Sermon based on Luke 12:13-21
There’s a man yelling from the crowd.
He’s not raising a hand, not waiting for a moment of pause.
He just blurts out: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me!”
You can almost hear the collective sigh of the crowd.
This man isn’t really interested in Jesus’ teaching.
Especially not the kind of teaching that involves soul work or repentance or grace.
He’s here with a personal grievance, a familiar one.
Something about money. Something about family.
Something about fairness. Or the lack of it.
But Jesus doesn’t take the bait.
He doesn’t step in as a financial planner, an arbitrator, or a judge. Instead, he offers a warning that echoes louder than any courtroom decision ever could:
“Watch out! Guard yourself against all kinds of greed. After all, one’s life isn’t determined by one’s possessions, even when someone is very wealthy.”
And then he tells a story to get his point across. As he so often does.
It’s a story about a man, a farmer, who had it all, and still had nothing. It’s a parable about the lie of self-sufficiency. A story about barns and bigger barns, about ego and illusion, about the dangerous gamble of thinking we have all the time in the world.
It’s a story about a fool.
And perhaps the question that floats over the whole scene, hovering just behind the man’s request and Jesus’ response, is this: “What is enough?”
That’s the question that drives the man in the crowd. It’s the question that shapes the parable.
And if we’re honest, it’s the question that lives in most of our bank accounts, our calendars, our anxiety. How much is enough? Enough money? Enough house? Enough time? Enough success?
That’s where this story wants to go, not to the technicalities of inheritance law,
but to the deeper, messier terrain of the human soul.
At first glance, this farmer in the parable seems anything but foolish.
He’s experienced a bumper crop. His business is thriving.
He’s not reckless or criminal. He doesn’t exploit his workers or cheat the system.
He’s just… successful.
And… he’s planning ahead. Because of his success, he decides to build bigger barns. He wants to save for the future.
He’s setting himself up to eat, drink, and be merry. Isn’t that what we’re taught to do? Financial advisors, retirement planners, even well-meaning parents might praise his planning.
But Jesus calls him a fool. Not because he’s rich. Not because he plans. But because he thinks his wealth can secure his soul.
The barn building farmer talks to himself, plans with himself, dreams for himself.
Yet, when God interrupts his internal monologue, we realize the truth: he never once included God in the equation. Never once considered his neighbor. He never looked beyond his own reflection. Everything in his planning was about himself.
His problem wasn’t the barns. It was the belief that if he could just build enough, store enough, protect enough… he’d finally be safe, finally be whole, finally have peace.
But life doesn’t work that way. The foolishness isn’t in the fortune, it’s in the forgetting.
Forgetting that the land produces because of rain and sun and soil and workers and grace. Forgetting that barns don’t make you invincible. Forgetting that life is not a commodity you can store up in a silo. Forgetting how fragile life is, and that it can be taken from us at any time.
For most of us, our last breaths won’t be scheduled like we might schedule some committee meeting.
From my perspective, the fool isn’t wicked, he’s just blind. Blind to the limits of his own power. Blind to the needs around him. Blind to the source of the blessings he’s been given.
That’s what makes it a tragedy. Not that he dies. But that he lived without ever really seeing.
The rich man’s fatal error isn’t ambition, it’s isolation.
He hoards instead of shares. He calculates instead of thanks. He prepares for decades of leisure without once reckoning with the fragile nature of human life. And it’s not just him. This illusion runs deep in our own world.
We’re told that more is always better. More savings. More square footage. More likes. More status. More control. We are taught to fear scarcity so deeply that we worship at the altar of accumulation. But the gospel keeps whispering: you’re not in control of your own breath.
“You fool,” God says. “This very night your life is being demanded of you.” The barns didn’t save him. They never could.
What’s worse, all that grain, all those goods? They go to someone else now. Maybe someone generous. Maybe someone foolish in their own way. Either way, it’s out of his hands.
And that’s the sobering truth of it all, none of it lasts. Not the barns. Not the crops. Not even us.
We often think the opposite of faith is doubt. But maybe it’s not. Maybe the opposite of faith is control. And that’s what this parable exposes: a man trying to control the uncontrollable.
Jesus isn’t telling us to be reckless with money. He’s not saying we shouldn’t plan. But he is warning us: don’t fall in love with your plans. Don’t mistake your bank account for safety.
Because the more we try to control our lives, the more our lives start to control us. This man became a slave to his barns. Not out of malice, but out of fear. He wanted to feel safe. And who among us doesn’t?
But the tragedy of fear is that it makes us turn inward. Fear convinces us that the only way to survive is to close the doors, tighten the grip, build the walls. And fear always tells us: You’re alone. You better look out for yourself. No one else will.
But Jesus comes along and tells a different story. One where the birds are fed and the lilies clothed. One where your security doesn’t come from grain, but from grace.
Jesus closes the parable with a haunting contrast: “So it is with those who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich toward God.” That phrase, rich toward God, isn’t just poetic. It’s the pivot point.
It raises the question: what does it mean to be rich in God’s economy?
It looks like the tax collector Zacchaeus, who gives away half his possessions and finds salvation in his own living room. It looks like the widow who offers her two copper coins—not because it will fund a capital campaign, but because she trusts the God who sees her offering as priceless.
It looks like storing up treasure in heaven, not in the sense of heavenly bank accounts,
but in lives lived generously, joyfully, and compassionately.
To be rich toward God is to live in such a way that your abundance overflows into someone else’s emptiness.
It’s the farmer who, instead of building bigger barns, gives away his surplus.
It’s the family that opens its home to foster kids.
It’s the church that builds a food pantry instead of a fancier fellowship hall.
It’s not about quantity, it’s about orientation.
It’s about stewardship, not ownership.
It’s about generosity, not scarcity.
And all of this is not just a private virtue. It’s a public witness.
In a culture that worships accumulation, being rich toward God is a radical act.
It’s a way of saying: I don’t find my worth in what I own. I believe in a God who gives enough. Who calls me to share. Who anchors my soul in something deeper than possessions.
Jesus’ warning against greed isn’t about shame, it’s about freedom.
Greed is the great unspoken anxiety of our time.
It masquerades as success. It dresses up as ambition.
It hides behind phrases like “being smart with money” or “just being prepared.”
But greed is ultimately a belief that we can protect ourselves from pain, from loss, from death.
It’s a belief that our lives can be measured in possessions, rather than purpose.
This is why Jesus speaks so often about money. Not because he’s against it.
But because he knows how easily it can become our master.
Greed is the lie that says: “If you just had more, then you’d be okay.”
Jesus tells the truth that says: “You already belong. You are already loved. You already have enough.”
You can own things. That’s not the issue. The issue is when the things start to own you.
If we’re honest, many of our modern churches are made of barn builders.
We build programs, savings accounts, endowments. We plan carefully. We think strategically.
And none of that is bad. As a matter of fact, it’s a good thing. But, in the midst of our planning, we must always ask: to what end?
Are we building bigger barns for our own comfort, or giving more away for the sake of the gospel?
In stewardship season, (ours is coming up in September this year) we often ask for pledges. But what we’re really asking for is participation in a different kind of economy. One where generosity is the currency. Where enough is truly enough. Where we don’t need to be afraid, because it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.
That’s not a metaphor. That’s a promise.
I think we all have a little bit of the barn builder in us.
We want to feel secure. We want to relax and be merry.
We want to control what we can.
But Jesus invites us to something braver.
Something riskier. Something holier.
He invites us to loosen our grip. To live generously.
To count our lives not by what we own, but by what we give.
And in the end, when the barns fall and the dust settles, may it be said of us:
They were rich; rich in love, rich in mercy, rich toward God.
Amen.
By: Rev. Dave Wasson
Dove Sermons 
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