Freedom 55: Luke 12:13-21 and the Parable of the Wicked RSP

Presented to Swift Current Corps 03 September 2010
By Captain Michael Ramsay

We had a great time at camp and a lot of really interesting things happened, the Lord really spoke through the speaker: Major Don Law, who was -of course- the corps officer here once upon a time. At men’s camp there are always lots of stories and I would love to tell you some of them but there is that old rule that whatever happens at men’s camp stays at men’s camp so no sharing of any secrets; isn’t that right, Sparrow? Men’s camp really was a great time of fishing and fellowship and fishing and eating and fishing and teaching and fishing – I think we felt a lot like Jesus’ original disciples: they were predominantly fisherman after all and they enjoyed getting out on the water for some good fellowship and great teaching.

This pericope that we read today in the meeting is part of a great teaching time of Jesus’. Jesus is a very engaging teacher: I have previously compared Jesus to some of those popular or shock-TV show hosts.[1] He does a lot out of the ordinary in his lessons with miraculous healings, casting out of demons (cf. for ex. Luke 11:14-28; cf. also Matthew 12:22-45, Mark 3:23-27) wonderful stories and parables (ex. Luke 10:25-37, 11:29-32, 33-36), great teaching of course (ex. Luke 11:37-54, 12:1-12), and much, much more. You can read in Luke’s text how big crowds are gathering repeatedly and constantly and more and more people are coming to see him all the time. The crowd today is mentioned in Luke 11:27 and it continues to increase. Luke 11:29: Jesus then goes for dinner at a Pharisee’s house and by the time he leaves there a crowd of many thousands has gathered (Luke 11:37, 53). The word here in Luke 11:53 for many thousands, “myrias means properly ‘ten thousand’ (in Acts 19:19 five ‘myriads’ amount to 50,000). But the term is often used indefinitely of a large crowd and that will be the meaning here. The article with it in the Greek may mean ‘the usual large crowd.’”[2] Whatever the details of this crowd, this great amount of people, Luke 12:1 records that there are so many people that they are trampling on one another.

Picture this scene with me, if you will. Jesus is popular. I don’t know if people still get trampled waiting in line to buy tickets for popular concerts with all the on-line tickets available nowadays and with less festival seating than there was years ago but I can remember in my teen years waiting in a line-up to see a concert and people were starting to push and trample and I got knocked down and caught in the middle of it. When I got up, disoriented as I was from my experience, my eyesight was even blurry for quite a while. I wasn’t seeing right. It was scary. It was quite a thing and there weren’t even thousands, let alone tens of thousands, in that crowd. I know in my time people have even died being crushed in concert or in ticket line-ups for popular acts.

Imagine what it must be like for the people pushing and fighting to see and hear Jesus in such large numbers. I imagine that a good number of the crowd continues to wait outside even when he goes to have dinner with the Pharisee and I imagine that others have even at this point been waiting for days, trying to get close enough to catch a glimpse of Jesus. I know that when I first went to college, we camped out all night in a rainstorm once - mind you that wasn’t to see a celebrity of any kind; it was to get a parking pass for the year. They never had enough for all the students who had cars. If we are that persistent and that tenacious when it comes to waiting for a parking permit, think of how much more persistent people would and should be waiting to see the Messiah.

When Jesus then finally does exit the Pharisee’s house, it seems that there is still this large enthusiastic crowd waiting for him but before addressing it, before making any public proclamations to the audience who has for quite a while been eagerly awaiting him to begin speaking, before saying anything directly to the crowd that is waiting for the Jesus Show to begin; he first instructs his helpers, his assistants: he first tells his disciples who are near to him (if there was a stage they would be on it with him). He instructs them to beware of the Pharisees (Luke 12:1): as the Pharisees had been fiercely opposing him and had just finished (for the time being) trying to trick Jesus into saying something that would get him in trouble (Luke 11:54-55).

Jesus speaks with his disciples and as Jesus speaks about this for a while (Luke 12:1-11) he goes on to encourage and warn his disciples that if they deny or disown him before men, he will likewise disown them to God but if they acknowledge him before men, he will acknowledge them before God (Luke 12:8-9). The crowds, in this time, as he is speaking with his disciples, they continue to gather around him. It would probably be like he was standing up here on the platform discussing with members of the worship team before the service and the congregation is pressing up against the platform waiting eagerly for the meeting to start. Or it would be even more like a famous singer on stage speaking with his or her band or crew while screaming teenagers are pushing up against the security guards at the front. This is what it is like with Jesus here.

It is in this setting and in this context where someone in this crowd of thousands of people calls to him – picture Mosaic Stadium, the crowd is probably at least that large; this crowd might very well be more than the population of Swift Current and is almost certainly more than the population of most of the cities in Saskatchewan and remember they were just trampling themselves to get to Jesus. Someone in this crowd calls out to Jesus: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13).

At first this sounds a little strange. Can you imagine if you went to hear a concert or a Billy/Franklin Graham Crusade in Saskatoon and someone yells out to the celebrity, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” This would seem a little out of place. But Jesus is a teacher, remember, and “a person who recognized Jesus as a ‘teacher’ (Luke 12:13) would naturally expect him to have the ability to render a judgment in ethical matters (Luke 12:14). Rabbis were often thus consulted, and in later years some traveled from place to place to render legal decisions. Jesus’ refusal to answer is not a denial of his right or ability to answer, nor of his concern for social and ethical matters.”[3] It is just neither the place nor the time to address the details of such matters with the large crowds pressing him but there is something quite significant in what this man calls out that Jesus does readily address at this time and in this venue. This man is concerned about money and what he feels is due him and he is very likely concerned about a real injustice! He calls out: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13). And Jesus had just been talking about something very similar with his disciples (Luke 12: 1-12) so Jesus answers the whole crowd this man’s legitimate (he wasn’t trying to trick Jesus) question. Jesus says this to the man who cries “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me”:

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

Jesus rebukes this man who brings to him a (probably very legitimate) question about inheritance that encompasses how his presumably older brother should treat him fairly (cf. Deuteronomy 21:17, Numbers 27:1-11, 36:7-9)[4] and which could be a surprise because Jesus especially in Luke has a reputation for showing preferential treatment to the poor (cf. Luke 8:21, 11:28, 16:19-31, 18:18-30; cf. also: Exodus 23:6,11, Leviticus 19:10,15, 23:22, 27:8, Deuteronomy 15:4, 15:7, 15:11, 24:12-15, 1 Samuel 2:8, Psalms 22:26, 34:6, 35:10, 82:3, Isaiah 61:1, Ezekiel 16:49, 18:12, 22:29, Amos 2:7, 4:1, 5:11-12, 8:4-6, Zechariah 7:10).[5] Jesus tells this man who has probably been wronged that rather than worry about justice he should just not to be so greedy and then he tells this parable of the rich fool (Luke 18:18-30; cf. Matthew 19:16-29, Mark 10:17-30).[6]

What about the parable? What is the sin of the man in the parable? What does he do? Well, the rich fool in the story is certainly very blessed by God because it says that his crops were so successful that, Verse 17, he didn’t even have enough room to store all of his crops. (I’m sure a lot of the farmers around here would love to have that problem this year!) The man in the parable, instead of squandering his wealth to date, this rich person has been preparing for his future. By saving his crops, he is basically investing in RSPs. He had seemingly gone to a retirement planning seminar and this is nothing less than his Freedom 55 plan: he tears down the old barns; he builds new ones. He has been building up his retirement nest egg for years it says, Verse 19, and now he plans to take a cruise, retire on the beach in Florida, or do whatever it is that retired folk do in first century Palestine. Whatever it is, it sounds exactly like an ad for retirement savings in our day and age.

You can just picture a TV commercial like this can’t you? There is the man sitting in a deck chair by the pool speaking to a future version of himself saying, verse 19, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” But this ad has a very different ending to the ones we are used to seeing on TV. In this ad, when the announcer cuts onto the screen, instead of giving us the fine print of how to save and invest, Jesus comments, with the man relaxing on his proverbial pool chair in the background, Verses 20-21, “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” This is not quite the ending we have become accustomed to hearing in our day and age. I have always found this parable interesting to say the least. It is often referred to as the parable of the rich fool. I would probably call it the parable of the wicked RSP; the wicked retirement savings plan.

Let us not forget that Jesus tells this story in response to someone simply asking Jesus to tell his brother to give him what he deserves (Luke 12:13). So what was the sin of the parable? Was it that the man invested in his future retirement? This is part of it. The man who asked Jesus the question wanted some probably deserved inheritance for himself. The character in the parable Jesus tells is showing self-reliance here rather than relying on God.[7] This is like – for those of us who have been attending the Tuesday evening Bible study – the Israelites that declined to put their trust in God and who refused to let the land lie fallow as they were instructed to do every seventh year (Leviticus 25:2-7, 19-22; 26:14-46; cf. Exodus 23:10f). After extending them many, many years of grace, God then removes them from His land and keeps them away until the land has had all the rest that God commanded the Israelites to give it (Leviticus 26:14-46, 2 Chronicles 36:22, Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10; cf. Daniel 1:1, Daniel 9)! This man in the parable of the wicked retirement savings plan here is likewise not putting his trust in God. He is looking after his own future rather than looking after others and relying on God (cf. Exodus 16:17-20 where the same sin occurs with manna).

What about us? We should not be storing up our wealth for an unknown future here. We should not be concerned about how much money we will have to retire or even whether or not we can retire. “The fact is, says Jesus, that anxiety reflects a lack of trust in God, a lack of interest in the kingdom, [and] is not productive.”[8] We have been learning about our time, talents, and now treasures here in Swift Current lately and that God doesn’t just get a tenth of our money, time, and talents. He doesn’t just get 10%. God shouldn’t just get 20%. If we really are His followers, He gets 100% of us. He is our Lord. We know this but do we ever put our trust in whatever is in our storehouses instead?

Do we ever put our trust in our monetary savings or whatever else is in our storehouses instead of trusting in God? Luke warns us again and again and again about the dangers of wealth (Luke 8:21, 11:28, 16:19-31, 18:18-30); it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of the needle (Luke 18:15). Luke later in his gospel here tells Jesus’ parable of the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-29; cf. Matthew 19:16-29, Mark 10:17-30). This man kept all of the commandments since he was young (Luke 18:21) but Jesus told him that he still lacked one thing and he needed to sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow him (Luke 18:22). This rich man instead went away very sad (Luke 18:23). He was sad, I imagine, because he believed Jesus and knew that what he was telling him was true: why else would he be sad?

In Canada we have been given a lot of wealth like the men in the parables. Even the poorest person in Canada is among the wealthiest in the world. Canada –in response to the horrors of the American civil wars (1774-1789; 1861-1865) was intentionally founded on the Word of God (in particular Psalm 72)[9] and for many years we kept His commandments but now it appears that we are instead going away sad. Like the rich man in the parable of the wicked retirement savings plan, we have been blessed greatly by God and like the same man in that same parable we have corporately hoarded our resources into proverbial RSPs or storehouses so that we can “have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:19). This is alarming. As a society, we are that rich fool in the parable. Individually, we not to be; we need to wake up!

It is only when we are rich toward God that we are safe. Jesus goes on beyond what we have read already here to explain this parable further to his disciples (Luke 12:22-44). He tells them that “therefore…do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing (vv.22-23).” Jesus repeats his comforting command not to worry or be afraid 5 times in verses 22-40. God will provide just as God provides for the birds and the lilies; therefore, we should not concern ourselves with that. As Jesus is recoded as teaching (12:31-34) to his disciples:

For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So then, Jesus says, we should not be storing up our wealth for an unknown future here. We should not be concerned about how much money we will have to retire or even whether or not we can retire. “The fact is, says Jesus, that anxiety reflects a lack of trust in God, a lack of interest in the kingdom, [and this] is not productive.” [10] We should not be concerned with the things of this present age like what we are to eat, drink, and wear. The Lord knows what we need and, like the father when his child asks for an egg (Luke 11:13), He will provide what is needed (Luke 12:31). Rather than be concerned about financial matters, we would be better to strive for the Kingdom of God and do the will of the Father.

Let us pray:
Lord, please help us not be concerned with the things of this present age like what we are to eat, drink, and wear. Lord help us to realise that everything that we seem to own really is yours and Lord help us to use that which you have given us stewardship over for your Kingdom and your Glory. Lord help us to actively put our faith in you, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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[1] Captain Michael Ramsay, 'Luke 8:1-18 - The Jesus Show', presented to each the Nipawin and Tisdale Corps 15 July 2007. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/08/luke-81-18-jesus-show.html
[2] Leon Morris, ‘Luke: An Introduction and Commentary’, Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1988 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 3), S. 225
[3] The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Luke/Exposition of Luke/V. Teaching and Travels Toward Jerusalem (9:51-19:44)/D. Teachings on Times of Crisis and Judgment (12:1-13:35)/2. Parable of the rich fool (12:13-21), Book Version: 4.0.2
[4] R. Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 255
[5] Cf. Theodore W. Jennings Jr., ‘Good News to the Poor: John Wesley’s Evangelical Economics’ (Abingdon Press: Nashville, Tenn: 1990), 47 and Jose Miranda. Marx and the Bible: a Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression. Trans., John Eagleson. (New York: Orbis Books, 1979) 250
[6] William Hendriksen, ‘NTC: Luke’ (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, Mi, 2007), 661-662.
[7] Leon Morris, ‘Luke: An Introduction and Commentary’, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988 Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 3), S. 231. Cf. also E. Earle Ellis, ‘TNCBC: The Gospel of Luke’ (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Mi.: 1981), 177.
[8] Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching: Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press 1990), 164.
[9] Cf. Captain Michael Ramsay, 'Psalm 72: the Credit Card of Justice and Righteousness', presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps 01 July 2007. Available on-line at http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/08/psalm-72-credit-card-of-justice-and.html
[10] Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching: Lousiville, Kentucky: John Knox Press 1990), 164.