(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Meaning of Excess”, originally shared on July 30, 2025. It was the 370th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
“Nothing succeeds like excess”, might be the primary life lesson now
being shown by social media, reality TV, politics, professional sports,
academics, and more. That is, the world. Today, we’ll see what Jesus has to
show us about that.
It starts out like a soap
opera. Family drama. Greed.
It ends up as a rebuke. A
restatement of human purpose. And with an unexpected twist.
Here’s what happens in between.
Jesus was on his way to
Jerusalem to die and a crowd of thousands had gathered around him as he was
teaching his disciples. Then this happened in Luke 12:13-14,
13 Someone in the crowd said to him,
“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who
set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”
Jesus apparently had a
reputation for wisdom and some popular authority. Some random person in the
crowd asked Jesus to settle a family dispute over money. My family might
be in America because of this same dispute, a falling-out with a big brother.
My paternal great-grandfather
came to the United States and never had any contact with his family in Norway
again. We don’t know why.
We had always known that we
must have relatives in Norway, but we didn’t know who they were because our common
ancestor cut off all ties. They didn’t know that they had any family in the
United States until the Internet age and we made contact.
When Sally and James and I
visited Norway in 2004, we were the first people with the family name to see
our family in about 120 years. They showed me the family history book and next
to our relative’s name it said, “we think he died.”
Our common relative came to the
United States during a time that Norwegians refer to as the 100-year hunger. It
was also a time of primogeniture. That is, the oldest son inherited everything
from his parents in order to keep the estate intact. He was made responsible
for taking care of the rest of the family.
Maybe our Norwegian relative
and the man in this Bible story had the same problem. Maybe they didn’t like
how their older brother was managing things. Maybe they thought they should
have more.
Jesus wasn’t going to allow
himself to be drawn into family court, but he uses this request as a teachable
moment about a bigger question, continuing with Luke 12:15.
15 And he said to them, “Take care!
Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in
the abundance of possessions.”
You might have seen the 1987
movie “Wall Street” with Michael Douglas. In it, his character, Gordon Gekko,
gives a speech in which he praises greed as a driving factor in the economy, a
positive force in economic evolution. He says, “Greed, for want of a better
word, is good.”
Jesus says just the opposite:
“Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not
consist in the abundance of possessions.”
And then he tells them why, in
the form of a parable, starting with Luke 12:16-19,
16 Then he told them a parable: “The
land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What
should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I
will pull 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.’
I still remember my
confirmation pastor’s definition of a parable as earthly story with a single
heavenly meaning. Jesus tells a parable about a guy who had storage problems,
problems that are familiar to us. Most of us would not consider ourselves to be
rich, but most of the world would. People are literally risking their lives to
get here every day.
“I’ve been poor and I’ve been
rich. Rich is better,” is something that I first heard from comedian and
philanthropist Jerry Lewis, but it’s been attributed to many. Jesus shows us a
better way to be rich.
J. Paul Getty, the founder of
the Getty Oil Company, once said, “My formula for success is rise early, work
late and strike oil.” 😊 His art collection formed the basis of the
Getty Museum in Los Angeles. What would you do with oil company money? A lot of
people have lived surprisingly terrible lives after suddenly coming into that
kind of money.
But most of us would at least
like to have a chance to try. 😊
We don’t like to talk about our
money, though. Especially in church.
I don’t know why talking about our
money makes us squirm a little, other than maybe we don’t want people to judge
us, or we’re afraid someone will try to take it from us, or we’re embarrassed
by how much or by how little we give.
But Jesus did. Jesus talked
about money, and the use of money, and the purpose of money, and the spiritual
meaning of money. In fact, he spoke about money more than any other topic
except the Kingdom of God.
He knew that money is an
expression of value, and how we use it is an expression of what we
value.
We can get a pretty good idea of what we
value by looking at how much we need to live a decent life, and how much we freely
give of the excess to serve the people who God died for.
It’s been said that the amount
of stuff we have merely expands to equal the amount of space we have to store
it in. Whole industries are built around
storing our excess stuff.
Homes for the average person
have gotten bigger over the years and storage space is a huge selling point.
You can buy homes with a space for one car, or you can park your car in your
driveway and use the space for storage. You can buy homes with spaces for two
cars. Or three. Four. Five!
How much space do you need?
Jesus continues, in Luke 12:20,
20 But God said to him, ‘You fool!
This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have
prepared, whose will they be?’
Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author
of War and Peace and other classics, wrote a short story with a similar message
called, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
A man who is greedy for more
land hears about a group of simple farmers with a lot of land. He offers to buy
their land and offers a low price. They counter by saying that, for 1,000
rubles, he can have as much land as he can walk around from sunrise to sunset.
But, if he doesn’t get back by sunset, he loses his money and gets no land.
The man is ecstatic with
getting the bargain of a lifetime. He starts walking, but every time he thinks
about circling back, he thinks that if he walks a little farther he can get
more land. He keeps walking. Then when he is far, far away, he makes his loop
and starts running to get back in time. He makes it back to the starting point
just as the sun sets, but he is exhausted, and he dies on the spot.
He is buried in a hole 6 feet
long. All the land that a man needs.
The author of the Bible’s book Ecclesiastes
questioned the meaning of life in the face of this reality in Ecclesiastes 2:18-19,
18 I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I
must leave it to those who come after me 19 —and who knows
whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which
I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.
So what is the meaning
of our excess in both this world and the next? It’s found in what we do with it.
Billy Graham once said that he
had never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul. 😊
No, you can’t take it with you,
it’s been said, but you can send it on ahead.
Jesus teaches the lesson of
this parable in its conclusion, in Luke 12:21,
21 So it is with those who store up
treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
What? Didn’t you expect to hear
something about giving to the poor, or to those experiencing sudden catastrophes,
or to the Church? What does he mean, “but are not rich toward God”? Does God
need out money?
Martin Luther, the 16th century
Church reformer, once said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have
lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still
possess.”
Look at what Jesus doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say that we don’t need money or shouldn’t have it. He condemns those
who only store treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.
What does it mean to be rich
toward God?
Tithing, or giving 10% of your
income to the Church, is often mentioned as the standard for giving, but is it?
One could argue that giving 10%
is too much.
Tithes and offerings in Jesus’
day were the only source of funds for social service programs, in addition to
supporting the physical needs of worship and the Temple.
The Romans taxed the people of
Israel and used the money to build and support the Roman Empire.
In addition, the Temple had its
own tax unrelated to tithes and offerings.
Our taxes fund socials services
today, beyond what we support through our giving.
And, even today, everybody has
a good reason not to give: “I’m saving for college”, “I’m going to school”, “I’m
paying off my student loans”, “I’m saving for a house”, “I just got married”, “I
just started a family”, “I’m helping my children”, “I’m saving for retirement”,
“I’m living on a fixed income” are all good reasons not to give anything but a
token amount.
One could also argue that just tithing
is not enough, if the standard is, as Jesus said it is, being rich toward God.
In the New Testament, the tithe
was a start. Your offering didn’t start until after your tithe.
And, if tithing is an
expression of our gratitude to God, it’s pretty small. When you go to a
restaurant and you leave a tip of 10% today, what does our culture say about
that? You’re cheap!
Or think about how much you
give on an average Sunday. Now multiply that by ten. Could you live on that?
Or, what if we didn’t ask
ourselves how much we’re going to give, but how much we’re going to keep? Now
we’re getting closer to the meaning of this parable.
But I think that Jesus has a
more enduring reason for warning us against only thinking about ourselves
financially.
It’s that we have been made new
because of what Jesus did on the cross for all who believe. We are a new
creation in our Baptism and through faith. God set the reset button on us, and
our behavior flows from that. We are blessed.
Money is a means for ministry,
both personal and for the work of our Christian community as a whole. When we
speak of being a good steward, or of stewardship, we are speaking of how we
manage the money that we have been given to manage.
Why are we blessed? The whole
sweep of the Bible says that we are blessed to be a blessing. To be
witnesses to the great gifts we have first received from God.
We don’t give because we have
to. We give because we want to. And if we don’t want to, if we immediately
start to think about reasons why we can’t give, or won’t give past a token
amount, we are not being rich toward God. We are being the opposite.
Jesus says that that’s a spiritual
problem.
What does the Bible say is the
root of all evil? It’s not money, as we see in Paul’s first letter to Timothy,
in 1 Timothy 6:10,
10 For the love of money is a root
of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away
from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
The love of money is a
root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered
away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
What’s wrong with being eager
to be rich? Greed is not good. It consumes the consumer.
Even the secular world knows
this. There is a popular saying among investors that, “Bears make money. Bulls
make money. Pigs get slaughtered.”
But there is a more serious
danger to greed: it makes money the object of our faith.
Martin Luther said, “Whatever
your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.” What do we
put at the center of our lives? What do we turn to and trust in?
Paul writes to the church at
Corinth, in 2 Corinthians 9:7,
7 Each of you must give as you have
made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a
cheerful giver.
God loves a cheerful giver because
giving is an expression of our relationship with God.
We know that God knows what we
need. So why are we fearful?
What’s the stock market going
to do? Should I invest in precious metals? Am I ready for the Zombie
Apocalypse? Will I have enough if I live a long life? Will Social Security be
there for me? Have I missed the boat with regard to bitcoin, or did I do the
smart thing?
Those are all temporary
concerns.
What is more spiritually
beneficial to us, to receive or to give? We all know that one, from Paul’s
words in Acts 20:35,
35 In everything I did, I showed you
that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the
Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”
What is the best way to be rich
toward God? Let giving flow from your heart and soul, who and whose you are,
your true self. Be rich toward God, as he has been extravagant to us at
the cross.
The meaning of our excess is to
serve those in need, to provide the means for Christian ministry. In fact, Jesus
said, it’s more blessed.
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