Luke 12:13-21

Advent I

2023

SHAP 

Watsons Bay

You may have heard that old tale about the fellow who opens a newspaper and discovers that it is dated six months into the future.

He begins to read with great interest and discovers stories about events that are yet to take place.

He turns to the sports section, and there are all the scores of all the games yet to be played.

He then flicks across to the financial section and reads the reports of the rise and fall of different stocks and commodities.

He realises that this kind of information can make him wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. 

The odd bet on a sporting team, investing heavily in the right stock now – what a gift!

He then thumbs through to the obituary column. 

And there in those death notices he sees his own picture; it has his name beneath with a few generous words following.

Everything changes.

The knowledge of his own impending death radically alters his views on wealth, and success, and work, and relationships.

Well now, that kind of thinking is on Jesus’ agenda when he tells a story about a businessperson – an exceptionally successful one, in Luke 12.

Now, the context is interesting.

Jesus has been pouring his heart out to the crowd who’ve gathered to hear him speak.

He’s been helping them come to terms with God’s passionate concern for their well being – and of the importance of living a life with God at the centre.

Before he can make his next point, someone in the crowd calls out and says, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me – Luke 12: 13.

In order to re-focus on the big questions of life, Jesus uses the interjector’s request to make a point.

He says to the noisy enquirer, ‘Look, I’m not in the business of settling financial disputes; at any rate, you are in grave danger of being seduced by wealth. Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of his or her possessions’ – Luke 12: 14-15.

To drive home the point that a person’s life ought to comprise things other than ‘stuff’, Jesus tells this story.

There was once a wealthy businessman.

It seems he’d made his money in agriculture. 

That means long hours, hard work, and an unrelenting commitment to the programme.

And so, things have turned out well for this fellow.

He’s experiencing high crop yields, so he decides to make some significant capital investments.

The plan is to re-structure the storage facilities on the property.

That way, he’ll be able to accommodate the bumper harvests and house the equipment used in the process (v.18).

So, let’s picture what may have taken place. 

It’s partly conjecture – partly from the text [and is informed by the late Dr Haddon Robinson’s comments on this passage].

I’d like you to imagine this fellow sitting down with the town architect.

They’re looking at the plans for the barn complex.

It’s big, state of the art, is this barn.

It’ll be the envy of all the other producers in the region. 

No expense spared.

This fellow has a reputation to maintain.

Well, it’s getting late, and the architect has had quite enough for one day, and so he bids his client farewell.

The fellow’s wife calls him to bed, and he says he’ll be there soon.

Instead, he takes his plans and goes to the kitchen, pours himself a ‘double’, and proudly looks over the new barn proposal.

Time moves on and the businessman falls asleep, head on the kitchen table.

He’s ripped back into consciousness by an aggressive knocking on the back door.

The man moves to the door and opens it carefully. 

It’s so dark outside he can’t see who’s there.

‘What do you want?’, he growls as he looks around blindly.

‘I’ve come for you’, says the stranger.

‘For me? Who are you?’

‘I’m death – it’s time’.

‘Death?’, cries the businessman with great alarm.

This was certainly not in his schedule.

It seems that in the process of amassing a fortune – of becoming rich and successful, he’d also been building up stress, and his heart has all but given out.

‘Death?’, he says desperately.  

“No, no. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me. I’m determined to enjoy the fruits of my success.”

‘Death’ is coldly indifferent to his plea, and with a wave of its hand, ‘Death’ counts he who once said, ‘take life easy, eat, drink and be merry’, out of the picture.

Well, they have the service a few days later.

People speak of the man as a model citizen, a successful entrepreneur, ‘a big barn-builder’ – is how one friend puts it.

They quote some of the great poets, read some verses, sing a hymn, and then go home.

That night the angel of God visits the gravesite and writes in letters-large across the headstone:

F.O.O.L.

Jesus concluded his story with these words, ‘’This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for themselves – but is not rich toward God’ (v.21).

A ‘fool’, biblically defined, is the man, woman, boy or girl, who lives life, without reference to God.

In Psalm 14 we read these words, ‘The fool says in their heart, there is no God.’

It seems you can prepare for life’s every contingency but ignore life’s only inevitability; death and the eternity which follows.

Such foolishness.

How then, can a person prepare for death; for the time when tomorrow will in fact be no more?

Or in Jesus’ words, how might we be ‘rich towards God’?

Unlike the ‘fool’ – who lives life without reference to God, the truly ‘rich’ person seeks first the Kingdom of God.

That’s how Jesus explained it later, in Luke 12:33.

He said, “You seek first the Kingdom of God, and I’ll ensure that you have all the necessary resources for the journey.”

Rather than living independently from God, Jesus explained that living in absolute and utter dependence on God’s mercy is his plan and purpose for us.

Seeking first the Kingdom, has to do with living under the rule, or the care of the King.

The late George Harrison, also no stranger to success and wealth, made the following confession shortly before his death, to Anthony de Curtis – a journalist from Rolling Stone magazine,  

“Everything else in life can wait, but the search for God cannot wait” (From: NBC ‘Today’, 30.11.01)

Now the good news is this: God is looking for us.

Yes, Jesus’ whole purpose in coming into our world was to ‘seekand save the lost’. Luke 19:10.

Hence Advent.

We take time each year to marvel at God’s mercy and grace – his coming to us, his ‘incarnation’ – his taking on flesh, for the express purpose of ‘seeking and saving the lost.

God is searching us out.

And if you are in any doubts about that, we only need recall the words of the angel at Jesus’ birth – Luke 2:10, “Do not be afraid, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

‘Lost’ people; that’s people like us, people like me, people like the foolish man in Jesus’ story.

People who – in and of themselves, live life without reference to God.

And whilst we’ve all broken God’s commands and decrees – and his heart for that matter, whilst we’ve fallen short of God’s expectations and ideals for his people, Jesus never did.

Not once.

It is this sin-less Jesus who said to his followers (Luke 9:22), ‘The Son of Man [Jesus’ way of talking about himself] must suffer many things and be rejected by the people, he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life’.

Jesus dies a ‘substitutionary’ death. 

That’s how he saves those whom he seeks.

That’s how the ‘lost’ are found.

Jesus experiences the death and the darkness to which we were all headed.

And so in his death on that cruel cross, Jesus willingly stands in our stead, and embraces the consequences of my sin and yours.

The fool says in their heart, there is no God.

By contrast, seeking first the Kingdom means first and foremost, receiving Jesus’ gift of life and submitting to him as Lord.

You see, there are no self-made people in the Kingdom of Heaven – only forgiven ones.

As we’ve noted, today is Advent I and we begin our celebrations of the Saviour coming to us – and we also look to his second advent.

And the promise – from today’s epistle I Corinthians 1:8, is that on that day, and in God’s mercy, you will stand before Jesus forgiven and blameless.

And that he will sustain and keep us ‘firm’ (the word Paul uses) on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ; that day when he is ‘revealed’ (I Corinthians 1:7) as Lord and King over all creation.

Hallelujah!

May we pray?

Dear Lord Jesus,

Thank you for coming to us – to seek and to save us.

Forgive our foolishness and hard-heartedness.

This day, this Advent I, we place our lives in your hands. 

Help us to seek first your Kingdom; to live as those who are ‘rich’ to God.

Please sustain us and keep us firm in the faith.

Thank you for hearing and answering this prayer.

In the name of Christ our Saviour and returning King.

Amen.