“God’s anonymous: a rich fool”
Luke 12:13
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Born in April of 1938, American financier Bernie Madoff attended, then graduated from Hofstra University with a degree in Political Science. And after studying law for a year in Brooklyn, New York, he left school to found his own investment company, what he called, “Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.” In time, it became one of the largest companies in the stock market, worth close to $65 billion! And since he was so admired and respected by all those who knew him, he even served as chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, from 1990 to 1993.
And needless to say, life was good! Celebrities the likes of Steven Spielberg, Larry King, Kevin Bacon, Sandy Koufax, John Malkovich and Zsa Zsa Gabor all trusted him with their millions of dollars. Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel even said, “We thought he was God. We trusted everything in his hands.”
And his life of luxury, let me tell you, was beyond belief. Take, for example, his $1 million home on the French Riviera, or his $4 million home on Long Island, or his $8 million apartment in Manhattan, or his $11 million estate in Palm Beach. And that’s nothing to say of his three yachts, the 24-foot Little Bull, the 38-foot Sitting Bull and the 55-foot Bull.
And let’s not forget about his collection of forty Rolex watches, as well as his $2.5 million worth of jewelry, a $39,000 Steinway piano and $65,000 worth of silverware in one home alone, not to mention countless shoes and shirts that, as far as anyone can tell, were never worn.
But in 1999, after a financial analyst named Harry Markopolos began to take a closer look, he realized that something wasn’t quite adding up, that Bernie Madoff’s numbers were just too good to be true, and that he was very likely a fraud.
And sure enough, when the FBI and the SEC, (that’s the Securities and Exchange Commission), finally decided to investigate, they arrested him in December of 2008 for bilking thousands of investors out of billions of dollars, and sentenced him to 150 years in federal prison.
He would die thirteen years later in prison, in April of 2021, of hypertension, heart disease and kidney disease, at the age of 82.
The book of Luke tells a story quite a lot like that, a story about a man and his money and how, in a moment they were gone.
I’ll read the words of chapter 12: “Someone in the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ But He said to him, ‘Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?’ 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’” (Luke 12:13-15).
“Someone in the crowd,” the Bible says. Now why would anyone ask Jesus a question like that? Two brothers were arguing about money and one asked Him to intervene?
Apparently, such a question wasn’t unusual at all. In Jesus’ day, if you had a legal problem or dispute of any kind, you’d ask a respected rabbi to intervene.
But what did Jesus say? Nothing at all like the man expected. Instead, He said, “Who appointed Me a judge or an arbitrator between you?” And He said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
And just to be sure he got the point, Jesus told him a story--the story of a rich man and his abundant crop.
He said: “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 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. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16-21).
Now if we didn’t know any better, it’d be hard to find anything wrong with this man. As a matter of fact, he seems like the perfect business partner or even church member, like any of us would want to be.
After all, there’s not even a hint in the story that he was a cheat, a crook, a loan shark or a scoundrel. Jesus never said he got his money through dishonest means. As far as we can tell, he never hurt anyone, or so it seemed.
What’s more, he was a farmer, a hardworking, back-breaking farmer. And to be a farmer isn’t just physical. A good farmer is an economist, a financier, a mechanic, a handyman, a business executive and a computer expert all rolled into one, not to mention all the other things he has to know about raising crops and animals. Lazy farmers don’t stand a chance. It’s a 24/7 kind of job and only the strong should apply.
And look at his crop! It wasn’t just any harvest. It was an absolutely remarkable harvest. It was so big and so amazing, he couldn’t just put up an extra silo or two out back of his house. He had to tear everything down and start all over again!
Even more--the land was his, the seeds were his, and the harvest was his. Who got up at 5:00 every morning? Who worked late every night? The rich man did. He worked hard for everything he owned.
So what was the problem? The problem’s found in what he said and what he did. That’s what made all the difference in the world.
Listen to what he said: “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. This is what I’ll do. I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry.’”
Not once did he say, “I could never thank You enough, Lord, for this bountiful harvest” or “Surely God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams!” Instead, he said, “What shall I do?” Take a good look, and you’ll find that of the fifty-four words in this parable, a full eighteen of them are in the first person--”I,” “me” and “my.” Mine, mine, gimmee, gimmee.
And that was his first mistake.
His second and worst mistake came at the end. He said, “Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry.”
He didn’t care about God or anyone else. All he wanted to do was to sit back, put his feet up and take it easy for the rest of his life.
And it was to this man who was so rich, so selfish and so greedy, that Jesus said, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you’ve prepared?”
In other words, “How could you be so stupid? You’ve got your earthly security all laid out for the rest of your life, but you have no idea what will happen when you die. The real question isn’t, ‘What shall I do?’ It’s, ‘What will God do?’”
Unfortunately, we know this story only too well. Maybe it’s not our barns or our goods, but it’s most certainly something else.
And we have been blessed, far more than we can understand. In fact, a survey of the average American says that there are as many as 300,000 items in each and every home, that we throw away sixty-five pounds of clothes every year, that one out of every ten Americans rent offsite storage in one of 50,000 storage facilities across the U.S., and that while 25% of people have two-car garages, many of them don’t even have room to park their cars inside.
Or how about this--Psychology Today reports that not only do Americans spend more on shoes, watches and jewelry than on higher education, we have more shopping malls than high schools.
And if that’s not enough, over the course of our lifetime, we’ll spend a total of 3,680 hours, (that’s 153 days!) searching for things we’ve lost, like our phone or our keys or our sunglasses.
We’ve even invented a new disease called “affluenza.” It’s defined as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.”
But do our riches bring an abundant life? Andrew Carnegie once said, “Millionaires who laugh are rare. Though you may have all the money in the world, you still can be a lonely, sorrowing man.” And Christina Onassis said, “Happiness is not based on money, and the greatest proof of that is our family.”
In the book of Deuteronomy, the people of Israel had, just forty years before, escaped from Egypt. They passed through the Red Sea on dry ground. They journeyed through the wilderness. And they were about to step foot into the Promised Land.
But Moses knew the challenges that lay ahead and was concerned they couldn’t handle the blessings. So he said: “When the Lord brings you into the land He swore to your fathers--a land with large flourishing cities and houses filled with all kinds of good things…be careful that you don’t forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Deuteronomy 6:10-12).
“Be careful,” he said. “Be careful that you don’t forget the Lord.”
There’s nothing wrong with tearing down old barns and building bigger ones. But if that’s all you’ve got, if that’s all you care about, then you’re worthy of the name God couldn’t help but call him: “You fool.”
It’s been said that slowly, but surely, as we go through life, God weans us away from the things of this world. At first, He touches only our possessions (which we can replace), but eventually He touches our relationships (which may not be replaced), then He touches our loved ones (who cannot be replaced). Finally, He touches life itself (which is never replaced). Then there’s nothing left, but us and God.
And all the way, our heavenly Father leads us along the pathway of complete trust in Him. And in this journey, we discover that the things we once couldn’t live without, don’t matter so much anymore. Even the nearest and dearest things of life take second place to knowing God. And in the end, we discover that He’s emptied our hands of everything, and then filled them with Himself.
So where are true riches to be found? Not in silver or gold, but in the precious blood that once flowed from our Savior’s side and in His words that speak forgiveness. And we give thanks, knowing full well that, no matter how hard we work, absolutely everything, from the smallest achievement to the biggest and grandest farm, is all a gift from God.
One more thing--when a man asked Jesus, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” He answered and said, “Man, who appointed Me a judge or an arbitrator between you?” (Luke 12:13-14).
When Jesus came to live among us, He didn’t come to judge us or to settle property disputes. But He did come to live and to die and to rise again from the dead. And because He did, we too bear the promise of life and forgiveness and resurrection from the dead.
As St. Peter wrote in his first epistle: “In His great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you” (I Peter 1:3-4).
So we give thanks to God.
Remind us again, dear Father, that a man’s life does not consist in his wealth or in the things that he owns. Instead, grant that we may find our hope and strength in You, for Jesus’ sake. Amen