The Foolish Rich Man - Luke 12:15-21

I got some more information about the situation of the man we discussed yesterday, the one who asked Jesus to interfere with the distribution of his father’s estate. One of the websites that I read commented that because the man had to ask someone else for help, that indicated that this man was probably not the first born son. Culturally, the first born son inherits everything when his father dies and the rest simply fend for themselves. If that is the case, then the man who approached Jesus wanted what wasn’t rightfully his. It’s one thing to tell someone to not be greedy when they are being wrongfully stripped of what is owed to them, but it’s another matter completely when you aren’t legally supposed to have something, but want it anyway. That puts more context on this situation, I feel like it would be similar to feeling like a sibling that is successful in business owes you money from it as well. Neither brother earned their inheritance, the only reason the oldest boy received it was because he was born first, something that is completely out of his control. I feel like Jesus is saying, “don’t worry about your brother, focus on yourself.”

Jesus then tells a parable, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.” Like the oldest brother who received his father’s inheritance, the wealth that came from a bountiful harvest had nothing to do with the rich man. He wasn’t a better farmer than everyone else, he didn’t have the newest technology in growing, he wasn’t the most charitable person ever, he did absolutely nothing to contribute to his large harvest, it was a blessing, a gift from God. The oldest brother did get his inheritance because he was the father’s favorite, he didn’t earn it through kindness, he was awarded the inheritance because he was born first, which no one has any control over, when, where, or to whom you are born, the inheritance was likewise a gift from God.

The rich man now has to decide what to do with all this extra harvest. Let’s look at his options: 1) Because wealth is relative, the fact that this is a rich man indicates that there are others in his community who are not doing as well financially. His first option is always to give abundantly to those who are disadvantaged. 2) He can save the excess, preparing against future time of want. 3) He can do a combination of those two things. He has another consideration in his decision, “What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?” I would imagine that as a business man, he fully utilizes all of his land for growing and processing, meaning that he doesn’t have anywhere else to build new storage for the excess. To build more storage places for his surplus would mean pulling out some of the plants that grow, and by doing that he would decrease his supply, and he would lose money next year.

He decides, “This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.” It never made sense to me that he would destroy the buildings that he already has in order to build newer and bigger ones, it seemed to me to be a waste of time and resources. The rich man would have to spend money paying someone to tear down his existing barns, he’d waste all that perfectly good building material, then he would have to buy all new building material and pay people to come and rebuild the barns even bigger than before. I’m not saying that’s not a good strategy, but the plentiful harvest leftovers had better be enormous, like the harvest of a lifetime, in order for this guy to just break even, and that seems like such a waste. Something has to be significant before I will go out of my way to do it, especially when it comes to buying and selling things.

This guy was so confident in his decision that he says, “I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” He’s already planning his early retirement from this one year alone. Let’s put that in terms of something comparable to today. People usually spend a lifetime saving for retirement, let’s say on average you need $40K a year to live on, before and after retirement, that’s not a great number to use but it’s reasonable to work with. If you retire at 65 and live to be 85, that’s 20 years, at $40k/year that’s $800k you would need saved up to live the rest of your life quite modestly. Now remember, the scale with which the rich man is living is a lot bigger, so he’d need WAY more money then that in order to begin to think about retiring and maintaining his current lifestyle. If you make about $40k a year to live, how in the world would you ever be able to save up $800k, it’s mind-boggeling to think about. Let’s say the rich man is 55 when he has his bountiful harvest, he decides that this year’s harvest is so good that he can retire 10 years early, that’s an extra $400k that he would need, that means that this great harvest produced an extra $400k worth of goods. The cost to tear down and rebuild an even bigger barn would eat up a ton of his extra money, therefore he should probably reconsider his decision. Everyone always looks at the money and get excited but don’t think through the whole process.

Even though he might not be making the best financial decision, I feel that a lot of us can relate to the thought process of the rich man. I work and get paid and I pay my bills, but what do I do with anything extra? I save it, and I think that expecting this man to give away everything and save nothing is hypocritical of us, and it flies in the face of prophetic counsel. We have been counseled to become self-sufficient and debt free and to have money saved for a rainy day, to give all of our money away before we’ve done that is not following the prophets and expecting this guy to do the same is wrong as well. But once we have saved and prepared ourselves to be financially secure and responsible, then what’s left over after that should be carefully considered for what the Lord wants us to do with it. And maybe it’s the point that the harvest was so large that he had way more than he would ever need, therefore storing the rest and planning on living the rest of his life on vacation was not wise. The IM says, “The foolish rich man’s selfishness can be seen in Luke 12:17-19, where the words Iand my appear repeatedly; the man failed to consider sharing his fortune with others. Furthermore, he failed to recognize the source of his riches. In no way did the man acknowledge, as the Savior did, that it was ‘the ground’ that ‘brought forth plentifully,’ nor did the man thank the Lord for creating the earth in which he crops grew. Ultimately, the man was condemned not for the wise practice of storing temporal provisions but for failing to prepare spiritually for the future.”

Maybe we are going too deep into “what are we supposed to do with our excess money,” to miss the point, because honestly, most of us will not have to deal too often with what to do with our excess money. Jesus tells us what the point of this parable is when he says, “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” This rich man has spent so much time and energy building up a financial empire that when the time comes for his to go to the other side, he hasn’t prepared himself to meet God. It’s the old saying, you can’t take it with you. We spend time and energy here preparing ourselves for the future financially, isn’t it just as important that we prepare ourselves for the next life as well?

One of the articles that I read about this parable was really kind of funny because the pastor who wrote it, did a slideshow presentation for one of his classes at the seminary, where we drove around taking pictures of the rich and the poor areas of his neighborhood and used it to expound on the meaning of the parable. Turns out that the people in his congregation recognized some of the affluent houses as their own and didn’t appreciate being likened to the foolish rich man. I thought that was funny. How do we reconcile ourselves with the idea that we are more like the rich man than the poorer ones? The pastor goes on to explain “several myths about money this parable exposes.” He says “It’s no sin to be rich, for it’s not wealth that’s our downfall, but greed.” The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching, “In this conversation with a covetous, world-minded man, and in the resultant parable of the rich fool which grew out of it, our Lord teaches that those whose hearts are set on the things of this world shall lost their souls. The parable itself condemns world0mindedness, reminds men that death and judgment are inevitable, and teaches that they should seek eternal riches rather than those things which moth and ruse corrupt and which thieves break through and steal.”