is it lying to us right now? Are we believing its lies?
By contrast, Paul writes the most amazing chapter about a Christian’s relationship to money in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. He’s urging the Corinthian church to give generously to support their fellow Christians in Jerusalem, who are enduring persecution, suffering, and a severe famine.
Paul says there are three powerful benefits that will come to the Corinthians—and to us, by the way—when we give generously.
First, there’s the most obvious benefit: practical help. Paul writes that this act of generosity is “supplying the needs of the saints,” verse 12. That’s obvious.
Second, Paul says, their generosity will lead to overflowing gratitude to God. Paul says that “many thanksgivings to God” will result from this act of grace. In other words, their giving will cause someone else to lift their eyes to heaven and say, “Thank you, Lord!” They get to be the reason someone else worships. They get to be the answer to someone else’s prayer! They get to be the cause of someone else’s hallelujah.
And since God puts us on this earth, first and foremost, to glorify God, when we cause someone else to glorify God, we have accomplished an incredibly important work!
And third, Paul says that when we give generously, we will be blessed spiritually.
Paul says so in verse 10: that God “will increase the harvest of your righteousness.” That’s spiritual language. That’s not about your bank account. That isn’t the prosperity gospel… it’s the discipleship gospel.God is shaping your soul through generous giving. He’s saying that your generosity is going to yield a harvest within you. It’s going to make you more righteous… make you more like Christ… make you more alive to the Spirit… make you more attuned to the things of God.
Indeed, this “harvest of righteousness” that happens within the Corinthians—and us!—as we give generously for God’s kingdom is nothing other than the harvest of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul describes in Galatians: of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 8
To be perfectly clear: generosity helps produce within God’s people, including you and me, the fruit of the Spirit!
Brothers and sisters, do you enjoy the “good life”? Do you want to be able to enjoy Sabbath rest and know true peace and true joy and true contentment in life, and have God’s love and grace abound in your life—within you and through you? Would you like to grow more in love with Jesus? If you abound in the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul says generous giving helps make happen, you’ve got the good life… and it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with faith in God!
Suppose God hadn’t demanded this rich man’s life at the end of the parable… Suppose instead, God allowed this man to live, to complete his plans, to build his barns, to sell his grain, to live off his profits, to party with his friends at the country club before dying a painless death, in his sleep, at a ripe old age… before meeting God in final judgment, of course—who will rightly demand an accounting of his life…
But before that… even if he had lived and accomplished all these things over the course of a long life, this rich farmer would still never know the kind of joy that comes, in part, from generosity… as God uses that generosity to produce a “harvest of righteousness” within us… to produce the fruit of the Spirit!
I don’t how to be clearer: Generosity with our money, as we use it for God’s kingdom, changes our lives for the better!
So examine yourselves… Are you growing more in love with God through faith in his Son Jesus? Are you finding that your faith is empowering you, for example, to “fear not, therefore”—getting back to our church’s theme words for 2025? Are you experiencing greater joy in your life, and finding reserves of patience, and conquering longstanding sin in your life?
If not… if you’re not happy in your relationship with Christ, of course I want to say, “Spend more time in God’s Word, come to church every week and worship, pray more, receive the grace that comes through the sacrament of Holy Communion, devote yourself to serving others through kingdom work…
How are you doing at these “means of grace”?
Okay… but that’s not all… Maybe you’re missing something else…
Are you giving generously to support the work and mission of God’s kingdom? That might be your main problem right now.
The Lord might be saying, “Trust me to take care of you! Trust me to take care of you! Trust me to take care of you!” And the most practical way we do that is by giving generously.
And you’ve been saying, “Lord, I can’t do it. I can’t live without this extra money. I don’t you’ll supply all my needs!”
Listen to the Lord this morning… He may be telling you—telling us—“Exercise your faith by regularly giving a tithe or other generous offerings to him.”