Sermon for Sunday, August 3

August 3, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Luke 12: 13-21


At first, the Gospel for today seems fairly straightforward. In fact, we might hear it and relax—after all, we’re not people who would tear down old barns to build newer, bigger barns right?

The Gospel begins in the middle of a story which happens in a crowd of thousands—if we read from the beginning of the chapter, Jesus has been preaching and teaching, mostly about hypocrisy and about how they can defend themselves when brought before authorities. And then, out of nowhere, this guy stands up and asks Jesus to tell his relative what to do—in essence, trying to put Jesus on the side of those authorities.

It’s Jesus’ response that might surprise us—I am not sent to judge. I have met many a Christian who think that it’s precisely for that very reason that Jesus was sent to us, to be the judge and the jury, and then to be the one who gets us out of our bad behavior.
It’s worth some time to think about why Jesus says he doesn’t judge. Have we been wrong about why Jesus is here? If not to judge, then why?

If we read the Bible in one light, we might say that Jesus is here to teach us—and yet, it’s not always a straight forward teaching, is it? We’ve talked about parables before, about how strange they can be. This one seems straight forward, with a message that’s not so different from other parables and teachings about wealth. But if we dig deeper, we find that the message is a bit more nuanced.

Let’s look at the parable again. It’s not really about our excess belongings. If it was, I could just finish by playing the George Carlin routine about stuff and the need to put it somewhere. It would be funny, and we could marvel at the fact that it’s still as relevant today as it was in the 1980’s, when it was part of his stand up routine. And a side note: if you do watch the Carlin routine, it does have some R-rated language—it’s George Carlin after all.

The rich man’s error wasn’t that he accumulated stuff. It’s that he put his faith in his possessions. Instead of relying on God, he relied on himself.

Look at his speech. Look at those pronouns: I, I, I, me, me, me, my, my my. Think about all that the rich man left out of his speech of rejoicing.

There’s no acknowledgment of the laborers that have surely played a part in this bountiful harvest. Most of us have had a garden. Maybe I’m just a bad gardener, but I’ve never grown enough with my solitary efforts to need one barn—certainly I’ve never had to build additional barns or tear down the old barns to build bigger ones. Surely the rich man had a team doing the planting, the weeding, the watching of the ripening crops, killing the pests that attack the crops, the harvesting—but you wouldn’t know it to hear him talk.

You’d think that this rich man was the one who was the soil and the seed. There’s no thanksgiving for the land, for the good weather, for the ways that the planting season has gone well in ways that humans had nothing to do with. There’s no mention of God, who has blessed him.

The rich man isn’t saving his bounty for a day when the crops fail. It’s not like the story of Joseph and the Egyptian Pharoah near the end of the book of Genesis. Joseph advises the Pharoah to save the bounty of the land for a time of famine which will surely come. But our rich man in Luke wants to build bigger barns not for a time of famine but so that he has a place to store the bounty until he has a chance to consume it all—all by himself. He has more than enough to share—but he doesn’t.

The rich man has no consciousness of any life beyond his own. The rich man isn’t sharing with laborers, and he’s not sharing with others who are less fortunate. It’s all about him.

Therein lies the problem. His wealth is what separates him from everything and everyone else: the ones who work for him, the land that performs for him, God who blesses him, the larger community. The rich man thinks he can do it all and can continue doing it all.

The parable asks several questions, questions which are worthwhile even if we’re not so wealthy that we need to figure out how to build bigger barns. What do we want and why? We’re only here on this earth for a short time--what is it all for? I predict that most of us would not say, “I’m put on earth to store surplus in ever bigger barns.” That’s what we would say. What would our actions say? Our lives speak volumes—what do they say is most important?

The Gospel of Luke is full of these kinds of parables, full of rich men who are stupid with money. Parable after parable, teaching after teaching, asks us to consider what we’re doing with our wealth. In the Gospel of Luke, it’s O.K. to be rich, but you better also be generous.

And that’s not all. This parable asks us to consider our relationship with God. In this parable, the rich man’s wealth has separated him from everyone else, including God. Look at the last verse: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” This parable asks us to consider what it means to be rich toward God.

It's not a simple share your wealth kind of parable, although that’s a valid take away. But it’s more than that. It’s also a parable that asks us to do some serious discernment about the kind of wealth that’s valuable. Are we spending time building up barns to store our wealth or are we generating a different kind of wealth—a wealth that won’t require barns?

This parable harkens back to the Mary and Martha story of a few weeks ago. Jesus asks Martha to discern—what distracts her and what is truly important. The wealth of the rich man distracts him from what is truly important.

It’s a shame that the Gospel ends where it does. This parable is even richer if we add the next several verses of Luke 12: “22 He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?”

Hear again the message of Jesus. Like Martha, like the rich man, we are distracted by so many things. We scurry around building bigger barns, and we run the risk that our time will run out. We store up treasures that aren’t making us rich toward God. We pay attention to so much that isn’t really important in the long run, or even in the short run.

It’s not a question that is settled once and for all. It’s the result of a thousand daily choices. The rich man’s foolishness builds up day after day, month after month, year after year—he pays attention to what’s NOT important, and then his time is over.

Let’s return to the encounter that triggers this parable, the stranger’s demand that Jesus order his brother to share the inheritance. Now Jesus’ response makes more sense. The stranger has become obsessed with the kind of wealth that doesn’t matter. Like Martha before him, he’s gotten snared in worries that do not serve him in the long run.

Jesus doesn’t come to judge us to but to ask us to do some serious discernment. Are we, too, snared in worries that do not serve us? Are we so obsessed with legalistic details that we are missing the bigger picture?

Again and again, Jesus promises us that our lives will be richer if we pay attention to what’s important. Again and again, Jesus reminds us that worldly wealth is not important. Jesus calls us to make the choices that will make us rich in God, not in grain. And should we get off course, Jesus is here not to judge, but to call us back to our best selves, to offer us a life centered not in consumer goods, but in God. And that life, will be rich indeed.