As retirement looms fairly near in our future (3 years?), I find it harder and harder not to empathize with the “fool” in this Sunday’s Gospel lesson, Luke 12:13-21. It’s easier to condemn the pettiness of Jesus’ actual interlocutor, who asks the Teacher’s help in settling a family dispute over an inheritance. Having seen such squabbles up close and dealt with their fallout in people’s lives, I totally get Jesus’ wish not to get involved in verse 14, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”
I can also get behind the warning against greed in verse 15. Our contemporary world seems solidly based on having turned greed from a vice into a virtue. Greed has become almost the very foundation of the way our (western, at least) society operates. Say what you want about the Christian roots of our culture, our current acceptance and even lionization of greed would have been totally anathema to earlier Christian societies.
Having said all that, I am hugely troubled that the man in the parable in verses 16 to 20 sounds pretty reasonable to me. Honestly, granted a windfall like his, I would be very tempted to jump on the early retirement train and never look back. So this parable forces me to confess my own worry and concern with having enough possessions and resources in order to have some years of ease at the end of my life.
This is the only New Testament parable in which God actually has a direct part in the story, as He brings the rich man up short in verse 20, by pointing out that his life will be shorter than he expected and all those stored riches will do him no good.
This is also one of the few parables for which Jesus offers a simple explanation (a nimshal in biblical scholar speak) in verse 21. He makes clear that the point is that being “rich” toward God takes precedence over accumulation of possessions. The point of our first 65 years or so of life is not to acquire enough in order to live comfortably for whatever years we have left. All of life is to be aimed toward God and the things of God.
Later on in the chapter, down in verse 33, Jesus gives us the antidote to greed and the formula for divine riches. It’s simple giving away of what we have. Somehow, then, I need to plan for retirement while not focusing on mere accumulation of wealth and while giving sacrificially to God. I’m still learning how to do that.