On August 16, 1999, a new game show called “Who Wants to be A Millionaire” made its debut on national TV. It immediately became a huge hit, as we watched several times each week to see if contestants could answer one question after another to win the biggest prize ever offered on a television show -- $1,000,000!
In one respect, “Who Wants to be A Millionaire” was a revolutionary game show – because more than any other show before it, it introduced a power element of greed. With most game shows you simply won a prize – period. But with “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” you risked almost everything you had won so far when you decided to try to answer another question. For example, after you won $8,000 you could choose to take your money and quit – or you could try to answer the $16,000 question. But if you missed that question, you lost your $8,000 – you lost almost everything. It was always very maddening to see people rack up large amounts of money and then lose it because they were greedy – what they had won wasn’t enough – and over and over again we saw smart, talented people lose their winnings and go home with nothing. They would get greedy – and they’d lose it all.
Our Gospel lesson made me think about Who Wants to be a Millionaire, because deep down it’s all about greed – and the losses we face when our greed takes control of our lives. The first man in our lesson interrupts Jesus while he is preaching to thousands of people and says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus quickly shuts him off and replies, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” Jesus knew that the problem between this man and his brother was not one of fairness – it was a problem of greed. He knew that the first brother wanted Jesus to pass judgment against the second brother without hearing the facts. And most importantly, Jesus wanted these brothers to stop and think about the consequences of their greed – what ultimately would happen to them if they allowed their greed to consume their lives.
And so he launches into a parable about a very, very wealthy man. A very, very greedy man. A man who kept getting richer and richer and more and more greedy. When his crops were so bountiful that his barns couldn’t hold everything, he simply tore them down and built bigger barns.
Not only was he rich – but he was incredibly self-centered. Did you notice how many times he referred to himself? “My crops … my barns … my grain … my goods … my soul.” And “I will … I will … I will.” All of his actions were based on what he had done, what he possessed, what he was going to do. He focused only on himself and his possessions. There was no room in his life for other people. He didn’t enjoy his riches with other people – but only with himself. He paid no attention and gave no credit to the servants who farmed his land and built his barns and served his meals.
Neither does he pay any attention to – or give any credit – to God. He either didn’t know or didn’t care that every one of his possessions – every single piece of his “stuff” – was a blessing from God. He never stopped to think that God provided the rain and the sun and the fertile ground that allowed his crops to grow. He couldn’t or wouldn’t stop to realize that God created the very seed from which his crops grew and the wood that built his barns and the food and wine that allowed him to eat, drink and be merry. He was enjoying his possessions so much that he convinced himself that the wealth and the prosperity and good times would last forever.
At this point God steps in. “Fool!” he calls. “This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” God’s judgment of the rich fool is swift, severe and final. There can be no appeal, no second chance. No time to eat, drink and be merry. Instead of having many years to enjoy his wealth, the rich fool will die that very night. He loses everything he has – his crops, his barns, his riches, his stuff. He loses his very life. And to his eternal peril he loses his immortal soul – to an eternity of suffering in the fires of hell.
Jesus ends the parable by making sure that His listeners understand the point of it. He says, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” It’s important to note that Jesus never condemns the man simply for being rich. Some of the great men in the Bible were wealthy – Abraham was wealthy, and King Solomon was the wealthiest man in the ancient world. The Magi who came from the east to worship the infant Jesus were wealthy men, and Joseph of Arimathea – the man who buried Jesus – was so wealthy that he could afford a special tomb for his family carved out of solid rock. In our Old Testament reading – which, by the way, we believe t have been written by King Solomon – we heard these words: “There is nothing better for a person that than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”
In spite of what many people seem to think, Jesus never said that money is the root of all evil. The correct quotation – and it comes from St. Paul rather than Jesus – is that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” Paul writes that everyone who is covetous – or to say it another way, everyone who is greedy – is guilty of idolatry and has no inheritance in the kingdom of God. It’s interesting that these verses of our Gospel lesson are not referred to as the parable of the rich man – but as the parable of the rich fool.
The First Commandment given to Moses on Mt. Sinai tells us that we are to have no other gods. But the rich fool of the parable either didn’t know or didn’t care that he had replaced the worship of God with the self-worship of himself and his riches. When the end came, he couldn’t save himself. His riches – all the money in the world – could not save him. And this miserable, foolish man would forever pay the penalty for his idolatry.
When Jesus says that “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God,” the words of condemnation – the words of Law – come through loud and clear. If you spend your life trying to get ahead so that your stuff becomes far more important than God and religion and your faith, the end result is going to be nothing but suffering, destruction and death. But when you reverse those words you find nothing but sweet hope and pure Gospel. The one who puts himself last and puts God first will know that God is the true treasure – the only treasure that lasts.
We are rich toward God because he sent His Son Jesus to live His life on earth as the poorest of men. Both Matthew and Luke record Jesus as saying, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” St. Paul says about Jesus, “Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” When Jesus hung on the cross he had no home, no money, no possessions – even the clothes on his back had been taken by the Roman soldiers. He had nothing. Nothing, that is, except his holy, sinless, precious body. The holy, sinless and precious body that would bear our griefs, carry our sorrows, would be stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. The holy, sinless and precious body that would be wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. The body of God’s only Son who was crucified, died and was buried. The body that rose from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven at now sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. The Son of God who has saved us from our sins and who tells us: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
We are rich toward God when we always and only place our heavenly treasures ahead of our earthly possessions. We are rich toward God when we enjoy our blessings – enjoy our wealth, our things, out stuff – while employing them to serve God and His people. And we are rich toward God when we share the news of our greatest treasure – our salvation through Jesus Christ – with the people of this world who do not know of this priceless blessing.
For not only is salvation a treasure beyond measure, but it is a treasure that Jesus freely offers to me, to you, to believers of all nations from the very day of man’s creation to that glorious day when Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead. It is a treasure that we will never leave behind on this earth – but will celebrate for all eternity with Christ in heaven.
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