A family financial squabble is where we find ourselves at the beginning of this week’s Gospel reading. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." Maybe this man had a valid gripe – some laws of inheritance favor the firstborn, who gets everything. Perhaps it was customary for the heir to share – and this one hadn’t. The man asks Jesus to use his moral authority to compel his elder brother to generosity – or at least to some behavior that was “fair.” But fairness is subjective, isn’t it? “What’s fair is fair” has no reliable measure – it all depends on where we’re looking.
As with Mary and Martha, Jesus refuses to get hooked into this family drama: “Who set me up to arbitrate your quarrels?” Yet he is not one to miss a teachable moment. "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions," he says. As a good teacher, he uses a story to illustrate this truth. He tells of a rich farmer whose lands produce much, more than he can use, more than he can store. He decides to tear down his old barns and build BIGGER barns where he can store all his grain and his goods. This is where his security lies – we know this because of what he says: “And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'”
We know Jesus had no aversion to being merry – he was often in trouble for hanging around people who enjoyed eating and drinking. But his story is going somewhere else: God says, “You fool! You’re going to die tonight – and then who gets all your stuff?”
“So it is,” Jesus tells the crowd, “With those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” It’s not about fairness, it’s about generosity.
It’s easy to get worked up about fairness when we feel we’re receiving less. But when we’re the ones who have more, often through no effort or intrinsic worth of our own, but because of where we were born, who we’re related to, the color of our skin, where we could afford to go to school, or our family’s wealth, we are often less concerned about what’s fair or not. Similarly, when someone’s taken something from us or cheated us, we want equity, but are we as aware about the ways we unintentionally injure others, perpetuating systems that deny equal access to resources?
Is there something you feel you’re owed, that’s been withheld? Can you offer that to God, trusting that you will have what you need even if it comes from another source? Can you release the person you feel owes you from obligation, moving into freedom for yourself and that person?
The Life of God is not about fairness. It is about unmerited grace. It is about abundant love, life, joy, peace – and often wealth as well – not because we deserve it or have earned it, but because we are loved beyond measure, because we are forgiven our debts toward God and invited to live in such a way that we extend the same grace to those whom we feel owe us something. This brother did not necessarily “deserve” a part of the inheritance. He, like us, was being invited to trust that he would have enough, and not to be too picky about where that “enough” comes from.
When we really focus on how much God has given us, we can be grateful that God isn’t “fair.”
It’s easy to get worked up about fairness when we feel we’re receiving less. But when we’re the ones who have more, often through no effort or intrinsic worth of our own, but because of where we were born, who we’re related to, the color of our skin, where we could afford to go to school, or our family’s wealth, we are often less concerned about what’s fair or not. Similarly, when someone’s taken something from us or cheated us, we want equity, but are we as aware about the ways we unintentionally injure others, perpetuating systems that deny equal access to resources?
Is there something you feel you’re owed, that’s been withheld? Can you offer that to God, trusting that you will have what you need even if it comes from another source? Can you release the person you feel owes you from obligation, moving into freedom for yourself and that person?
The Life of God is not about fairness. It is about unmerited grace. It is about abundant love, life, joy, peace – and often wealth as well – not because we deserve it or have earned it, but because we are loved beyond measure, because we are forgiven our debts toward God and invited to live in such a way that we extend the same grace to those whom we feel owe us something. This brother did not necessarily “deserve” a part of the inheritance. He, like us, was being invited to trust that he would have enough, and not to be too picky about where that “enough” comes from.
When we really focus on how much God has given us, we can be grateful that God isn’t “fair.”
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