Reading Between the Lines

Reflections

The danger of greed

Readings Between the Lines

Father Glenn LeCompte

“(Jesus) spoke a parable to them: The land of a certain rich man bore fruit abundantly.

So he deliberated within himself, ‘What shall I do? For I do not have a place where I will store my produce.’ Then he said, ‘I will do this; I will tear down my barns and I will build larger ones, and I will store all the grain and my goods there. And I will say to myself, ‘Self, you have many goods laid up for many years; rest, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.’ ‘But God said to him, ‘Fool! This very night your soul will be demanded back from you. The things which you have prepared, whose will they be?’ Thus it is for the one who stores up treasure for himself and does not grow rich (in relation to) God” (Luke 12:16-21, translation by Rev. Glenn LeCompte).

Jesus speaks the foregoing parable in response to a request by a person that Jesus arbitrate an inheritance dispute in the petitioner’s family. Jesus distances himself from the person’s request because it deals with a preoccupation with temporal goods, a preoccupation which can be detrimental to possessing eternal life. The parable illustrates the spiritual danger involved for those consumed with hoarding temporal goods.

The parable, which will be read at weekend Masses July 30-31 this year, is a self-contained story in which there are two characters, a rich man and God. The human is never named, but only identified by a character trait; he is rich. The Greek adjective plousios (“rich”) is used 11 times in Luke’s Gospel always with a negative connotation. For example, in 6:24 a woe is directed against the wealthy in view of the coming Kingdom, which will provide consolation to the poor and needy, but not for the rich who have been consoled by their possessions. The danger that attachment to material things presents is exemplified in the episode of a rich man’s reluctance to sell his possessions, give alms and follow Jesus (18:18-23).

The rich man’s land yields an abundant harvest and his current storehouses are inadequate to store the amount of grain yielded. “What shall I do?” the rich man asks himself. There are several things he could do. He could donate the excess to the needy. He could sell the grain at a profit, but donate the excess to the poor. Such actions would be faithful to Jesus’ later exhortation, “Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy” (12:33). Instead the rich man decides to store up for himself goods that will benefit him only in this life. And because they can perish or be stolen, they may not provide comfort for the length of time he imagines. In addition to storing up the abundant produce of his crop, he also desires to hoard “goods” to make himself comfortable. The focus of his life becomes the comfort that material possessions can offer when he envisions himself resting, eating, drinking and making merry for the rest of his life. But herein is a catch in the parable! How long will his life last?

The answer to that question is, not much longer. Enter the second character in the story, God. Parables always have an element of surprise, and the unexpected comes when God tells the rich man that his life will be demanded back that very night. The verb “to demand back” refers to the requirement of returning something which has been entrusted to a person, as can be seen in Jesus’ explanation (12:42-48) of the parable of the Faithful and Unfaithful Servants (12:35-40). The rich man does not realize that life is a gift from God, a gift to be returned. By deciding to use his overabundant material possession to comfort himself in life, he focuses on life as something he possesses and has a right to, as he does regarding all of his other material possessions.

God begins the announcement of the rich man’s fate by calling him a “fool.” Being a fool is the opposite of being a wise person. Biblical wisdom is not just about being prudent or efficient, it involves doing what is morally right. In light of Jesus’ teaching elsewhere in Luke on the handling of material possessions, the rich man, by hoarding his goods, acts immorally. Moreover, his folly involves the fact that despite the rich man’s desire to make himself comfortable with an overabundance of material things that due to his sudden

Reflections

death, he will not enjoy them as he anticipated. Indeed, an observant Jew should know the admonition of Psalm 49:11, “ ... the fool will perish together with the senseless, and they leave their wealth to others.”

Jesus’ application (in other words, “the moral of the story”) of the parable in Luke 12:21 points out that the fate of the rich man in the parable will be that of those who store up treasure for themselves but do not grow rich in what matters to God. Luke 12:34 casts light on the situation of such people. Jesus says that where one’s treasure is, there is one’s heart. The rich man’s treasure was in material possessions and self-comfort, not in God. Thus he is more desirous of an earthly life than a heavenly one.

In the encounter between Jesus and the person asking him to arbitrate a family inheritance dispute, Jesus characterizes the questioner’s preoccupation with the inheritance as “greed,” which he admonishes is to be avoided by those who would follow him (12:15). If the parable is meant to be an illustration of greed and why it should be avoided, then we see that greed involves everything implicit in the rich man’s decision and actions. He is desirous of perishable temporal goods, seeks to comfort himself without regard for the neediness of others, and is fixed on worldly materialism rather than on what is necessary for eternal life. Greed is spiritually detrimental to life in the Kingdom Jesus proclaimed. It is listed among the seven Capital Sins (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1866) yet I contend it is probably the most ignored of the seven, especially in the United States. Greed exists among us in varying degrees; it is dividing us as a society, institutionally supporting poverty and causing suffering and deprivation. In next month’s article, I will consider how the point of Jesus’ parable challenges our society today. BC

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Reflection Questions

v Jesus characterizes a person’s request that he arbitrate an inheritance dispute as greed. how would you explain this?

v how do we handle abundance or unexpected windfalls in our lives? Do we consider how we can use the excess to help the needy?

v how many material possessions do we really need to get along in life? at what point do possessions become detrimental to our faith and spiritual life?

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