The parable of the rich fool!

Our gospel reading for this 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time is but another parable that our Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples for better understanding. You can find it in your Bible in Luke 12: 13-21.

“13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” 14 He replied to him “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” 15 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.”

16 Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. 17 He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’ 18 And he said, ‘This is what I shall do; I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store al my grain and other goods 19 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!”

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?’ 21 Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasures for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”

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Remember the old saying, “Money is the root of all evil?” We can debate at the top of our voices and differ in our opinions on this issue, but I dare propose to say that it is “the lack of money that is the root of all evil.” In short, there is no sin when a person looks for a job or does a business in order to earn money for an honest living. But when one cannot find a legitimate job so as to earn a living wage and instead goes on a life of a vagabond or worse, a robber, then he has succumbed to his evil desires due to lack of money.

It is for this reason why most of the people who end up being killed in the war against illegal drugs waged by the Duterte Administration are the poor ones, trying to sell a pack or two of shabu or other illegal drugs to junkies on the street. Perhaps some of these people were sons of rich families who end up destroying their lives because of the evil of illegal drugs which promises a very short emotional high or ecstasy but in truth your life becomes miserable and end up wasted. This is why our Lord said in today’s gospel, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

At the start of this gospel story, someone asks the Lord: “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me,” to which our Lord replied, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” This conversation reveals much of what life was during the time of our Lord Jesus Christ when sibling rivalry was just as prevalent as today.

How many families do you know who has problems with their family heirloom? Yet come to think of it, they are quarreling over money that their parents or their grandparents earned in their lifetime. Go to our courts of law and you’ll see and hear testimonies from a brother or sister aided by their scheming lawyers (actually, the lawyers end up getting most of the inheritance money) literally clogging up our courts simply because of greed as one sibling wants more than the others or worse, they try to fool those brothers or sisters who are not working in the company created or founded by their parents or grandparents.

It is for this reason why our Lord Jesus Christ came up with the Parable of the Rich Fool, who only cared to fatten himself so he could live a life of wanton disregard, eating and being merry, while the rest of the world goes hungry. This fool stores only his treasures destroying his old barn to build a bigger one where he can store up all his bountiful harvest.

If you recall the story of our Lord and the Rich Young man, who asked the Lord how he could attain eternal life? The Lord explained to the young man how to attain it and he replied that he already did what the Lord told him to do. So the Lord told him, “Then go sell all your belongings and give it to the poor.” Just imagine that if these two people, the rich fool and the rich young man, would have met each other and compared notes that the Lord Jesus Christ taught them, they might get a clearer understanding of what really is in store for all of us.

So to the rich fool, God will take out his life that very night and since I reckon from this story that this fellow doesn’t have any family or siblings, then when he dies, his barn and all his belongings would now be distributed to the people who worked for him. So the moral of the story is, work hard and save up treasures that are pleasing to God rather than storing up earthly treasures which God has no use of. But if you do have worldly treasures and learn to happily share them with the poor that is pleasing to God.