Gospel
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 the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”
Reflection
“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
This quote stood out to me because I felt it captured the heart of the entire passage. The parable that follows emphasizes the same idea... the rich man focused on accumulating wealth in material things, but he was not rich in what truly mattered. The man’s life was consumed by his abundant harvest and the need for larger barns to store it all. He was entirely focused on his own enjoyment and the constant accumulation of more. His wealth gave him a false sense of security, and he assumed that he could "rest, eat, drink, be merry" for years to come. However, God’s words pierced through this illusion: "You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you". All the things he stored up for himself would then be left behind, showing the futility of his pursuit. While I do not think Jesus was condemning the wealth itself I do believe he was pointing out the emptiness of a life spent chasing material things without consideration of what truly matters to God. This begs the question, what are you rich with in your life?
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