“Faithful Stewardship, Part 3: “How the Rich Fool Squandered His Money” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, November 9, 2025, Year C / Proper 27 (32) – Colossians 3:1-11 ¨ Luke 12:13-21
THEME: Understand that wealth comes from God and use it for God’s purposes.
Jesus is teaching in front of a huge crowd, maybe a thousand people. He is warning them of an imminent crisis. It is a crisis of faith and faithfulness. The root cause of this crisis is their leaders. The pharisees are morally corrupt and spiritually blind. Jesus minces no words. He calls them hypocrites. They give the appearance of piety by tithing mint and all manner of minutia, but their hearts have been coopted by greed. They are more focused on living for themselves than living for God or the people. When someone in the crowd asks Jesus to intervene on an issue of financial inheritance, Jesus uses the opportunity to tell a parable about the danger of greed and self-centered living. A rich landowner is enjoying a bumper crop. His harvest is so big that he does not have the barn space to store it. Our initial reaction is good for him. What a good problem to have, right? His solution, however, is suspect. He decides to tear down his existing barns and build bigger ones. That way, he can have enough socked away to live what he presumes will be a long life of luxury and ease.
Then God enters the parable with a voice of judgment. The rich man is a fool, because his life will end that very night. All his material possessions – his house, his barns, and his crops – will be of no use to him. As Ecclesiastes says, you can’t take it with you. It is curious that Jesus tells this parable about such a wealthy man. It makes us wonder, can anyone in that crowd relate to this? None of them have ever had this problem of too big a harvest. The vast majority cannot even feed themselves day to day. When it comes to food and the most basic material goods, they do not have near enough, let alone more than enough.
But they have dreamt about it. They have fantasized about what life would like. They may even have prayed for it. Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, they say to themselves, “Would it be so terrible if I had a small fortune?” Material wealth is tempting for them, and it is tempting for us. Jesus knows this temptation. He knows that money and material goods can easily capture our hearts and become idols. That is why he talked about money more than anything else except the Kingdom of God.
The point of this parable is to show the crowd not only how powerful is that temptation, but what happens to us when we give in to it. First, this rich man is the very definition of a deeply self-centered human being. He is focused solely on himself. He talks exclusively to himself and about himself. The only concerns on his mind are his own. He does not give even a passing thought to others and their well-being. Not even God enters his thinking. He has no gratitude to God who caused the growth, brought the rains, and kept the insects away. He has no gratitude to the workers who planted, tended, and harvested this bumper crop. Nor does he even think about sharing his largess with others. It is all for him.
It makes us wonder. Is there even anyone else in his life? If so, they merit no mention. His life may be full of creature comfort, but it is devoid of meaningful connection. Self-absorbed, empty, and lonely. That is often the case with those who succumb to greed by making an idol of money. For them, peace, happiness and security are elusive. The reality is that no matter how much we have, we are always aware of things we do not have, and others who have more. As we strive to catch up to them, we sacrifice the very peace and happiness that we seek. Security through material goods is a pipe dream. No amount of wealth or property can secure our lives. Material goods are transient blessings: barns burn, crops rot, money is stolen. Nor can material wealth protect us from physical illness, disease, and heartbreak.
There is a better way to live. It is the way of true peace, happiness and security. It is the path of faithful stewardship. As we saw two weeks ago, this new life begins with humility. Do you remember the Publican, the tax collector praying in the Temple? He was the picture of true humility and dependence on God’s grace. Last week, Zacchaeus showed us the right way to use God’s material gifts. He held money loosely. He understood that our lives and possessions are not our own. All that we have ultimately comes from God, and we are accountable to God for the way we use it. Zacchaeus used his wealth the right way: to make the Kingdom visible. He did that by sharing his wealth with those most in need, and behaving justly in his dealings with others. His purpose was God’s purpose: to reconcile and reunify the community, to make them whole, starting with those living on the margins.
When it comes to faithful stewardship of God’s gifts, the rich fool is the exact opposite of Zacchaeus. He is dreaming of his barns when he should be repenting of his life. When he finally meets St. Peter at the pearly gates, we sense that the conversation is not going to go well. This parable is a warning. Jesus is telling us that we only have so much in the way of material resources, and only so much time to put them to work for God’s’ purposes. He wants us to ask ourselves “Are we being faithful stewards? Are we being generous rather than greedy? Are we using God’s gifts to meet the needs of others, not just our own?
In modern times, there are few better examples of a faithful steward who overcame the temptation of wealth than John Templeton. John Templeton was born into a middle-class Presbyterian family in rural Tennessee in 1912. Growing up during the Depression, he was deeply influenced by his parents’ faith, discipline, and thrift. He worked his way through college and graduate school. Then he went to work on Wall Street. After receiving a Purple Heart in WWII, John returned to Wall Street and started his own firm. In 1954, he created one of the very first mutual funds, the Templeton Growth Fund. Over the following decades he became a very wealthy man. He faced the same challenge the Rich Fool did: the problem of having too much.
A casual observer would not have been surprised if John had succumbed to the temptation of greed and self-interest, just as the Rich Fool did. It is almost a cliché: yet another Wall Street billionaire living a life of luxury without giving a hoot or a cent for other people who have less. But anyone who thought that did not know John Templeton. Money was not John’s God. Even as his firm grew by leaps and bounds, he continued to live a humble, modest life raising a family in suburban New Jersey. He sent his kids to public school. He served as an Elder at the FPC of Englewood. He became a trustee of Princeton seminary.
What he became best known for was not the amount of money he earned, but the amount of money he gave away. He funneled his fortune into foundations that promote the significance of religion and spirituality in human existence. In 1972, John established the Templeton prize. It is an annual award of $1.5 million given to a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming the spiritual dimension of life. The very first recipient in 1973 was Mother Teresa. When John Templeton died in 2008, he was honored as one of the world’s greatest philanthropists. He had given away 90% of his earnings.
Folks, you and I are not billionaires. None of us has that amount of wealth tempting us to a life of self-centered greed. But we have all been given some resources. We all face the temptation John Templeton overcame. The question is, “Will we respond to God’s grace as he did, with gratitude and generosity? Will we use God’s gifts for God’s purposes? Will we move toward tithing?”
Jesus is not saying that we should not save money for college, or retirement, or that we should forego insurance, or any of those other sensible things that are simply prudent. Nor does God want us to live a life of monastic poverty and self-denial. In fact, just the opposite. God wants us to enjoy the gifts he has given us. But he also wants us to make sure that we are using them the right way.
Friends, as you and I consider our pledges in preparation for Commitment Sunday one week from today, let’s not be like the Rich Fool who squandered his money on himself. Let’s be like Zacchaeus whose generosity and justice are so very pleasing to God.
May it be so.
