Then Who Will Own What You Have Accumulated?

A few minutes before the money question, Jesus was talking about birds.

The crowd was so large that people were stepping on each other, and he was speaking mostly to his own followers, telling them what to be afraid of and what not to be. Then he priced something. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. The cheapest thing in the market, sold by the handful, and not one of them goes unremembered. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

He went on a little longer. Then someone in the crowd broke in.

Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

He had just put a price on a sparrow, and a man wanted him to put one on an estate.

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The man had a brother, and someone had died, most likely a parent, and left something the two of them couldn't agree on. That's all Luke gives us. Nobody says which brother was right, and nobody says whether the brother was standing in the same crowd.

Jesus wouldn't take the case. Man, who appointed Me judge or executor between you? He didn't rule for one brother or the other. He turned to everyone listening and said one sentence about money, and then he told a story.

The ground of a certain rich man produced an abundance.

Notice who did the producing. The ground. The man wasn't a crook. He farmed, the weather cooperated, and he ended up with more than he could store. That's a good problem, the one a lot of people work forty years hoping to have.

So he thought it through. What shall I do, since I have nowhere to store my crops? He decided. I will tear down my barns and will build bigger ones, and there I will store up all my grain and my goods.

He already had barns. They worked. To get bigger ones he'd have to knock the old ones down and put up new ones, which is a season of construction at least, and maybe more. Only after that would the next part start.

Then I will say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry!"

That's the detail. He wasn't greedy in any way his neighbors would have noticed. He was postponing. The easy years, the meals, the joy, were all scheduled for after the barns. He had the life planned. He just hadn't started living it, because there was one more building to finish first.

The King James keeps a word that the plainer translations soften: he says all this to his soul, and in the next line it's his soul that's called in. The thing he was saving the good life for was the thing that wouldn't be there to enjoy it.

But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life will be required of you."

Then the question.

Then who will own what you have accumulated?

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It's a hard sentence to hear at sixty, and it would be easy to read it as a verdict on anybody who has ever saved. It isn't. On another day the same teacher told a story that praised a man for sitting down before he built a tower and counting whether he could finish it. Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has the resources to complete it? And the oldest food-storage plan in the Bible saved a country. Joseph told Pharaoh to collect the extra grain in the good years so that the country will not perish in the famine. Those were barns too.

So the trouble isn't the barn. Joseph's barns had a famine and a nation on the other side of them. The rich man's had only himself, and a rest that kept moving out ahead of him. Planning is wisdom. Building bigger barns for a life you never get around to living is something else.

And then Jesus did something that's easy to skip. He turned to his followers and talked about worry, at length, and he didn't tell them their needs were imaginary. Your Father knows that you need them. He talked about ravens, which have no storehouse or barn, and about wildflowers, and about how worrying can't add a single hour to anyone's life. Then, before the hardest instruction in the passage, he said this:

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.

Fear first. He named the fear and spoke to it before he said anything about giving things away. Then he ended where the whole conversation had been heading. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

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Mark tells about another man who came with an inheritance question, and it goes differently. A man ran up and knelt before Him. He asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. He was decent and he'd kept the commandments since he was young, and he said so, and nobody contradicted him.

Jesus looked at him, loved him, and told him the one thing he lacked. The man couldn't do it. He went away in sorrow, because he had great wealth.

Two men asked Jesus about inheriting. One wanted a share of what his father left. The other wanted to know how to get hold of a life. Jesus didn't settle the first man's estate, and he didn't chase the second one down the road. But Mark is careful to say which way he looked at the second one before he let him go.

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Where this meets your week

A plain word first. This chapter is not financial advice and doesn't give any. If the numbers need work, take them to someone qualified who can see all of them. What follows is about the barn, not the balance.

The arithmetic at night. Money fear is loudest in the dark, and it rarely says anything new. Jesus didn't tell his listeners their needs were imaginary. He told them they were known, and he said do not be afraid before he said anything else. Keep a pen and a card by the bed. When the fear wakes you, write it down as one question, the most specific one you can make it. Not "will it last" but the question under that one, the one a qualified person could actually answer. Then put the card face down and leave it until morning. In daylight, say the question out loud to the person who shares the house with you, or to one friend. "I keep waking up over this. Here's the actual question." A fear written as a question can be carried to someone who knows. A fear left in the dark just repeats.

The later list. A lot of people keep one. The trip to see the sister in another state, the fishing week, the long lunch with the old friend, the grandkids' recital on a weekday. Most of it is waiting on something: the barns, the next good year, the moment it feels safe. The rich man had many years planned and was given one night. Write the later list out, all of it, and then circle only the items that don't depend on the numbers at all. A phone call. A drive. A Tuesday afternoon. Pick one circled item and put it on the calendar this month, with a time, the way you'd book anything else that mattered. If it falls through, rebook it the same day.

The things in the garage. One's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. A long working life leaves a lot behind it: tools, boxes, the good dishes, a room nobody goes in. The question in the story will get answered by somebody eventually. Start with one object that means something. Decide who it belongs with, and give it to them while you can watch their face when they open it. Tell them the story that goes with it, because that's the part nobody can inherit from a box. "This was the wrench I used on my first job. I want you to have it now, not later." Then do one more next month.

The one more year. The role ended, or was supposed to, and then came one more contract, one more season of consulting, one more year of keeping a hand in, just until things feel settled. Sometimes that's exactly right. Sometimes it's the barn again: tear down, build bigger, and then the easy years, which keep moving out ahead like the horizon on a long drive. The rich man's plan had a then in it and never a date. If you're still building, write down what finished would look like, in one sentence, and show it to one person who will ask you about it in six months. "When this is true, I'm done: ___." Whether that's the right line is a question for you and the people who know your whole picture. The point is only that the line exists.

With someone else. The man in the crowd and his brother never sat down together, as far as the record says. If there's a spouse, a partner or a close friend in your life, the hardest money conversations often go better as one planned hour than as a hundred passing worries. Pick a time when neither of you is tired. Each brings one sentence: "What I'm afraid of is ___," and "What I'd want these years to be for is ___." Read them to each other. Don't try to solve anything that night. If the sentences raise questions about the actual numbers, write the questions down together and take them to someone qualified.

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Write two numbers.

The first is what you need. Not what you'd like, not what a stranger's chart says, but what your life actually costs. If you can't fill it in, that's a reason to sit down with someone qualified, not a reason to guess.

The second is what would be enough. The number where, if you reached it, you'd stop building and start living. The rich man never wrote that one down. His plan only had one direction.

Give it an evening, not a weekend: one hour, a quiet room, a single sheet of paper. Write the two numbers, or as close as you can honestly get, and put them side by side. Look at the space between them. If the second number is the one you can't write, that's worth noticing too. Fold the sheet and put it somewhere you'll find it in three months, then take it out and look again.

If the exercise stirs up more fear than it settles, stop. Put the sheet away, and bring the fear, not the paper, to a person you trust. The point of the numbers is to see clearly, not to keep score.

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He said it to a small group, on a day when a crowd of thousands was pushing in around them, right after a story about a man who died with his barns still in the planning.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.

Not willing. Pleased.