Jump Start # 1265

Luke 12:19 “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”

The parable of the farmer who tore down his barns to build larger barns is where our verse comes from today. This parable is the Lord’s response to someone who interrupted Him, with demands to get involved with a family squabble over inheritances. This man thought that Jesus would side with him. He was hoping that Jesus would tell his brother to be more fair and give him more inheritance. Jesus didn’t do that. Instead, Jesus rebuked this man. He told him that his heart was greedy. Then comes the parable. The farmer in the parable is this greedy brother who wants more money from the inheritance. In Biblical times, the eldest son got one half of the estate. The other sons had to split the other half. Birth order meant everything. I could understand this man’s complaint. I’m the second of three sons. Not fair. That’s just the way it was.

The parable of the rich farmer illustrates a person who was greedy. Multiple times the farmer refers to himself and he never mentions God. The story begins with, “The land of a certain man was prosperous.” There are many good things about this farmer. He wasn’t lazy. He worked the fields. He knew what he was doing. He planned and was very prosperous, but of all people, the farmer especially understands His partnership with the Lord. It’s God who makes soil fertile. It’s God who controls the rains and sunshine. A cool, wet spring can be disastrous to farmers. Then there are droughts, insects, hot spells. There are so many things, especially back then, that were out of the farmer’s hands. He relied upon the Lord so much. For this one particular season, it was prosperous. It was a great year. It was so good, that the farmer was getting out of farming. He was going to retire. Our verse tells us that he planned to “take your ease.” That’s not in the vocabulary of most farmers that I know. They are busy all the time. Taking ease means retirement. He’s getting out of the farming business. That is how productive the season was.

Often, in this parable, there is too much emphasis placed upon the “tearing down of my barns and building larger ones.” That is seen as a negative. Had the farmer only kept the barns he had, we think, maybe he would have lived. That’s not it. We all have torn down barns and built larger ones. Most of us started out in small apartments, or little houses. For us, it was a preacher’s house that was provided by the church. Nothing fancy about it. Since that time, we’ve moved up in size of homes. We do that with cars. We do that with the amount of clothes we own. The larger over the smaller isn’t the issue. This can be used as a guilt complex for brethren who have wealth. Some feel like they must apologize to others. They are often made to feel guilty. Shame on us for doing that. Some of God’s greatest people had material wealth. Consider Job. Consider Abraham.

The issue here is not barns but heart. This man was not rich toward God. That’s what Jesus tells us. He was not thankful. He did not honor God with his wealth. He had no plans to help others, give to the temple, or do anything other than horde it for himself. He was greedy. He was living without God. He thought he was doing fine without God.

Our verse today reminds us that this rich farmer didn’t know what time it was.

• He thought it was time to take his ease. It wasn’t.
• He thought he had many years to come. He didn’t.
• He thought he owned the future. He was wrong.

The passage ends with this horrific statement, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you.” This parable doesn’t have a happy ending. It isn’t the stuff that makes good bedtime stories. The farmer’s dreams become a terrible nightmare in which he cannot escape. That night. That very night, he died. He didn’t have time to change. He didn’t have time to get his affairs in order. He didn’t have time to settle up his estate. He died that night. He died unprepared. He died not knowing God.

Our verse has a very unique statement in it. The rich farmer speaks to himself and says, “Soul…” He was talking to his soul. We don’t do that. He should have been talking to God. Had he done that, he may have adjusted his plans, been more thankful and thoughtful. Instead, he talked to himself. What he said sounded good to himself. He simply did not know what time it was.

This lesson about greed becomes a lesson about time as well. Do we know what time it is? At the start of a new year, we make all kinds of plans, goals. We map out vacations. We think about trips, holidays, weddings and all the events that will happen in the year. Those events are based upon one major factor, that we are still around. Those larger barns didn’t get built, because the rich farmer wasn’t around to build them. He didn’t know what time it was.

Our thoughts, our plans, our goals, must include God. “God willing,” as James reminds us to say, isn’t just a cute, “Get out of jail free” card that keeps us alive. It’s a thought, similar to ending our prayers, “in Jesus’ name.” God willing, means if God allows. What if He doesn’t? Have you considered that?

A few thoughts now: If your life ends this year:

• Can your family survive? Have you taken care of things so that they can continue on. This is practical and financial thinking. Wills, papers in order, life insurance and telling people where they can be found if you are not around to tell them. If you have things hidden and no one knows, then guess what happens if your soul is required this night? No one knows.

• How will your family do spiritually without you? Have you thought about that? Have you had talks, discussions and devotions about what is real and what the Lord expects from all of us? It is sad to see after a funeral, the family slowly slipping away and out of sight. Their faith was tied to a parent who no longer is here. Build that faith in your family. Turn the TV off, and talk about things.

• In this parable the Lord asks the rich farmer, “Now who will own what you have prepared?” What’s going to happen to your barns Mr. Farmer? What’s going to happen to that bumper crop you have, Mr. Farmer? And, for us, who will own what we have collected? Have you thought about that? You ought to.

• Most importantly, how are you and the Lord? Have you been putting things off that you need to take care of? Have you been slack about some things? Have you hidden sins that you ought to repent of? Have you not forgiven someone that you should? If your soul was required of you THIS night, what would the Lord think about you?

This farmer thought he was rich. He was really poor. He died and none of the crops, the barns, farming tools went with him. What he took was a selfish, greedy soul that was ungrateful to God and thought he was in control of the future. How wrong he was. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are the poorest people in regards to God. The Lord’s words, “lay up for selves treasures in Heaven,” is very fitting here.

All of this makes us look at ourselves. That’s the way parables work. We see ourselves right in the midst. In this parable there was just the farmer and God. No one else. You and God…what do you see?

The farmer never knew what time it was. Do you?

Roger

Jump Start # 929

Luke 12:19 “And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”

Our passage today comes from the parable of the rich farmer. Jesus used this parable to reply to someone’s demand for Jesus to get involved in settling a family inheritance dispute. Jesus would not do that. That is not why He came. That conversation followed a warning about greed and abundance. Life does not consist of abundance is the principle that Jesus was illustrating with this parable of the rich farmer.

The farmer in this parable had many good things going for him. First, he was rich. Many farmers are not. Many struggle. Weather dictates the success in farming and no one can predict nor control the weather. Not only was he rich, he had future plans. He was planning on expanding. Larger barns. Larger barns are needed for more bountiful harvests. He was even planning to slow down and retire. Our verse states that he was going to “take your ease.” there isn’t a lot of ease in farming. Up early. Working hard all day. That every expression implied that he was just about to the point that he was going to retire. Farming had been good to him.

The parable takes a horrible twist when he died suddenly that night. He hadn’t calculated that. He didn’t see death in his future. In the parable he is called a fool. The word “fool” is the harshest word God ever uses. It’s not because he was rich, successful or planning. It’s because he failed to include God. Long before this the Psalmist declared, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” This rich farmer lived that way. He may have known that there is a God, but he didn’t act that way. He lived as if he was in control of things, he wasn’t. He lived as if he was always going to have a future to build barns, he didn’t.

Our verse today, uses a very interesting expression. It says, “I will say to my soul, “Soul…” We do not talk that way. We talk to ourselves. We sing to ourselves. We think out loud. We read out loud. We say that we are thinking. The Bible uses the concept of meditating. Rarely, if ever, do we hear, “I will say to my soul…” Our soul and ourselves are so intertwined that you cannot separate them. You can’t leave your soul in bed and the rest of you go off to work or school. That doesn’t happen. That can’t happen. There is no separation. One affects the other. Our soul affects our behavior. Our behavior affects our soul. We feed our soul, spiritually. We strengthen our soul spiritually. Our soul lives after our bodies die.

It might be good if once in a while we talked to our soul. Our soul is who we are. It defines us. A conversation with our self or our soul might help us keep our priorities in line. It may connect us to what is important in life. It may reveal a weakness, as this farmer would have noticed had he been paying attention spiritually.

Greed, like lust, like most addictions, creates tunnel vision. It’s all a person can see, think about and talk about. They become obsessed. It takes over their life. Nothing else seems to matter. Greed is not stuff, but it’s that desire or wanting of stuff. It thinks that a person will be more happy with more or bigger or newer things. It defines things by labels. The name of a suit, sunglasses, brand of car, watch, shoes impresses many people. I’ve found that a name of a designer, who I have never heard of before, and who I can’t even pronounce, generally makes things more expensive. It’s a show off type of thing. A person will say, “I’m wearing Mr. Big Italian designer watch.” Some would say, “Ohh,” because they are impressed. The most important thing, does that watch tell the time!

The rich farmer had a talk with his soul. They  talked about the wrong things. The conversation with his soul didn’t go well. He convinced himself that he was on the right path, doing the right things and had thought it all out. WRONG. He forgot God. He failed to thank God for the kind weather that made him successful. He failed to ask God for his plans and wishes. He certainly failed to include, “Thy will be done.” He wasn’t interested in God’s will, but his will. This wasn’t about what God wanted, but what he wanted. This wasn’t about God’s glory, but his ease, retirement and comfort. That’s what greed will do for you. It’s a faulty GPS. It’s a broken compass. It sends us down the wrong path and that path is always away from God. Greed doesn’t lead a person to God. It always takes a person away from God. Greed doesn’t make us a kinder servant, like Jesus would like us to be. Instead it makes us grumpy, stingy and selfish. Greed hordes. Greed takes.

When a person talks to their soul, they ought to listen to what they are saying. Do you hear yourself? What are you saying?

The farmer died. He died suddenly. He died not realizing that he no longer had a future here. He died without giving any thought to who will have his barns after he was gone. He died and never made a difference for anyone. He died without walking with God.

Maybe it would do us all well to turn off the car radio and talk to our own soul. That little talk may tell you that you need to step it up with the Lord. It may tell you that your attitude is out of line and needs some adjusting. It may tell you that your are becoming grumpy and selfish. It may make you thankful that you even have today. It may make you thankful that you have a family, a job and a Lord that loves you.

Do not think that talking to your soul is as good as or can replace talking to the Lord. Prayer and talking to your soul can be about the same things, the difference is that one is talking to self and the other is talking to the God of Heaven and Earth. We are limited in what we can do, what we know and what we see. God is not. God can open doors that no one can. God can do what we cannot not. Pray to God—talk to your soul. Do them both. Connect the two together. One will help with the other.

“I will say to my soul…”

Roger