18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Readings:

1. Ecclesiastes 1:2, 21-23
   Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17 Response: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
2. Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
3. Luke 12:13-21

Reflections on the Gospel Reading

In this Sunday’s gospel reading Luke introduces us to one of the major themes of his Gospel – the proper attitude toward possessions.  In recent Sundays we have observed Luke’s method of taking a story or parable from his sources and using it to illustrate a point he wants to make.  He adapts the tradition coming from Jesus to questions that interest his readers some fifty years later.

The Story about Jesus

Both the story about Jesus’ refusal to get involved in an inheritance dispute and the parable about the prosperous landowner have an authentic ring.  That is, they probably go back to Jesus himself. (See, for example, Hultgren 2000, 108.)  Although they are not found in any of the other canonical Gospels, each has a parallel in the Gospel of Thomas.  For example, chapter 72 of the Gospel of Thomas reads as follows:

A  [person said] to him [Jesus], “Tell my brothers to divide my father’s possessions with me.”  He said to the person, “Mister, who made me a divider?”  He turned to his disciples and said to them, “I’m not a divider, am I?” (Funk, Hoover, et. al. 1993, 513)

Note the similarity to the first episode in today’s gospel reading.

Someone in the crowd said to him [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”  He replied to him, “Friend [literally, “Man”] who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator [literally, “divider”]?”

Very likely this account reflects something that actually happened in the life of Jesus.  As an acclaimed prophet and teacher, presumably not too closely related to the contending parties, Jesus would have been the ideal choice for a mediator.  However, Jesus declines the honorable invitation.  On one level it was an appropriately modest response, the cultural equivalent of one of us saying:  “Hey, man, what makes you so sure that I’m the one for the job?” (Pilch 1997, 119)

On a deeper level, Jesus’ response raised the question of the meaning and purpose of his prophetic ministry.  As we have seen earlier in Luke’s Gospel, the urgency of responding to the coming reign of God did not even allow for attending to customary memorial rites for one’s deceased father. (Luke 9.60.  See gospel reading for the 13^th Sunday in ordinary time [C].)  Jesus encouraged people to leave their possessions and follow him.  Why would anyone think that Jesus would want to get involved in a protracted inheritance battle?

Retelling the incident forced readers to think about the real purpose of Jesus’ life and ministry.  It certainly wasn’t to get involved in the “rivalry between brothers [that] was endemic in ancient Mediterranean kinship relations.” (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 277)  But, what was it all about?

The Story Jesus Told

In addition to the story about Jesus, Luke passes on a story Jesus told about a wealthy landowner.  Once again, something very similar is found in the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, There was a rich person who had a great deal of money.  He said, “I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.”  These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died.  Anyone here with two ears had better listen! (Ch. 63.  See Funk, Hoover et. al. 1993, 508.)

The key to understanding the parable in its original setting lies in verse 20:  “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?’”  Admittedly, ordinary people of the time had a bias against rich people.  (See Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 400-401.)  However, in the parable itself the man is not condemned for having a good harvest.  The problem is with his interior dialog that reveals his preoccupation with himself and with his possessions.  (Note how many times the rich fool uses “I,” “myself,” or “my” in three short verses.)  He thinks his wealth will save him.

In criticizing this attitude, Jesus stands squarely within the Israelite wisdom tradition.  For example, in today’s first reading the preacher Qoheleth describes vanity in these words.  “Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave property.” (Ecclesiastes 2.21)  Some 200 years before Jesus’ ministry another Jesus, Jesus Ben Sira, said much the same thing.  “One becomes rich through diligence and self-denial, and the reward allotted to him is this:  when he says, ‘I have found rest, and now I shall feast on my goods!” he does not know how long it will be until he leaves them to others and dies.” (Sirach 11.18-19 NRSV)

Thus, in its original setting in the ministry of Jesus, the message was ironic rather than moralistic.  It was not so much about greed as about lack of wisdom.  The rich man was a fool.  He put his trust in possessions as if he were not going to die.

Note, that this parable, like the story that preceded it, ends with a question.  Jesus challenges us to think, to change our outlook, to be converted.  He doesn’t tell us what we should think.  Rather, he helps us see how obviously foolish the wealthy landowner’s kind of thinking is.

Luke’s Adaptations

For Luke’s audience the situation had changed.  Expectation of an immediate coming of the kingdom was waning.  Their concern was how to live in the time between the ministry of Jesus and the definitive realization of the reign of God.  Moral questions took on greater urgency.

Luke was convinced that the words of Jesus continued to have relevance in his own time.  Therefore, Luke adapted the dialog about dividing an inheritance and the parable about the prosperous landowner to serve as lessons about the danger of greed.   Note how in each case Luke adds a saying that shades the meaning of what goes before so that Luke draws a moral lesson from Jesus’ open-ended ironic question.

Remember that the dialog about inheritance (Lk 12:13,14) challenges the reader to rethink the meaning of Jesus’ ministry.  Luke adds another saying attributed to Jesus in verse 15:   “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”  This gives a moral tone to both the dialog about inheritance and the following parable.  Under Luke’s deft editorial hand they become warnings against greed.

Similarly, the parable (Lk 12:16-20) challenges readers to think about the meaning of their own lives, given the reality of death.  What place should possessions play in our lives since we are going to die?  Again, Luke adds a saying that shades the parable toward being a moral maxim.  “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.” (verse 21)  Thus, Luke highlights the selfishness of the rich man instead of his foolishness. According to Arland J. Hultgren, “the parable sets forth an example of a way of living that is to be avoided.” (2000, 108)

Luke condemns the greed that, all too often, contaminates property transactions such as inheritance disputes.  Luke also condemns the selfish hoarding of surplus possessions when others are in need.  What should the rich fool have done with his wealth?  That should have been obvious to those who had really listened to the Lord’s Prayer:  “Provide us with the bread we need day by day.”  The rich fool should have trusted in God and given the poor anything he didn’t need until the next harvest. (Pilch 1997, 120)  According to Luke, our surplus does not belong to us.  It belongs to those in need.

Luke Timothy Johnson places the parable in the wider context of Luke’s Gospel.  Just before today’s reading Luke’s Jesus tells his friends, “Don’t fear those who kill the body and afterwards can do nothing more.”  Jesus tells them that they matter more than many sparrows and urges them to fearless profession of their loyalty to him when called before religious and secular authorities.  Here, Jesus is saying:  If you don’t have to fear the immediate threat of death how much less should you fear not having possessions.  Then Johnson goes on to say:

Yet, Luke's bringing together of these two themes [death and poverty] shows how profoundly he has grasped the symbolic function of possessions in human existence.  It is out of deep fear that the acquisitive instinct grows monstrous.  Life seems so frail and contingent that many possessions are required to secure it, even though the possessions are frailer still than the life.  Only the removal of fear by the persuasion that life is a gift given by the source of all reality can generate the spiritual freedom that is symbolized by the generous disposition of possessions. (Johnson 1991, 201)

Adaptation to Our Times

How does Luke’s warning against greed apply to us?  We have an entirely different economic consciousness.  In the first century Mediterranean world people took it for granted that there was only so much power, status, material goods, etc. to go around.  The pie was only so big.  If some people had more than their share of these things, it was because they or their ancestors stole them.  A rich person was, by supposition, greedy.

We, however, speak of economic growth, job creation, and the trickle-down effect.  We even praise greed as enlightened self-interest.¹ We are also aware of the need to address the causes of poverty in addition to helping the poor.  Yet, across the centuries today’s Gospel still challenges us to ask:  How much do I really need?  What am I doing with the excess?

What are we to think of the fact that the average American “consumes as much in food, goods and services in a year as 43 Rwandans[?]” (Allen 2001, 11)  Even in relatively bad times sales of luxury automobiles are brisk; we shower our children with useless gifts; and our pets have better medical treatment than many Third World people.  Couldn’t we live on a little less, maybe a lot less?  Couldn’t we be a great deal more generous to the poor?

Immersed in a consumer culture, intent on the accumulation of possessions, and walled off from contact with the poor, it is difficult for us to reflect on our greed.   Jesus and Luke help us with the task by reminding us:  “One’s life does not consist of possessions.”

---

Explanatory Note:

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus.  Although there were references to the Gospel of Thomas in ancient literature, the actual text only came to light in 1945 when an Egyptian farmer discovered an earthenware jar in the cliffs along the Nile in central Egypt near the town of Nag Hamadi.  The jar contained thirteen leather-bound papyrus books containing some fifty different works, including the Gospel of Thomas written in Coptic (Egyptian written in Greek characters).

The copy of the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hamadi dates from around 400 CE.  A Greek version of many of the sayings dates back to about 200 CE.  The text probably dates back to around 150 CE, and some of the sayings could go back as far as the first century.  Helmut Koester states:  “This collection is to be regarded as a phenomenon parallel to Q, and belongs to the early history of the formation of the Gospels.”  (Quoted in Blatz 1991, 113.  Se also Funk et. al. 1993, 474.)

---

In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:

Allen 2001 – John L. Allen, Jr., “Make globalization user-friendly is Catholic plea,” National Catholic Reporter, July 27, 2001, p. 11.

Blatz 1991 – Beate Blatz, “The Coptic Gospel of Thomas” in Wilhelm Schneemelcher, Ed., New Testament Apocrypha,  Revised Edition, English translation edited by R. McL. Wilson, Volume I, Gospels and Related Writings (Louisville [KY]:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), pp. 110-130.

Cousar et al. 1994 – Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton McCann, Jr., James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching:  A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year C.  (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), pp. 456-458.

Fitzmyer 1985 – Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV : Introduction, Translation, and Notes.  Anchor Bible Volume 28A. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985), pp. 967-974.

Fuller 1984 – Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary.  The Word of God for the Church Today  (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1984), pp. 492-493.

Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar – Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels:  The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus  (New York:  Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 338-339.

Hultgren 2000 – Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus:  A Commentary (Grand Rapids [MI]: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 104-110.

Johnson 1991 – Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke , Sacra Pagina Series Volume 3, A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 197-202.

LaVerdiere 1990 – Eugene, LaVerdiere, S.S.S., Luke.  New Testament Message, Volume 5.  A Michael Glazier Book  (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1990), pp. 171-174.

Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition  (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 277-278. See also “Rich, Poor, and Limited Good,” pp. 400-401.

NRSV 1994 – New Revised Standard Version – Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy, Editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible containing the Old and New Testaments.  New Revised Standard Version.  (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1994)

Pilch 1997 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday,  Cycle  C .  A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1997), pp. 118-120.

---