GOSPEL PARABLES 3 BUILDING A BIGGER BARN

GOSPEL PARABLES 3 BUILDING BIGGER BARNS 

We have been reading in chronological order the Gospel parables that are common to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and there are also some that are only recorded in two of the three Gospels. And the next small group of parables that come in chronological order that we will do are only found in Luke. Today, we are looking at a parable in Luke 12, where Jesus teaches about a man building a bigger barn for more grain. We begin with Jesus answering a question from somebody in the large crowd. 

Luke 12:16 Then one from 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 an arbitrator over you?” And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” 

In disputes like these, an arbitrator appointed by the synagogue would legally apportion property or wealth, and Jesus was not interested in this legal role. His mission was about people’s hearts and not about possessions or positions of power, and coveting was about possessions and power. Jesus taught people to have a good conscience and to be aware of the consequences of being covetous about those things and he now illustrates this by teaching us the nature of covetousness in the parable of the man driven to build a bigger barn.

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build bigger barns, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry. “But God said to him, ‘You foolish man! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will all those things be which you have stored up for yourself?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself and does not find fulfillment in God.”
Jesus says a few verses later ‘Sell what you have stored up and give graciously to those in need; store up for yourselves the valuable assets which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not waste away, something that no thief can have access to or that could get eaten away by moths. For where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be also.’ (Luke 12 :34)

In this verse Jesus is addressing the issue of people having plenty of goods in store that they could easily sell off and convert into money that could be given to the poor who begged on the street or in front of the temple. This challenges people like the covetous rich man in the parable who accumulated his goods, thinking that what he owned defined who he was in order to feel fulfilled in his life – but he wasn’t growing in the grace and compassion that God wanted to grow in him, to be really fulfilled in his life. 

Coveting comes from a feeling of unfulfillment and a mindset of insufficiency and scarcity. This mindset of never having enough shrinks our soul which now searches for fulfilment with yearnings for things that other people have, or for more than we already have and would ever need to have. 
Those things we want and don’t have become the ‘good’ things we feel we need and the things we are left with become the not good enough things and even the ‘bad’ things. Coveting totally confuses our understanding of good and evil. 

This parable is about understanding the difference between what the true inner treasure is of the good things that God has for our lives and the things we store up for ourselves because of that empty sense of inner unfulfillment and desolation. 
A coveting unfulfillment mindset causes a downward spiritual spiral to shape our future. But God desires to reshape our future by giving us the inner fulfillment of living a life with him.

The human mind and heart became deceived about good and evil from the moment that Satan crafted a lie about God. Satan said to Eve You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of that tree you will be like him, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:4)
Eve was made to think that God was withholding something good from them and Eve let that lie into her mind and heart and was left feeling unfulfilled and not having enough, and so did Adam, and they both believed it and ate the fruit. Darkness had put it into their minds that God would be threatened if they were to become like him and so he had forbidden them to eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. 

The human mind and heart became deceived by the Prince of darkness concerning both the nature of God and the nature of good and evil. We as Mankind had now inherited the covetous mindset of confusion about what was good and what was bad and so from that time on whatever or whoever spoiled the getting of the good thing that we covet is bad, and that would even include God. 

Lucifer, the mighty dark angel was there when God said ‘let us make man in our own image and after our likeness’ (Genesis 1:26). Lucifer was the first being to commit the sin of covetousness because he believed in his heart that he should be like God and not these puny human creatures. He has weaponised his corrupted knowledge of good and evil against humanity and has tempted them ever since with the same sin of covetousness. And that also became his resentful war against God.        

He coveted the place that Jesus had, and that pride made him fall, and Jesus saw him fall. Luke 10:18 ‘I saw Satan fall as lightning’. Satan resented that he was created as a lesser being than God and he resented feeling insufficient and unfulfilled. He had deceived himself about who he should be and about what he wanted for himself and his eyes were opened to his own evil and his pride has kept them open.

Lucifer was also there when God summed up the disastrous beginning for humanity’s journey in life. He now comments on the effect and the cosequences of disobeying him and of heeding the lie of darkness. had observed the effect that their  - Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, it may well be that he will reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22) (paradeisos - an enclosed garden, a place of protection (Luke 24:33). Satan would now cause Mankind to struggle in a world full of human covetousness, outside of the protected paradise of the Garden of Eden - a world that he had damaged with his lying darkness. 

God knew that mankind could not handle their corrupted knowledge of good and evil but he had to cast them from the Garden of Eden or Paradise – because if they disobediently ate from the Tree of Life before humanity was ready for that Tree, then they would live forever trapped in their corrupted covetous confusion about good and evil. And God knew that Jesus, our Tree of Life would come and bring eternal life to humanity at the appointed time and then we would understand the true meaning of fulfilment and know that God is ‘good’. He desires to fulfill the lives of his children with his goodness toward them and not have them live trapped within their own interpretation of what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. 

God becomes to us the source of all blessing and fulfillment in our lives. This allows us to pursue a mindset of inner peace and fulfillment in God within our spirit, which releases us to give out to God and to others graciously from that inner spiritual fulfillment. That movement of faith towards God further expands the inner spiritual life and expresses that fulfillment in our soul as a disposition of contentment where we trust that God will provide enough and we can say ‘I have enough’. God reaches out to us to heal that sense of forsakenness and desolation that turns our souls into an inner wilderness. He wants to awaken us to his promise to prepare a table of his goodness ad provision for us in our wilderness and to bless and fulfill our inner and outer lives and the lives of those around us. Amen