Luke 12:13-21
I have to wonder what Kenneth Copeland does with this particular passage of scripture.
If you don’t know who Kenneth Copeland is, he is a televangelist. He was interviewed recently by a journalist who wanted him to explain why he needs a Gulfstream Jet. This jet he was able to purchase recently thanks to the generous donations of his followers. He needed it, apparently, because two airplanes was not sufficient. It might seem like enough to you and me, but God wanted him to have this third one, this Gulfstream, he told his congregation and he stressed to all his followers on television and online. God wanted him to have it and God wanted them to give him money so he could have it.
This reporter asked him to explain why this was so important.
He told her he needs it because he simply couldn’t do the work he does if he had to fly commercial with all the demonic activity happening on board those planes.
This seemed to be consistent with comments he has made earlier, in conversations with his fellow televangelist prosperity gospel preachers, who also find themselves sometimes having to defend the fact that they have private jets. He said that you just can’t manage today, in this dope-filled world, to get in a long tube with a bunch of demons. It’s deadly, in his words.
Yes, flying commercial is just too much for Kenneth’s sensitive soul. Bless his heart.
It seems like these televangelists have jet-envy. There is a little competition going on as to who owns the most jets. If you’re going to keep up, you need more planes. And then, of course, you’re going to need bigger hangars.
In our Tuesday Bible study last week, we talked about greed. You know what greed is? It is the power that makes you believe that you don’t have quite enough. It makes you feel that you need just a little bit more, no matter how much you already have. It constantly pokes at the fear inside you. And so, in fear of not having enough you go striving, at all cost to your neighbors and even your own soul, for more. Hoping to have enough.
It is like an addiction. Because with greed, the shutoff valve is broken. There is never enough.
Kenneth Copeland and his comrades are easy targets, because of the absurd lengths they go to, the bizarre rationalizations they make, to acquire wealth.
But in this scripture, Jesus addresses his comments to a man who just wants his brother to share his father’s inheritance with him. It might have been very little. Maybe their father had a small farm that was being divided between the sons. He was just a man in the crowd who came seeking Jesus’ help.
He could have been any one of us.
And Jesus tells him to beware of greed. Beware of how greed will distort your values if you’re not careful. Then comes the story:
There was a rich man, blessed with abundance. His farm was so fertile, his harvests so abundant. He had more than he needed. But that’s not the way he saw it. What he saw was that he had inadequate storage space.
What to do?
Luckily, he came up with a brilliant idea. He would tear down the old barns, which were too small, and build some new ones, bigger ones, that would hold all his abundance. Then he would rest easy, knowing he had enough.
But that’s not how greed works. The next year, he might find himself building even bigger barns because he needed yet more space to store his crops. Then he would probably need a security system to guard his barns against thieves. Motion-sensitive floodlights, an alarm system, and the service of security guards to patrol the perimeter.
It would end up taking a lot of his time and resources to protect his stuff, leaving him little time to relax, eat, drink, and be merry.
In that moment of self-satisfaction, when he comes up with this wonderful idea, God interrupts his thoughts to tell him, “You’re a fool. This very night your life is being demanded of you.”
“This very night your life is being demanded of you.” I take that to mean just this:
God is holding you to account now this very night. Today– not at some hypothetical point in the future. God has blessed you richly. What are you doing with what you have today to bless God?
Does it bless God for this man to store up more and more grain for some fantasy future, while there are people around him who don’t have bread to eat?
Does it bless God for the televangelists like Copeland to have a private fuel-guzzling jet so that they don’t have to rub shoulders with the common folk who fly commercial? To take money from the hands of the poor, whom they have convinced that in giving to them they will find blessing?
Does it bless God for the pharmaceutical manufacturers to push their oxycodone and hydrocodone pills to break all previous sales records, even though they know they are delivering customers into the hell of addiction?
Perhaps none of us need worry about being convicted of any of these particular sins, so just consider this:
Does it bless God when we lose all sense of what is enough in our continuing quest for more? When we let our decisions be driven by the fear of not having enough for ourselves? and then the fear of losing what we have acquired? and then the fear that those people with whom you are not sharing your abundance, they might become your predators and steal your property from you?
I think Copeland is right about one thing. There are, indeed, powers of darkness at work in this world. They are the powers that cause us to lose sight of what is enough. They are the powers that strangle any sense of gratitude with the fear that somehow we are lacking something – and that this lack is, in fact, an injustice.
In this world where God’s gifts are so plentiful, there will always be something we lack – if that’s the way we insist on seeing it. But Jesus’ teachings ask us to keep a clear eye on what is truly important. To keep clear the distinction between what we possess and what we treasure – these are not the same things.
We may value our possessions because they enable us to enjoy our lives, enjoy freedom, enjoy time with people we love. But when the importance of the possession itself becomes too great, exerting too much power over us, then we are at risk of losing those things we treasure – freedom, love, even life.
Greed has the effect of turning us inward and it becomes us against the world. But staying focused on the things we really treasure can enable us to see it all as God’s gift freely given.
To be grateful. To measure your wealth by what you are able to share, instead of by the size of your barns.
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Photo: Erich von Stroheim, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
