“The Building Blocks of Eternal Life:

Open Hands”

Luke 12:13-21

Rev. Dr. R. Tim Meadows

As a student of the New Testament and a lover of Jesus’ parables I am often amused by the many interpretations that have been given to this parable. Some see it as an open and shut case in which Jesus is condemning the accumulation of wealth. Others see it as a condemnation by Jesus of wealthy people who fail to help poor people. Still others see the parable as a condemnation of greed by Jesus. Nearly all of these people agree that the end result is that God takes the life of a greedy rich man.

The truth is that at some point in the New Testament Jesus deals with all of these issues; the problem of wealth, the need and responsibility to help others, and the problem of greed; however that does not seem to be what he is doing with this story. This is a story of failed stewardship. A story of how a man with most every opportunity in the world manages to miss most of them. A story of how the things we are given to manage and invest in life can end up consuming us. A story of a man who wasted time, talent, and treasure by focusing on commodities rather than people. Let’s look at the story together.

Notice how isolated this man is. I seems to be the only pronoun he can use and the party he is planning has a guest list of one. Notice how disconnected from God this man is. Only when god abruptly intervenes in this guy’s I fest is anyone else mentioned in the story. Notice how fleeting his accumulated wealth is. God says you will soon be gone and all of this will transfer to someone else. Notice the waste of time, talent, and treasure, but notice also what actually consumes the man in our story. Greek scholars tell us that it is not God who takes his life as has been popularly believed, but rather a careful look at the sentence construction reveals that it says “this night they are requiring your soul of you.” Who are they? The closest antecedent seems to be his possessions, which led my old white haired professor to say “his goods got him”!

How often does this happen in our journey of life? How often do the things we are given to manage end up managing us? What time, talents, and treasures, are we wasting on things that will eventually be transferred to someone else? How differently could this story have ended if the man had looked at his possessions as gifts to be invested in the larger world to make a positive difference?

I have actually heard that version of the story from a ministerial friend of mine. My friend tells the story of a couple in his church that were quite successful. Life had been good. Work had been fruitful. They had accumulated quite a nest egg which they knew they would never spend on themselves and they had no heirs. So they came to my friend with the question of what to do?

After some exploration of options they determined to invest the money they would not need in an area foundation devoted to helping those who could not help themselves. Time has passed, one of the members in this couple has died, but I cannot help but think of how the investment they made in their needy region continues to produce dividends for the region and the world, and the legacy of this couples life of stewardship. I cannot help but think that this was Jesus’ point in telling this story. It is a story about the wise investment of time, talent, and treasures; so that the world receives blessing and we are not consumed by the things of life.

As I look at these two stories I come away with two contrasting visual images. The image that comes from the New Testament story is of a man grasping and clinging for dear life with hands clenched around his possessions. The image I see in my friend’s couple is an image of two people standing with hands outstretched, open, to both receive and in turn to give back to the world the blessings of God.

Today we launch our latest edition of Trails Through Tellico, the annual stewardship campaign that funds all the work of our church through your gifts. Which story’s visual image will describe your participation in this campaign?