“Money can’t buy me love”

On Thursday, The Public’s Radio – our local NPR station announced a one-day emergency pledge drive to make up for its loss of $1 million in funding because of President Trump’s actions to stifle public service journalism. This one-day appeal led me to double my monthly contribution, an instance of sheer defiance and an act of resistance against yet another act of petty tyranny.

Increasing my support for NPR is an acceptance of my responsibility to be a good steward of my resources in support of the common good. Today’s gospel alerts us to the centrality of good stewardship in the life of Christian discipleship! In our parish’s yearly cycle, it’s not quite time to talk about making an NPR-style pledge drive commitment– after all it’s only August and the dreaded month of the October stewardship campaign may seem some time away. But in my defense I quote one of Susan Allen’s oft-repeated phrases when she feels the compulsion to tell me something I don’t want to hear – I’m just saying.

The story of the wealthy farmer in Luke 12 is not a condemnation of wealth or those who possess it, although, like many of us feel today, Jesus keenly felt the injustice of the vast wealth disparities of his day.   More than almost any other topic, Jesus speaks about the relationship of wealth and money to the priorities of the human heart.

While there’s no precise number that everyone agrees on, biblical scholars generally estimate that Jesus talks about money in approximately 11 of his 39 parables (some say up to 16 depending on interpretation). About one in every seven verses in the Gospel of Luke references money or possessions. Overall, Jesus makes over 25 direct statements regarding wealth, money, material possessions, or roughly 20% of all his recorded teachings.

Jesus’ teaching on wealth and excess abundance was not a targeted criticism of the wealthy as such, but a critique of the corruption of values that often goes hand in hand with the possession of excess wealth and power. In Luke 18, just a few chapters on from the story we hear today, Jesus says that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, we shouldn’t misread his critique – aimed not at those wealthy but at the corruption of values and the hardening of the heart that distort the connections between wealth and responsibility.

Likewise, Luke 12 is a snapshot of Jesus’ teaching on the core responsibility of Christian discipleship. The subtext of the story of the wealthy farmer is a warning to be on guard against attitudes that lead us to view our abundance as ours alone and not as a resource to be shared in the strengthening and advancement of the common good. 

A now regrettably dwindling few Episcopalians may still remember one of the most evocative offertory sentences in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which quotes from Matthew 6:19-20.

Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break in and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

The sentence concludes with a direction to look at the things you treasure as the best guide to discovering the state of your heart. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

In contemporary America, our addiction to the accumulation of material possessions is a good indication of where to find our hearts. Our national addiction to excess abundance offers some staggering stats. SpareFoot’s 2024 industry almanac reports approximately 2.1 billion sq ft – equivalent to 75.3 sq miles of commercial self-storage facilities in operation nationwide. It’s expected that a further 56 million sq ft will be added in this year alone. One in three Americans use commercial self-storage at an average cost of $128 per 10×10 sq foot of space.  RI has 3.38 million sq ft of commercial self-storage space, which is equivalent to 3.2 sq ft per person. This falls far beneath the US average of 5.4 sq ft of commercial storage space per person.

Why is this the case? A simple answer lies in the corruption of the human heart, whereby we have come to identify ourselves with what we own. There’s also the reasoning that goes, well, I don’t have an immediate use for all of this stuff, but you never know what the future holds. Possessions easily become symbols of security, providing an illusion of protection against adversity.

The farmer comforts himself with the prospect of building even bigger barns in which to store even greater wealth, further consoling himself with the prospect of even more ample abundance to last many years. He tells himself he can afford to kick off his sandals, put his feet up, eat, drink, and be merry. The farmer is presented as a fool, not because he’s rich and getting richer. His foolishness lies in his assigning finite things infinite value. He believes that his prosperity will insulate him from fate and fortune, and thus, his need to increase the volume of his possessions. The farmer represents a common human dilemma in the face of the answer to the question, when is enough, enough – is – just a little bit more.

The literary form of the parable is characterized by being a story drawn from everyday experience with an unexpected sting in its conclusion. If Jesus were to reconstruct this parable for today’s context, who do you imagine he would cast as the principal protagonist – the main character in the story? I’ll leave you to fill in the blank.

The parable of the wealthy farmer plays on the paradox between earthly wealth and spiritual bankruptcy.  Despite this man’s confidence that he will be protected by his wealth, in the end, which, like all endings, will come suddenly and unexpectedly, his attitude exposes his spiritual bankruptcy. To paraphrase Jesus, the coinage for life in the kingdom of God cannot be paid for in cash, stocks, or property. Only the coinage of gratitude and generosity of heart, measured by the good we have done and the love we have shown is accepted here.

As his disciples, we are called to continue the prophetic work bequeathed to us by Jesus. We struggle to overcome the seduction of possessions, our addiction to accumulating stuff in the interest of amassing personal power and prestige, or to ward off our existential insecurity. We are easily tricked by the illusion that we become what we own.

In the face of corrupting messages of autonomous individuality, as Christians, we assert the solidarity of community and our responsibility to contribute to the strengthening of our everyday life – lived together.  

This takes us to the central conundrum posed by Jesus in this parable – the sting in the story’s tail, so to speak. Is our trust in material abundance sufficient to carry the weight of our longing for meaning and joy in life?

Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth —- I think you know the rest of the line. Or in the words of Lennon and McCartney money can’t buy me love.