Luke 12:13-21      “Building Barns, Postponing Life”

     Comedian Jack Benny, from TV’s Golden age, had a skit which illustrated how we place money ahead of everything.  He’s walking down the street when suddenly he’s approached by an armed robber, “Your money or your life!”  There’s a long pause.  Jack does nothing.  The robber impatiently asks, “Well?”  Jack replied, “Don’t rush me, I’m thinking it over.”

     This morning I’d like us to think a few moments about our money and our life.  Let’s see what Jesus has to say about these two subjects.

     The background for our story is an incident that occurred in Galilee as Jesus was teaching a large crowd of people.  A young man called out and said, “Rabbi, tell my brother to divide the inheritance of our father.”  Now Jewish law was real clear when it came to such matters.  It said that at the death of a father, the elder son received 2/3 of the inheritance, and the young son received 1/3.  Obviously, this was a younger son who’s complaining about the unfairness of it all.  Then, as now, nothing will divide a family more than dividing up an estate.     But Jesus refused to get involved in a petty family squabble.  Instead, he was concerned with the larger implications of preoccupation with the things of this world.  He said: Beware of greed, for life does not consist of things possessed.  The sum total of a person’s life is more than their financial portfolio.

     Jesus then went on to illustrate this point by telling a story about a man who became so prosperous that his barns couldn’t hold all of his crops.  His solution was to tear down these barns and build bigger and better barns.  Then, with his financial security in hand, he planned to sit back and truly enjoy life.  His philosophy was: eat, drink, and be merry.

     Truth be told, when we hear this story we find ourselves rather envious of this man.  We see this financially successful man as savvy and wise.  Yet, Jesus concluded the story by saying that this man was a fool.

     Jesus doesn’t say this man is going to hell because he built bigger barns.  He doesn’t say this man is a sinner because he built bigger barns.  Nor does Jesus even say it’s wrong to have nice things.  He simply calls the man a fool.  

     The issue before us this morning is then: what did this man do wrong?  To answer that question we must understand that this isn’t a parable about money.  Rather, it’s a parable about values and what’s important in life.  And we see that this man invested his life in stuff that he couldn’t take with him.  With that in mind, let me briefly suggest four things that this man did that made him a fool.

     First, he was a fool because he had full barns, but an empty heart.  He was rich in man’s eyes and yet he was poor in eyes of God.  The question that we should ask ourselves this morning is: Are we rich in God’s eyes?

     The man in the parable was a fool because he banked on full barns.  Let us as the people of God store our money in the stomachs of the hungry, the minds of the uneducated, the bodies of the sick, the spirits of the oppressed, and the spread of the Gospel.  Then we will be rich in God’s eyes.

     Secondly, this man was a fool because he overestimated his own value in the scheme of things.  Listen to how he talked: I will store my grain, I will build bigger barns, I will say to myself.  In four short verses the rich man used the word “I” and “my” ten times.  He didn’t see others as the source of his bounty, or even God, only himself.  His error wasn’t that he was a wealthy man.  His foolishness lay in his superficiality and egotism.

     Third, this man was a fool because he forgot what his real business in life was really all about.  This man thought that his business was about commodities and markets.  Jesus thought in deeper terms.

     Jesus is suggesting to us that our business in life goes beyond tally sheets, investments, and tax forms.  Our real business is that of our humanity.  It gets down to that old philosophical tension between becoming and being.  We spend too much of our time concentrating on what we are becoming, and we lose sight of what we are being.

     What is our business in life?  It’s not to be successful, but rather to be faithful.  It’s not to amass things, but to grow closer to the mind of God.  It’s not to become rich in things, but to love people.  That’s our business, but a fool will never understand that.

     Fourth, this man was a fool because he forgot about time.  His whole attitude in life was that time was unlimited.  I have a quirk about digital watches and clocks.  Sometimes I wonder if we’re raising an entire generation of young people who don’t know how to tell time.  If you say that it’s 7 till 10, many won’t know what you’re talking about.  To them it’s 9:53.  Because that’s what their digital watch tells them.  So what’s the problem with that, you say?  Simply this.  Time should have a sweep to it.  If we learn to see time as 9:53, then we see time only in the context of the immediate moment, and not in the larger context of time.  And I believe it’s absolutely lethal for Christians to see time only as “right now.”  That’s how the world looks at time.  The Christian should learn to view time as moving toward something.

     How many people have we known who spent all of their life preparing to live?  It may be good to save our money for a rainy day, but it’s perilous to save our life for a rainy day.  Why?  Because time might just run out on us.

     Friends, the clock is relentless.  It’s always ticking.  Regardless of what we do or fail to do, time keeps moving forward.  It’s a fool who says, “Heaven can always wait.”  It’s a fool who builds barns, but postpones life.

                                                AMEN