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Date: 2009-11-25
Title: Jesus on Retirement Savings
Consider the following quote of Jesus from Luke 12:13-21 (ESV):
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." And he told them a parable, saying, "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."
Consider what the rich man in this parable is being judged for. God isn't judging him for how he got his abundance of crops. There is no indication that he obtained his land wrongly or that he exploited workers who helped him farm his land. All he has done in this story is save up his own, presumably hard earned, abundance of crops for his own retirement where he intended to take life easy. He prudently waited until he had enough to support himself for many years. How is this different than what the vast majority of church-goers in the Western world desire to have? Yet God called him a fool!
Why is he a fool? God points out that all the things he worked hard to store up for himself will just go to someone else anyway. Jesus then points out that this will be the same (i.e. God will call you a fool) for anyone who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Because of the ambiguity of language, it may be tempting to think that Jesus is allowing us to store up treasure for ourselves as long as we are "rich toward God." However, consider the following passage (Matthew 6:19-21, ESV):
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
If you want Jesus to be your Lord, you do not have the option of laying up for yourself treasure on earth. Jesus has commanded you not to because he knows that, if you do, your heart will be here in the world and not in heaven. So we see that Jesus could not have possibly meant that we can both store up treasures for ourselves and be rich toward God at the same time. The only other alternative is that he is stating that if we lay up treasure on heaven we are not being rich toward God.
Consider a few things as you think about the application to your life. If this rich man had lived for years and not died that night, would God have still called him a fool? When this man in the parable stands before Jesus at his judgment, will Jesus say to him, "Fool! Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." or will he say to him "Fool! Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."? If God decided to demand your soul of you tonight, what would he say? Would he find that you have laid up treasure for yourself?
As always, I welcome comments.
in Christ,
Joel