By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
August 3, 2025
Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship
Luke 12:13–21 (ESV)
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
There are many teachings within scripture that trouble me. I wish things were different. I wish that I could say a word and things would happen. Life would be so much easier if I could do the things people wished I could do. But alas I am just a man. Today’s passage is one that often gives me pause. It troubles my soul. It troubles me because it hits close to home. I see myself in these pages when I am reading these words.
That is the power of scripture. That is why it is called the living word. These words have life because the Spirit of God uses these words to highlight his holy wisdom. The words themselves are not magic as much as we would like them to be. That is why I, like the Quakers of old will not call the words of scripture the word of God. It is not the words of scripture that hold the power, but the Spirit that uses these words to teach us. And how does the Spirit teach us? We can search the scriptures seeking life in them, Jesus once taught, but we miss the reality. We miss the true word because we do not see the wider picture.
What is the wider picture?
As I sat with this passage this week. My mind drifted many directions. My attention was drawn to the text messages that I had received. My mind was taken to videos I watched on YouTube. My mind was taken to many different places and I sat there in my chair wondering why my mind was wandering so much.
I would sit watching videos about contemporary news, and as I watched these videos all I could think about was how the actions that were being taken just intensified the desires of many to look deeper instead of distract attention to a different subject. I would get an update on the war in Ukraine and my heart would sink as I would hear more stories about how apartment buildings, or hospitals were once again targets in this battle of inhumanity. I would watch replays of my favorite BBC game shows and I wondered why I like BBC programs more than I like game shows from my own country. I find it weird.
I sat, I watched, I read, I seemed so distracted from what I thought I should be doing and suddenly out of nowhere I saw the wall of truth emerge through the distracting fog, and I had to slam on the brakes. My life flashed before my eyes. God used the words written thousands of years ago to challenge my thinking today. That is the living word of God. That is the wisdom an the teaching of God. It is not an answer book, but an ongoing conversation between the teacher and the disciple. As the disciple wrestles with the implications of reality, until all at once they pull a muscle in their hip and have a limp to remind them, “oh yeah that is what God means.”
“Someone in the crowd said to him,” today’s passage begins, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” I sat this week pretty smug as I began studying. I have read quite a bit about the traditions of inheritance in this ancient culture so I thought that I was going to have some amazing words to say about this. In their culture, inheritance was not that difficult to figure out. The eldest son would receive a double portion of the inheritance. This meant that if there were two sons, the estate was divided into thirds and the younger son would receive one third, and the eldest two thirds. If there were four sons, the same process. The property was then divided into fifths and the eldest would receive two fifths where the others received one fifth. The only real issue arose when there was not a clear division. What happens when there are no sons and only daughters? What happens if there are no heirs at all? Would it surprise you that scripture does speak to this. If there are only daughters the law remains basically the same, with one exception the daughter must marry within the tribe to keep the property within the larger family.
I have found this fascinating. Why would God spend so much time worrying about inheritance?
There is a teaching there that we often miss. When we put all our focus on one aspect we often miss things. Over the past few years there have been many debates that challenge our cultural traditions and many have used scripture to qualify their stance on one side or the other. Our culture did this once before, when a significant cultural institution was challenged. Is slavery right or wrong? You might find it interesting that scripture speaks a great deal about this issue as well. And even more interesting the conclusion that we have come to accept that slavery is wrong, and I agree with that conclusion, is not the one most clearly taught in scripture. Scripture does not actually teach that slavery is wrong. What scripture teaches is that we should not deny the humanity of the enslaved. The actual sin that plagued our nation was not that we had slaves, the sin was that we as a culture denied the humanity of the enslaved people. As a culture we taught and accepted that there were some within our society that were more human than others. And this mindset allowed us to devise our systems of government to promote and maintain this way of thinking. That is why systematic racism is so vile. It is not that my ancestors once own another human being, it is that my ancestors denied that that person was a person, and made laws to ensure that that person would not have the opportunity to see things differently.
We have struggled with cultural issues before, but this does not help with today’s passage. Today’s passage speaks about inheritance, and I asked why does God spend so much time worrying about inheritance? And this goes deep within our current events. It brings together concepts of society, culture, and the future. Inheritance is more than who gets what once the patriarch dies. Inheritance speaks of social obligation, and the community.
“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” On the surface we might not see this as being profound, but when we pull the layers we begin to see something profound about our human condition.
I have watched families struggle with inheritance. I have listened to the back bitting comments of people that were supposed to love each other and we might think this is a proper question thing to do for one man to ask Jesus to encourage his brother to be fair. But we know that this could not be the case since the traditions of inheritance were well established within their culture. The request speaks to our understanding as to what fair is.
Jesus responds to the request interestingly. “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” It really is an interesting statement when we think about it. The man is coming to Jesus for a reason. Jesus has been having deep conversations with the teachers of the law, when a legal question comes up you would think Jesus would have something profound to say. But instead he asks them who made me the one to make this decision? This was the sort of thing that religious leaders did often get involved with. They were involved because inheritance was discussed at length in Torah, so it is perfectly understandable that the lawyers would engage Jesus in this topic. Yet, Jesus sees through the question as he so often does.
Take care, be on you guard. These are commandments, or the imperative verbs. We need to be mindful of avoiding covetousness or greed. The reality is we do not want fair. We want more. If we feel that someone else has more than we do, we immediately think that it is unfair. This man is not really concerned with fairness, he is upset that he has received less than his brother and believes that his brother should split his double portion. This is what is at the heart of most of our disputes about fairness. Jesus then says to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
In our minds, even in the seemingly most innocent among us we have this lurching near us. If you give a couple of children each a slice of cake what is one of the first things they do? They look over to the other slice. Even the most innocent children have within them this sense that they might be unfairly treated. And if they feel as if they have been mistreated they let you know. They let you know with a great exhibit of passion, and will continue to this passionate exhibition until the slices have met their expectation. We know this, we have experienced this, we have done it, and been the recipient of it. We want fairness, but what if we were the one that had the larger slice? It is fair if I have more, it is unfair if I have less.
Be on your guard, watch out for all covetousness Jesus says, because life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
I wonder if we have really thought about what Jesus means by this?
It goes back to the central theme of scripture. Consider our first parents. “Did God actually say, ‘you shall not of any tree in the garden?’” The fall of humanity was basically a toddler’s fit over a slice of cake. They could have all the fruit from every other tree in the garden except one. When I was in school the local FFA chapter would sell boxes of fruit in the winter, we would make a ton of money because when you live in the middle of no where fruit was something special. But we would never finish the box of fruit because there was just too much fruit for us to finish. Adam and Eve had trees filled with fruit. They could eat all the fruit they could ever want. Except the fruit from that one tree. It is unfair. Some scholars have considered this situation and determined that humanity was set up. It is next to impossible for us as humans to exist in that state. We will always consider some exclusion as being unfair, just as a child will sense that the other piece of cake is larger than their own.
But this goes even deeper. Consider Cain and Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and God had regard for Abel and his offering but did not care for Cain’s.
The Lord said to Cain. “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do no do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
The first thing that I find interesting is that God was speaking to Cain. Even when we are opposed to God, God is still seeking a relationship with us. But I ask what is the sin that is crouching at Cain’s door? It is this idea fairness. He worked just as hard as Abel. As a descendant of a farmer this has bothers me a bit too. God did not accept the fruit of the land, but he like the fat of the flock. It is unfair. I worked hard for what I have to offer. Should it not be acceptable? Cain was angry and his face fell.
Its not fair. Our own greed is crouching nearby. The devil is sitting on our shoulder whispering in our ear saying to us, “Shouldn’t you have a bigger slice? Shouldn’t you be accepted? Shouldn’t you have what they have?”
Jesus then tells a story. “A rich man’s land produced plentifully, and he thought to himself. ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’” This is not something my dad ever said because we were dry land farmers and usually we were wondering if we would have a crop. “I will do this,” this man continued, “I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store my grain and my goods.”
This seems like a completely sensible thing to do. But the man does not stop there. “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” And then Jesus continues, “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’”
It’s not fair. They have more. I want…I need.
This drives us to do things. We begin to save things. We hold things back. We start to think I need more money, so we begin to lie or cheat our customers. I like this one BBC program called QI, it means Quite Interesting, and I am sure you have found out by now that I am a little bit of a nerd so I find this show quite interesting. But while binge watching this show distracted from studying other quite interesting things, I learned something. They asked, “Why does a baker’s dozen have thirteen instead of twelve?” It is because there were extremely strick laws on bread. If one weighed the bread and it was not exact the baker could face harsh penalties. The bakers in an attempt to prevent an accusation, began to add an extra roll to the dozen. These harsh laws were enacted because it is tempting to cheat. Who would know if you made the rolls just a bit smaller, stretching the pound of flour just a bit more so you could make a little more money. Bakers tried to stretch the flour and riots would start. The people found it to be unfair, that the bakers would steal their money. So governments had to step in to make laws. The greed of bakers generations in the past caused the other bakers to make less.
This is what the heart of this parable is getting at. We always want more. And when we have an opportunity we will keep what we have, we will find a way to ensure we will have all we need. It is almost as if Jesus is telling us that we should not have a savings account. That we should not have a retirement plan. That Jesus is anti 401K. This is not at all what Jesus is saying. This entire teaching is about our understanding of what fair is.
Life is not about the abundance of possessions. The richest people of the world are often the most unhappy people. We see it on the news. You get emails in your spam folder from some of the richest people in the country begging for money so that they can get elected. Why do they want your money they have their own money. And then when they spend their own money they seem to think it is perfectly fine using the information they have available to them to get even more money. They are constantly focused on more and more. And then they angry tweet that their employees are asking for too much. I know that I sound woke. I sound like I am promoting some form of governance that boarders on socialism. Believe me when I say that is far from the truth.
We should relax, eat, drink, and be merry. We should benefit from the fruits of our labor. But there is something else that is important. We do not live alone.
This week’s passage began with a discussion on inheritance. One man wanted Jesus to tell his brother to divide the inheritance with him. Inheritance was not about possessions, it was about life and the community. The oldest son received double portion not because that son was more important, but he had the greatest responsibility. The one that received the double portion was to maintain the social safety net. It is not fair. It will never be completely fair. It seems as if someone will always come up short. But this is what Jesus is showing us. Our focus is on ourselves. And that was not the point. Adam and Eve were in the garden and they had everything available to them. God told them to be fruitful and multiply to fill all the earth. They had everything they needed except one thing was withheld from them. And it was not fair in their eyes. So they took what was not theirs and suddenly we do not have enough. What changed?
Our attention was drawn away from what we have and redirected to what we do not have. We cannot be content. “If you do well will you not be accepted.” God said to Cain. But Cain killed his brother because his brother had what he did not have. Russia as a nation covers a more ground than any other nation in the world, but they do not have Ukraine. They want Ukraine. Why do they need Ukraine when they have so much already? Its because they do not have it. Its greed. It is not fair.
Russia and every nation that invades their neighbor including our own, is no different than a toddler with a slice of cake. And the same can be said for us. We throw a tantrum and make demands, but God says to us all, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”
Jesus concludes the parable by saying, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” What does it mean to be rich toward God? That is the secret or the key to a fulfilling life. Jesus made it his custom to worship with his community. He withdrew often to pray in isolated places. And he ministered to the needs of those within his community. You will notice something if you look into the life of Jesus that is remarkable. Jesus is rarely alone except when he withdraws to pray. He usually has a crowd around him. He is always within a community. He is sharing a meal with his friends, or some teacher and as they talk around the table someone comes in to ask a question or to request some attention. He then goes from one table to another. Jesus was accused of being a glutton and drunkard because he was always eating with a large group.
And then near the end of his life, on one last evening Jesus took the bread at the table and said this is my body broken for you. He took the cup of wine and said this is my blood shed for you. He then looked at his disciples and told them do this in remembrance of me. In many christian traditions they would say that this is when Jesus commanded us to give and receive the elements of communion. But I want us to take a step back. Jesus was sharing what he had with others. He did not keep the bread for later, he shared it with his friends. The point of the parable. We work, we struggle and toil and we should eat, drink, and be merry but the fool is the one that is focused on themselves, the fool does not share. The one rich toward God is the one sharing what they have with their community. Jesus says to share what we have with those around us, in remembrance of him.
Life is never fair if we are focused on what we do not have. There is always going to be something else lurking just out of our reach. What are we willing to do in that moment? Will we seek after what we do not have, or will we embrace what we have? Will we embrace who we have?
Previous Messages:
Ransomed to Love
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 19, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 1:17–23 (ESV) 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time…
Born Again to a Living Hope
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 12, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 1:3–9 (ESV) 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born…
Broken Dreams Restored
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 05, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili John 20:1–18 (ESV) 1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the…
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