Somewhere along the way I saw a cartoon of an elderly man of obvious wealth on a canopied death bed, surrounded by servants, family members, lawyers, and all sorts of “hangers-on”. It was quite clear why most of the people had gathered there, but now the old gentleman is sitting up with his arms folded and a very determined look on his face. One bystander says to another, “Someone just told him he couldn’t take it with him, and so he says he isn’t going.”

We chuckle at that. It’s a caricature that is not far from the picture Jesus paints in our parable today – the parable that has been titled, “The Parable of the Rich Fool.” For a long time, the working title of it was “Can We Be Successful and Rich and Also Christian?” In my thinking I was adding another picture of Jesus to this parable …