A fool and his money are soon parted, right? Someone has rewritten it to suggest that "A fool and his money are some party!" Of course, this link between a fool and money (or possessions) goes back at least as far as our gospel lesson. The story is prompted by a man from the crowd that has been surrounding Jesus: "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me" (Luke 12:13). Apparently the man's older brother refused to give him what he felt he was due.
The laws of inheritance in that day stipulated that the elder brother would receive a double portion of the legacy (Deuteronomy 21:17), then the balance distributed. For whatever reason, this fellow was feeling cheated and he wanted Rabbi Jesus to act as Probate Judge, just as Moses had done centuries before (Numbers 27:1-11). But Jesus would have none of it.
As is so often the case when families gather for the reading of the will, the issue is not justice, it is greed, pure and simple. The shame is that families are often permanently torn apart by it. Jesus says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed" (Luke 12:15).
Now, in good rabbinic fashion Jesus says, "Let me tell you a story." He begins to talk about this rich guy, a farmer who has done very well for himself.[1] He was doing nothing illegal. This was no slumlord or drug dealer, he did not cheat his employees or mistreat them. This was lawful profit — Horatio Alger stuff. He was a hard worker, an upstanding citizen. Through a combination of skill, luck, and plain hard work, his investment and labor have paid off. He has this massive crop in.
Now what? He has to store it someplace. He called in the architect to help him plan bigger barns. The hours pass, finally the architect says, "Look, I have got to get home. I have been out every night this week."
"Leave the plans with me," says the man, "I will keep working on them. We can pick it up tomorrow." The man continues to work with his drawings and his figures.
Mrs. Farmer came in to say, "Goodnight, dear. Don't work too late." But he barely heard her, he was so caught up in the vision of the future.
The hours passed, and he sensed what seemed to be a knock at the door. But before he could answer the door there seemed to be someone in the room with him. "Who are you?"
"I am death," the presence replied.
"What are you doing here?"
"I have come for you. Ten, nine, eight."
"Wait a minute, I'm not ready. You didn't warn me."
"Oh yes, I warned you. I warned you when that young man had that boating accident and when the friend you started farming with died of cancer. Think about those twinges in your chest and left arm. I warned you, but whether or not you were listening, who can say? Seven, six, five."
"Wait, wait, I will give you half of all I have."
"What is that to me? Four, three."
"Wait, I will give you everything I have. I will start all over again. I am not ready."
But the countdown continued ... "two, one, and out."
In the morning, his wife found him slumped over the papers. The pressure building up in his system had simply been too much for his heart. The little pain he felt and ignored had been the warning of something more massive.
At the farmer's funeral many fine words were spoken. He was an example to the community, he was a big barn builder, always willing to help his neighbor in times of need, and a strong supporter of community charities. A fine man, a fine man, indeed. But that night, the angel of God walked through the cemetery and wrote on the man's headstone the letters "FOOL."
"So are all of you," Jesus said, "who are rich in the things of this world but have no treasure in heaven." The fool and his money are parted — permanently. There are no pockets in a shroud, no UHauls behind a hearse.
Please be careful here. Do not make the man worse than he was. He was not unlike most of us in his passions and motives. Notice, too, that what happened was not a punishment. The message of the parable is not that God does not like people who work hard and are successful. The parable is simply an observation of the way life is for all of us, rich or poor, successful or struggling. Death is one of those facts of life, and no matter what you accumulate, nothing will change that.
Another fact is that those possessions (or the pursuit of them) can become so overburdening as to be fatal. The Greek rendering of this passage is more explicit than the English: "This night they [the possessions] will require your soul from you" (Luke 12:20 cf). Those possessions can be dangerous, even deadly. Be careful!
Now we begin to see why our rich friend was called such a nasty name. Obviously, he was inordinately preoccupied with those potentially deadly possessions. Until the voice of God interrupted, all we heard about was stuff — his "land, crops, barns, grain, ample goods." He sounded as if he came from the school of thought that was convinced that the one who died with the most toys won.
But he had more of a problem than an accumulation of stuff. He had come to believe that the stuff was his security. Wrong, fool! Even without the problem of an untimely demise, this never works. Ask anyone who has ever been robbed, had their house burn, or seen their home slide slowly over a rain-soaked cliff.
Admittedly, we understand him. We come from a society that encourages the same in all of us. The Romans had a proverb: "Money is like seawater; the more you drink, the thirstier you become." We know, we know.
Jesus says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15). He made the statement in response to a request for help with an inheritance problem. He could have concluded with a story about another family's settlement of an estate. Again, it involves two brothers.[2] The older brother was very rich. He had been successful in business and the world. Over the years he had never married and did not really have friends. He spent all of his time working. The younger brother, on the other hand, had a large family and many friends. He worked hard, but had little to show for his work. It seemed as though between his family and helping his friends the money just barely went far enough.
One day the men got word that their father had died and the land that had been the family farm was to be divided between the two brothers equally. They both went to stay in their father's house while they tended to the various matters and arrangements of their father's affairs. After their father had been buried, surveyors came and marked the land to allow for equal distribution.
One night the older brother was lying in his bed, and he thought of his younger brother and how poor he was. With his big family he could certainly use some extra income. He thought, "I am rich and have plenty. I will go out in the dark of the night and move the marker that divides the farm in half, giving him the bigger portion of the land."
Meanwhile, the younger brother was lying in bed and thinking about his older brother and how alone he was, without family and friends. He thought about how blessed he was to have a large family and so many friends. He thought, "All my brother has to remind him of his family is this piece of land. I will go out in the middle of the night and move the marker over further on my side, so that he may have the bigger piece of the land."
That night, in the middle of their father's field the two brothers met. When each heard what the other brother was doing, they embraced and wept. Years later, legend has it, that the city of Jerusalem was built upon the spot where their tears had fallen.
Listen once more to Jesus: "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15).
1. Credit to Ross Bartlett's sermon, "Learning From A Fool" via internet for the creative retelling of the parable, http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/c-or18-98.html.
2. An old Hasidic tale that can be found in a number of iterations on the internet.