Scripture: Luke 12:13-21
Today’s sermon will focus on three points: Number One, Our Priority… Number Two, God’s Providence… Number Three, Our Problem…
But first… Point Number One: Our Priority
I grew up a big fan of David Letterman. When I was 11, my parents made the mistake of giving me a TV for my bedroom. And unbeknownst to them, it had something called an “earphone” jack. Not headphone. Earphone—for one ear only. And I had an earphone. Which meant that late at night, while everyone else was asleep, I could watch Late Night with David Letterman. And my parents were none the wiser.
By college I could stay up late and no one cared. And that’s what I was doing on December 20, 1990. It was Christmastime, and who should appear on Letterman but Dolly Parton—dressed in an elf costume, singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—in New York City of all places… in front of a sophisticated studio audience… and in front of a cool and hip late-night audience on TV. Because back then, that’s what we cool and hip people did: we watched David Letterman.
And guess what? Dolly’s performance was as corny as you might imagine! Completely uncool!
But as the performance went on, Paul Shaffer and Letterman’s band started getting into it. They were smiling and laughing, in spite of themselves, as Dolly encouraged them to sing along. Which they did… Then she turned to the studio audience and said, “Now it’s your turn.” And she actually went into the audience—singing and dancing with members of the audience. They were delighted… They were smiling and laughing!
I had never seen a performer so bold… so fearless… so full of courage…
And suddenly, as a 20-year-old who desperately wanted to be cool above all else, my cold heart started to melt.
Why?
Because of love.
And love is what everyone in that sophisticated New York studio audience—and across the country watching on TV—wanted more than anything else. And this was Dolly Parton’s great gift to the world—and why the news of her unexpected death last week shook so many people: she had the rare gift of communicating love through her performances.
As Dolly demonstrated that night, love takes risks… love requires courage… love means overcoming fear. Yet love should be our priority.
The man in verse 13 who says to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” needed to overcome his own fear in order to love the way Jesus wanted him to love.
And you’re probably thinking, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Allow me to explain…
We can infer that this man is the younger of two sons. In the ancient Jewish world, the older son would have been responsible for dividing his father’s estate according to Old Testament law. The younger son was entitled to one-third, the older to two-thirds. Except, for whatever reason, the older brother wasn’t giving him his share.
So the younger brother hopes Jesus will settle the dispute.
And we know what this feels like, right? In 22 years of being a pastor, I can’t count the number of times I’ve witnessed families fighting over the estates of loved ones!
Even in my own family… I had an Aunt Mary—single and childless—who accumulated a small fortune working as an executive secretary at AT&T for fifty years. When she died, her will indicated that it would be divided among her nieces and nephews… Not evenly divided, mind you… and I wasn’t among her favorites, but still… even I was getting a nice chunk of change.
Or at least that was the plan…
Until another cousin—I’ll call him Matt—swooped in not long before Aunt Mary died; he was granted power of attorney; and before long he had Aunt Mary’s will modified so that he would receive her entire estate.
No one knew about this until she died.
It was wrong. It felt evil. As you might imagine, lawyers got involved. And the experience permanently harmed the family. To this day, most of Matt’s cousins no longer have a relationship with him.
I want to ask Matt, “Was it worth it?”
In fact, I want Jesus to speak to Matt the words he speaks in verse 15: “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness.”
But not so fast…
Jesus isn’t primarily directing these words to people like Matt. Notice: the greedy older brother is nowhere to be found in this scripture! Jesus is instead talking to “younger brothers” like me—like my sisters and cousins—like any of us who at one time have been defrauded and betrayed and sinned against.
Jesus says that people like us have a potentially deadly spiritual problem too.
Covetousness…
Ouch!
Listen… I’m not sure I agree with Jesus here. How about you? I mean… the younger brother is the victim here, yet Jesus says there’s something going on in his heart of which he needs to repent?
So I’m not sure I agree with Jesus, but maybe that’s my problem… because every week, in worship, after all, we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
There’s no asterisk in the Lord’s Prayer… There’s no footnote that reads, “Forgive everyone except for Brent’s cousin Matt, who defrauded him and his cousins.”
There are no footnotes for forgiveness.
To make matters worse, immediately after the Lord’s Prayer Jesus says, “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others… neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”[1]
Jesus’ words, not mine!
But maybe we say, “But Matt isn’t even sorry for what he’s done! He hasn’t repented!”
I don’t see that exception in the Lord’s Prayer.
Or maybe we say, “But what he did was really harmful. Really wrong. Evil, in fact.”
Yes, but consider this: while Aunt Mary was alive and well, I was having no trouble making ends meet, financially. God was providing my “daily bread” perfectly well. I hadn’t given a thought to the value of her estate or what I stood to gain from it.
It only became incredibly important the moment she died, and the estate was being settled… And likely the same is true of the younger brother in today’s scripture. When his father was alive, he was probably doing just fine. He didn’t need his father’s money. Didn’t give it a thought. So why is it suddenly so important now that his father is dead?
So important, in fact, that he will risk permanently harming his relationship with his brother… by failing to forgive… by failing to love?
Don’t misunderstand. Jesus is not for one moment excusing the older brother’s sin… He’s not letting the older brother off the hook. He’s not saying, “Your older brother’s sin is no big deal.” Assuming the man is telling him the truth, it is a big deal! And I’m sure the younger brother could have used that extra money for many good and holy purposes.
But that isn’t Jesus’ point here… His point is, this money isn’t worth fighting over… If you’re fighting, you’re not loving. And love is more important than anything… even “winning” your case… even being proven right…
Even being proven right isn’t more important than love…
That’s Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 6, when Christians are taking one another to court. He says, “To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?”[2]
In other words, why not rather suffer wrong… than fail to forgive and to love each other with Christlike love?
Because that’s what’s at stake for Paul with all the fussing and fighting going on in the Corinthian church: they are failing to love one another.
And loving one another is the most important thing a church does. It’s more important than the church’s mission statement… It’s more important than evangelism and witnessing and the Great Commission…
Or perhaps I should say that, from Paul’s perspective, a church won’t be successful at fulfilling their mission if, in the process of trying, they fail to love one another first!
See, we read the profoundly beautiful love poem, 1 Corinthians 13, at nearly every wedding, but let’s make no mistake about why Paul wrote it: he wrote it because these Corinthians—as spiritually gifted as they undoubtedly were—were failing to love one another. “Who cares if I’m such a bold witness for Jesus that I die a martyr’s death”—or as he says in verse 3, “if I deliver up my body to be burned”—if I don’t have love, even my brave martyr’s death is worthless…
Paul goes on… Love doesn’t “insist on its own way.” Love “keeps no record of wrongs”… Love always assumes the bestabout people… Love is always is willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, in other words… even when other people hurt us.
Loving one another—as brothers and sisters in Christ—is the most important thing we do at Five Forks Methodist. Loving one another is more important any hopes, dreams, plans, strategies, and tactics we may have for our church. “If we grow to be a church of five thousand… if we grow so large we have to plant another church… or a network of churches… and have not love, we gain nothing” as far as our Lord is concerned. And if we remained a church of 250 that truly loves one another, we’d be more successful than the largest megachurch that fails to love…
Love is always our priority…
Therefore something as insignificant as money, Jesus says, isn’t worth rupturing the younger brother’s relationship with his older brother.
But don’t worry: in Final Judgment, if not before, the Lord will deal with the wrong that the older brother has done. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, scripture says. He will repay.[3]
In the meantime, the younger brother’s job—and our job—is to love!
And that’s Point Number One: Love is our priority.
Point Number Two: God’s Providence
I was an associate pastor for one difficult year at a large metro Atlanta church. I’ll never forget the senior pastor preaching on the Great Commandment: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And I promise these words came out of her mouth: “Love God, love people. It’s so easy.”
Easy?
I agree it’s straightforward. I agree it’s easy to understand.
But it’s not easy to do!
In fact, apart from God’s grace, it’s impossible.
Regardless, even for us believers, who are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, it’s still very difficult. And Jesus tells this parable as a way of putting his finger on why it’s so hard.
Are you ready?
Because, unlike Dolly Parton during that performance on Letterman, we are afraid…
The younger brother, after all, is afraid of what he stands to lose if his brother doesn’t divide the estate.
And we see fear in the farmer of the parable too. Verse 19: “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”
Do you hear the sigh of relief?
“Relax.”
“Finally I can stop being anxious. Finally I can stop working so hard. Finally I can stop worrying!”
The problem is, according to Jesus, the farmer wasn’t supposed to be worried to begin with!
Why? Verse 16 gives us a clue: “The land of a rich man produced plentifully.”
Notice: the land produced.
Jesus is tipping us off to something important…
After all, the farmer did not make these seeds—which in combination with other things he didn’t make—like sunlight, water, and the soil’s nutrients—produce abundant crops. And there are so many other things that brought the farmer to this place of prosperity over which he had zero control! And this is an understatement.
Yet notice how often the farmer says “I”—six times—and “my”—five times.
Moses warned Israel about exactly this problem: “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.”[4]
At the root of so much fear, anxiety, and worry is the mistaken belief that our well-being is ultimately up to us. Therefore the younger brother saw this opportunity for what he thought was security and he was willing to fight for it. And the farmer likewise saw his chance for security… and never bothered asking what God might want him to do with the extra money.
Because—we mistakenly believe—our security doesn’t really depend on God… It depends on us!
We Christians often believe this, you know… in spite of God’s Word.
Fifteen years ago, I was pastor at the Hampton United Methodist Church. The town of Hampton is south of Atlanta—it’s where the NASCAR track is. This was a church, if ever there was one, that lived hand to mouth. At the very first Finance Committee meeting, three days after I arrived, the finance chair said, only half-jokingly, “We have to wait and see what Sunday’s offering is to find out whether or not we can pay you.”
He laughed. I did not.
Anyway… Somehow we kept paying the bills successfully—somehow!—until one year, near year-end, things became desperate. We might have to let staff go.
So I called for emergency prayer meetings every Sunday from the beginning of November through the end of the year. We would gather together in the sanctuary and ask God for a miracle.
So in early November we held our first prayer meeting.
And a few days later I got a call from the daughter of a couple Bill and Hettie—longtime members who had died in a tragic car accident earlier that year.
What I hadn’t known—because I make it a policy not to know what members give—was that Bill and Hettie’s missing tithe was a sufficient reason for the financial crisis we faced that year. We made our budget, in other words, counting on receiving their tithes and offerings.
So their daughter was settling her parents’ estate and wanted to make a substantial memorial gift to the church. I asked whether a small portion could replace the equivalent of Bill and Hettie’s missing tithe for that year.
“Of course,” she said.
Just like that, problem solved!
I’m ashamed to say that my first thought was not, “Thank you, Lord, for answering our prayers!”
Instead, it was, “What a relief! Guess we don’t need those emergency prayer meetings anymore. Guess we don’t need a miracle after all. God, you’re off the hook!”
My problem was, I was waiting for a miracle—and nothing about this phone call from Bill and Hettie’s daughter seemed miraculous.
After all, Bill and Hettie died in January. Many months passed. Their estate was settled. Their daughter gave money to the church they loved. Happens all the time. Perfectly ordinary. Perfectly explainable.
This wasn’t a miracle; this was a coincidence… I thought.
But as Archbishop William Temple famously said, “When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.”
God’s providence—which describes the way God works in our world and in our lives—usually looks like that. Perfectly ordinary… mundane… unremarkable… explainable… Not a suspension of the laws of physics… not overtly supernatural… as far as anyone can see.
But God is still working!
I once met a man who ran a Christian mission organization. He was always fundraising, always needing money for ministry. And when he found himself in desperate financial need, he would say: “I’m in the middle of a miracle.”
I love that. I’m in the middle of a miracle.
In other words, “I am confident that at this moment, God is working things out in my favor—through people and circumstances—and although I can’t yet see how all these things will come together, I am confident, based on a lifetimespent trusting in God, that God will somehow come through.”
“I’m in the middle of a miracle.”
That’s an excellent way of thinking about providence—so long as we understand—as I failed to understand fifteen years ago—that God might disguise the “miracle” as a perfectly normal, perfectly explainable, ordinary, mundane, everyday event or coincidence.
So… Call it a miracle. Call it providence. Just understand that God is always at work through all the events of our lives.
And that’s Point Number Two: God’s Providence.
Point Number Three: Our Problem
This farmer faced a problem infinitely worse than where to store all this grain. His problem was, he had to face Almighty God in Final Judgment. He’d forgotten that God was the source of his abundant harvest. And he’d even forgotten that God was the source of his life… that his life did not belong to him.
He’d forgotten David’s prayer, for instance, in Psalm 139:16: “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” He’d forgotten “that it is appointed for everyone to die once, and after that comes judgment.”[5]
He’d forgotten that ultimately he had no control over his living and dying. His life was completely in God’s hands.
Maybe that thought frightens you—and if it does, by all means, let’s talk—but if you are in Christ, it doesn’t need to frighten you.
Instead, that thought should bring you comfort and peace.
Consider Paul, for instance, in Acts 23… He is under arrest in Jerusalem, and his life hangs in the balance. That night Jesus comes to him in a vision and says, “Take courage… you must testify also in Rome.”[6]
In other words: “Paul, you’re going to Rome. I still have work for you there.”
Yet the very next morning, unbeknownst to Paul, more than forty men take an oath that they will neither eat nor drink until they have murdered Paul!
Forty ruthless, highly motivated killers against one man in custody.
Paul looks like a sitting duck!
Except for this fact… While these forty men have a plan for Paul—God has a different plan.
So whose plan do you think is going to succeed?
As John Piper pointed out, Paul was immortal—literally “unkillable”—until he fulfilled God’s purpose for him in Rome.
Paul’s life was not in the hands of forty murderous men, or bad luck, or unfortunate circumstances. His life was in the hands of Almighty God.
And so is yours and mine…
“If God is for us, who can be against us?”[7]
My point is, one surprising takeaway of this seemingly frightening Parable of the Rich Fool is to reassure us believers… The farmer’s biggest problem—that his life doesn’t belong to him—becomes a source of comfort and peace for us who believe in Jesus.
If that weren’t the case, the what Jesus says in the very next verse of scripture—which we didn’t read, verse 22—makes no sense! If you have your Bibles, look at it… Notice Jesus’ first word in verse 22: “Therefore”… dot, dot, dot…
“Therefore” means that the parable that Jesus has just told has something to do with what he’s now saying… And what does he now say?
“Therefore I tell you,” Jesus says, “do not be anxious about your life.”
Why? Because your life belongs to God… Because your Father knows what you need… Because your Father provides for you… Because nothing can happen to you apart from his providential care… “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”[8]
Because of all these truths—which the farmer in the parable didn’t understand and the younger brother was in danger of forgetting—“therefore” you don’t have to be afraid.
And if you don’t have to be afraid, think how boldly and freely and extravagantly you can love others!
Remember Dolly Parton on that stage? What impressed me wasn’t simply that she loved people. It was how fearlessly she loved them. She wasn’t worried about looking foolish or protecting herself from embarrassment or harming her reputation… She was completely free to walk right into that studio audience and love people… even though it couldn’t have been cornier or less cool.
The world says, “Protect yourself. Secure your own future. Look out for number one… because it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there… and if you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.”
Jesus, by contrast, says, “Your Father is looking out for you perfectly well.”
Therefore what are you afraid of?
So… Banish fear… And love like you have nothing to lose.
Because you don’t.
Amen?
[1] Matthew 6:14-15
[2] 1 Corinthians 6:7 ESV
[3] Romans 12:19
[4] Deuteronomy 8:17-18a ESV
[5] Hebrews 9:27
[6] Acts 23:11 ESV
[7] Romans 8:31 ESV
[8] Matthew 10:29-31