20 Jan, 2015, In the US, President Obama, the most powerful man in this world, gave the President’s annual State of the Union address to the US congress and a worldwide audience. (I have neither heard it nor previewed it, but rest assured his priorities are not mine or yours.)
1 January, 2015, You were likely one of millions to make at least one or a list of New Year’s resolutions. (You’ve had three weeks. How are you doing with that?)
10 July, 2007, We were on our honeymoon in beautiful St. Lucia. I wanted to establish some important priorities for our new marriage, concepts borrowed from “The 7 Habits of Highly Organized People” by Steven Covey, from which the graphic for this post is taken. My bride was recuperating from another chemo-therapy treatment (not your usual honeymoon activity) and wanted nothing to do with it. I trashed the book.
Plan all you want; some things are important and some are not.
Some events become urgent, most do not.
As a good manager of my life I want to always plan for the important things and important people of my future.
As the poor manager of my time and relationships (as all-to-frequently I am), I gravitate from the important to the unimportant (as Covey warns) and neglect the inevitable importance of those life events and people which will surly come without warning. (No, I still have not updated my will… for instance.)
And who would ever think to plan so poorly to have a honeymoon right after a cancer treatment. My urgency and reasons failed to stand in the importance of time.
I have led a successful and fruitful life in past times in more than one career. (I cannot claim that in this particular fleeting moment of eternal time).
A man like me (perhaps like you) came to Jesus right when he was on top.
What can you do for my portfolio, Jesus? Does your new mega-church need some money? I know you have the power here.
Can you help me out here? What can you do for me? (Everybody wants me to be part of their church boards and leadership, you know.) How can I help you, Jesus? I know you could do just this one thing for me, please.
Now you may claim to have never seen this man in the Gospel and that he never said that. Yet look closer to this familiar story (remembering how rich almost ALL Americans and Europeans are (along with a select, exclusive group of the rich in nearly every country throughout the world).
Consider that you are the RICH man coming up to Jesus. Later we will reconsider our priorities: their urgency and their importance.
The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 But he [Jesus] said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
Now this is NOT the answer we rich women and rich men expect as an answer from Jesus, is it?
My father is currently blessed with long life. He is 91. My mother went to be with the Lord in 2007. I have three siblings. (As I mentioned, I have not even updated my own will. {Shame on me..}) For me, this scenario of the rich man could well take place at anytime in the next decade. So easily could I come to Jesus and ask Him to be an arbitrator over my inheritance of earthly riches.
I’ve had some tough times the past few years… been taken advantage of… lost much. (Nobody bailed me out. No one replaced my income or market losses.) I once had extra storage and extra accounts for all my wealth! But not now.
Can Jesus help me?
Listen to our Lord’s reply:
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.”’
“Eat, drink and be merry.” You have heard it quoted back to you out of context that this is straight from the Bible from the teaching of Jesus.
But the rest of the expression, “for tomorrow you die,” though true, is not the application of Jesus’ teaching.
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.”
“God said to him, ‘Fool!’
Jesus is not warning us to party now, because one day you will die (and it could be as soon as tomorrow). He is not telling the man not to save some of his wealth, either. Jesus is telling the man that he is saving up for the wrong priorities and possibly a wrong day (of his life) for which he is planning, but does not expect.
Do Not Be Anxious
22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.
Jesus does not tell the man not to plan his barns. Jesus does not tell the man not to save his money for a future need. Jesus does not even tell the man to give some money to his church so that God will bless him. What a ludicrous call to an offering; but it is so often the hope of the rich man who wants and covets even more. (I’ll listen to this preacher and give him a little, because he promises that God will give me even more if I give to his church.)
What was important to Jesus, then? What did Jesus think the rich man should plan. What does Jesus think you should plan? For after all, tomorrow may be the day your soul is required of you.
Eternity is a long time. How close our entrance into the rest before judgment! By comparison even to the urgency of life’s every day trials and the importance of this mortal life’s focus on a lifetime; how near we stand each God-given day to the treasure of heaven, or how near we teeter toward the precipice of sin’s backsliding into a long punishment of Hell!
Does God say to you, “Fool!?”
Do you think that any investment of your time and money will keep the steep cliff of sin upon which you stand from the collapse of landsliding time? Do you have any hope of surviving the fall without the Savior of the fallen to lift you toward light?
Jesus Christ has promised us an inheritance in heaven. He has guaranteed our reward by His sacrifice for our sins – and these are many – on the bloody Cross.
Focus on your eternal future. Manage your earthly time and money. Invest in Christ’s righteousness. This, of course, in addition to worshiping God and giving some of your time and money to the church, means that like Christ Jesus, our Lord (so we claim), we must always love God, always love people (and so many of us are so hard to love – really).
Do not be deceived by your dreams and desires for a bigger barn on earth. Do not be swayed to avoid the thought that you are mortal and a God-appointed day for the end of this life awaits you.
Do you think its enough to spend a little time and a pittance of pocket change at church once a week? Is that your storage barn of heaven?
Let us plan for eternal life by our investment in our daily life. Let it be for Christ Jesus, who sacrificed everything for you and for me.
Jesus paid the price for your soul. Yet if you do not follow Him as lord of your life, you will not have the ransom for your soul, required to pay for your sin.
Dearly beloved, mortal sister, mortal brother of this failing flesh: please do not be the rich fool. Repent! Turn back to bow down to Jesus as your Lord, our only Saviour, while it is yet today.
For all we know, tomorrow! – your soul may be required of you.
Judea was a mess, again. Judea was no longer Judah. Jerusalem was not a political capital, because it was ruled by Rome. Israel was centuries before defeated (even before the fall of Judah and the rise of Rome). Israel became part of Syria on the current Roman map. Galilee was less than a state, under the rule of different Romans than Judea. Nazareth was nothing more than a little fishing village, a nice place for Joseph to have a little carpenter shop and raise his family.