User:Timothy Ravinder

—Timothy Ravinder 21:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC) [http://www.evangelisch-in-rheinfelden.de WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN LIFE

A brief Meditation on Luke 12, 13-21 NRSV

The background for our story is an incident that occurred in Galilee as Jesus was teaching to a large crowd. A Young man, called out from the crowd and said: “Rabbi, tell my brother to divide the inheritance of our father.” Now, Jewish law clearly prescribed that at the death of a father the elder son received 2/3 of the inheritance, and the younger son received 1/3. This is obviously a younger son who is complaining about the inherent unfairness of it all. Nothing will divide brothers and sisters more than dividing up property. So it was then, and so it is now. Jesus refused to get involved in a petty family issue.

Jesus was concerned, however, 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 persons’ life is more than their financial portfolio. He then illustrated this by telling a story.

The Parable explained….. There was once a man who had an unbroken run of prosperity. In today’s language, he had successfully played the commodities market. So prosperous did he become, that his barns could not 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 could 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. A financially successful man-we see him as hard working and wise. Yet, Jesus concluded the story by saying that this man was a fool.

Why this man was a fool? What did this man do wrong? To answer this question we must under stand that this is not a parable about money. It is a parable about values and what is important in Life. With that in mind, let me 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. Secondly, this man was a fool because he overestimated his own value in the scheme of things. Third, this man was a fool because he forgot what his real business in life was about. Fourth, this man was a fool because he forgot about the nature of time.

How much Land does a Person need? Leo Tolstoy once wrote a story about a successful peasant farmer who was not satisfied with what he had. He wanted more of everything. One day he received a novel offer. For 1000 rubles, he could buy all the land he could walk around in a day. The only catch in the deal was that he had to be back at his starting point by sun down. Early the next morning he started out walking at a fast pace. By mid day he was very tired, but he kept going, covering more and more ground. Well into the afternoon he realized that his greed had taken him far from the starting point. He quickened his pace and as the sun began to sink low in the sky, he began to run; knowing that if he did not make it by sundown the opportunity to become an even bigger landholder would be lost. As the sun began to sink below the horizon, he came within the sight of the finish line. Gasping for breath, his heart pounding, he called upon every bit of strength left in his body and staggered across the line just before the sun disappeared. He immediately collapsed, blood streaming from his mouth. In a few minutes he was dead. Afterwards, his servants dug a grave. It was not much over six feet long and three feet wide. The title of Tolstoy’s story was: How much Land Does a Man Need?

Storing what we do not need Jesus did not condemn the man for eating, drinking and being merry, nor even for being rich. He called this rich man a fool for building bigger barns. The point of the story is that the entrepreneur was planning to store more of his wealth than his need to eat, drink and be merry. Let us look at the words of the story. The man said, “What shall I do for I have nowhere to store my crops?” Not true! He has barns. His problem is that his harvest has been so great that his present storage facilities will not hold all of the grain. So he decides, “I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain. Then and only then will I have ample goods to eat, drink, and be merry.” Again, not true! He already has ample goods. He does not have to live in the moment. He has barns for his future. They may not be as he would like, but he has plenty to eat, drink and be merry. The man already has enough wealth to enjoy shalom. H e has a sense of well-being and security because God has generously blessed his land with fruitfulness. Fortune has smiled on him and he has been able to accumulate a sizeable portion of this world’s goods.

The intention of this Parable The problem with this Rich Man was that, he never saw beyond himself. There is no parable like this one which is so full of the words, I, me, my and mine. From verse 16 to 19, four verses, so much is revealed in the frequency of the personal pronouns. It is amazing to see how many times they are used: I, I, my, I, I, I ,my, my, I, my. The rich Man was aggressively self-centered. He had a superfluity of goods; the one thing that never entered his heart and mind was to give any away. His whole attitude was the very reverse of Christianity. Instead of denying himself he aggressively affirmed himself: instead of finding his happiness in giving, he tried to conserve it by keeping...

The man in the story was already rich before the abundant crop came in. It is clear, that he already had barn enough, to store the crop. But the problem was that the harvest was so good he could not store it all. What to do? He asks himself. Should I give it away or sell it at the market? Neither. I will build bigger barns and keep it for myself. He was not thankful for the riches he already had. He wanted more to insure his security. He does not want to live for the day; he wants to live today trying to ensure the pleasures of tomorrow. We call this greed. To cling to his wealth as if it was an end in itself was the mistake of the Barn Builder.

It is not wrong to amass wealth and it is nothing wrong to be or become rich. Abraham was rich and went to heaven. It was not wrong on the part of this Man that he had enough wealth. His unwise and his selfish decision to store it all by building bigger barns was wrong. He was called “foolish” because he did not recognize that his wealth had brought him happiness and that it could do the same for others if only it were not locked up in those bigger barns. His failure was not that he had become wealthy, but that he wanted to keep all his wealth to himself. His mistake was not that he ate, drank and was merry, but that he was withholding the means for others to do the same. He had become a bottleneck in the flow of blessings to others.

Once a Pastor said to his congregation one Sunday morning; "I have bad news; I have good news and I have bad news". He went on to say, "The bad news is that there is a large hole on the roof above this Church that needs immediate repair. The good news is that there is enough money for the repair work. Now the bad news is that the money lies in your pockets".

The Parable, so understood, is not a teaching condemning the foolishness of gathering wealth. It is rather a parable which calls each one of us to share the wealth we do not need. It warns about the shortsightedness of failing to be a good custodian of the abundance that God entrusts to us.

It is imperative that we be a good model to the younger generation in the society and to the Community in which we live and also to teach our children that sharing what we have is also important in Life.

Timothy Ravinder, Presbyter from the Church of South India with the Protestant Church in Baden, Germany