Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.”
This is definitely not something I want to hear God say to me. This is the indictment of indictments. So how do we avoid facing this judgement. We must share our abundance with others in our lives. When you are child, you need to share your love and friendship with your parents and siblings, when you are a young adult, you need to find a mate, and share the little you have with them. When you are a parent, you need to share your wealth with your children, and when you are older, you need to learn to live simply again, and share whatever you have with all of those that come into your life.
You cant take it with you. You came into this world naked, and naked is how you will stand before God at the end of your life. He is not going to ask you how your stocks did or if you were able to get a good rate on your mortgage. God wants to know about the treasure that you stored up with Him in heaven. St Ambrose says, “the hands of the poor, the houses of widows, are storehouses that endure forever.” This treasure is the only treasure that God cares about. He wants to know how much you aligned your will with His, how much good you did to others in your life, whether you spoke the truth, and how much beauty you brought into the world. These things are what God cares about, and these things are by which you will be judged.
But it is important to note here that this is not a call to live in poverty. But if you are like the land owner in this parable. And you have more than will fit in your barn, then the abundance belongs to someone else. The previous barn was sufficient for all of the other years that you used that barn, and if it is full you know you will not need more than that this year. So be happy with what you have and do not hold on to more than you need. John Bergsma Sums this up nicely: “Wealth is not the problem, hoarding it is. — ‘The productivity of the land of the wealthy man could have been an indication of natural virtues: prudence, self-discipline, hard work.’” Thus the landowner’s sin is not wealth, it is not sharing the gift of abundance.
So today, we need to look hard at ourselves and figure out what abundance that God has given us, and instead of hoarding it, look to how you can share it with those that have less. Because as Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew: “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” But this does not mean that God is not generous. He wants to give you everything. St. Augustine said about this interaction with the young man: “he is interrupted by a man, who begs him to interfere in a temporal concern: deaf to every thing else, this man can think of his temporal interest only.—He begged half an inheritance on earth; the Lord offered him a whole one in heaven: he gave him more than he asked for.”
This too is God’s wish for you. He wants to give you everything, but He want to do it in the a way that is rightly ordered and in line with His will. So search your hearts, listen to what He is calling you to do in this moment. Whether it is your time, or your talent, or your treasure, it is not yours, it is only a gift from God, and He wants you to share it. Because when you share it and pour out the graces in your life to others, you will be filled up with more than you had before. This is the economy of God’s kingdom, and it is the promise of eternal happiness. It may not make sense in this life, but I promise that it does work, share what you have, and you too will see that God will not be outdone in generousity.
