4th Sunday after Pentecost
Text: Luke 12:13–21
Theme: A hostile takeover
1. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
1. The sermon text for this morning comes from the gospel of Luke
12:13-21, which reads as follows:
(13) Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to
divide the inheritance with me.”
(14) But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over
you?”
(15) 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.”
(16) And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man
produced plentifully,
(17) and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to
store my crops?’
(18) 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.
(19) And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for
many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’
(20) But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of
you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
(21) So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich
toward God.”
1. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
1. Grace, mercy, and peace from God our heavenly Father and from our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
1. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
782 Gracious God, You Send Great Blessings
1
Gracious God, You send great blessings
New each morning all our days.
For Your mercies never ending,
For Your love we offer praise. Refrain
ref
Lord, we pray that we, Your people
Who Your gifts unnumbered claim,
Through the sharing of Your blessings
May bring glory to Your name.
Introduction
1. The man in the crowd didn’t know it, but he was praying about money.
1. We do plenty of that in these uncertain times.
2. “Lord, will I hold on to my job?”
3. And that’s for reasons that may have nothing to do with your
performance.
4. It’s hardball at high levels behind closed doors that have
nothing to do with you.
5. It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job, or how much
your boss loves you.
6. If the company you work for collides with a company that’s
higher up on the food chain, guess what?
7. Gulp! You and your boss are cleaning out your desk, and are
told to “Hit the road, Jack, but don’t take it personally.”
8. Corporate mergers, foreign acquisitions, hostile takeovers,
macroeconomic speed bumps—we hear about them every day, but
for the one who
built his or her life around that job, it’s always a hostile takeover.
9. What does all that have to do with this text? Everything!
1. Remember what was said at the transfiguration of our lord?
1. The voice came from the cloud:
1. “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”
2. Then, as soon as Jesus and the disciples come down from the
mountain, the Gospel shifts gears:
1. “He set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).
3. We are to Listen to this Jesus as he travels to Jerusalem.
1. (Oops) “Who made me a judge over you?” doesn’t sound like
something Jesus would say.
1. “Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to
divide the inheritance with me.’ ”
1. This fellow sounds like a typical heckler in the crowd, trying to get
Jesus off message.
1. Jesus’ initial reply almost sounds as if he were silencing a heckler:
“Man, who made me judge or arbitrator over you?”
1. The reasons it sounds to us as if Jesus is dismissing the guy out of
hand are two:
1. first, because I would have answered a fool like a fool, and
rolled my eyes.
1. The second reason is because, at first glance, this doesn’t sound
like something Jesus would say, at least according to popular theology.
1. He told those two brothers, “That’s your problem,”
1. and I say, “What?”
1. He said, “That’s not part of my job description,”
1. and we say, “Whoa! What a minute, Jesus! I thought . . .”
2. (Ugh) We’re surrounded by a huge sector of Christendom that really
believes that is Jesus’ job description.
1. Because we’re surrounded by a huge sector of Christendom that really
thinks that this is Jesus’ job description.
1. I’m living the American dream, making a better life, trying to turn a
buck.
1. When things don’t shake out the way I want, I am, after all, a
Christian.
1. What’s the point of being a Christian in the land of opportunity if I
can’t rub the lamp and make a wish?
1. Jesus, out of love for this guy, told him the truth:
1. “I’m not your genie, and this isn’t small-claims court. You
have a problem.”
2. This man had the ear of God in a body, and this is all he could
come up with?
3. Get my money?
4. And when I receive, when you receive, the key to heaven, the
divine name, and we have the ear of the King, do we ask for important
things, or have we taken his name in vain?
1. Pop theology teaches us that as a Christian I have the right to more
stuff.
1. Is “more stuff” what it all boils down to?
2. Trust me when I tell you more stuff doesn’t make for happiness.
3. It makes for sore muscles!
4. And talk about settling cheap.
5. But that’s easy to fix.
6. The more subtle and more serious malfunction is if we think
that we already know the right questions to ask,
7. and Jesus’ only job is to pony up the answer we expect.
8. If God would only give me what I ask, that would be my happy
ending!
1. Money?
2. Stuff?
3. That is a wrongheaded illusion.
4. Jesus knew it (he always knows!) and told the man, “Take
care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for
one’s life does
not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (verse 15).
1. You want to know how it turns out if you get what you want?
1. A rich man’s land produced a bumper crop. And he began to say
to himself, “What shall I do? ” (cf verses16b–17a).
2. The farmer consults with . . . himself.
3. Mirror, mirror on the wall. . . . It’s so easy to tell lies
when it’s just you!
4. And it’s so much easier to mug your conscience when there are
no witnesses.
5. “I have no place to store my surplus. What to do?”
6. Like he even had to ask himself. Gotta love it.
1. “What shall I do? I have no place to store my surplus. Here’s what
I’ll do, I’ll tear down my barns and I’ll build huge barns and gather
all my grain and my goods.”
1. My surplus.
2. My grain.
3. My goods.
4. I’ll bet he called himself a “self-made millionaire” too.
5. What exactly is that?
6. Someone who gives himself a brain that’s clever with money?
1. The rich farmer never once questioned whether the bumper crop was for
him to keep.
1. That would be thinking outside the box for him.
2. No, this spells early retirement.
1. “Relax, eat, drink, be merry” (verse 19c).
1. Isn’t it obvious?
1. “And I will say to my soul” (verse 19a).
1. Was that his to keep, either?
2. Folks all just assume their souls are theirs to keep.
3. “To keep” is the operative phrase here.
4. For this man, “to keep” was everything!
5. Greed is a downward spiral.
6. “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a
snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge
people into ruin
and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9).
7. Look at him plunging.
1. “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years” (verse 19b).
1. Many good things—to keep…many good years—my years.
1. “But God said to him, ‘Fool!’ ” (verse 20a).
1. Who told you they were your things?
2. Thou fool! Who told you they were your years?
3. And who told you it was your soul?
4. “Fool! This night your soul is required of [demanded back from]
you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”
(verse 20).
“What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and
forfeits his
soul?” (Matthew 16:26a).
5. For that man, death was a hostile takeover.
6. But man, despite his riches, “will not remain; he is like the
beasts that perish” (Psalm 49:12).
7. For sinners, the reign of death, hell, and grave is a hostile
takeover.
8. It swallows you up even while you go about your business—even
if you’re good at your business.
9. It Makes no difference.
10. That’s why it’s a hostile takeover.
11. You’re out.
12. Empty your desk.
13. It’s heartbreaking.
1. The punch line is even more heartbreaking:
1. “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich
toward God” (verse 21).
1. He had to lay up for himself, right?
2. Because you only go around once, right?
3. He thought he had good things, but he had no idea how good
things could be.
4. He wasn’t “rich toward God.”
5. He thought he had many years more.
6. What, ten, twenty, thirty?
7. Thirty years goes by in a second!
8. He had no concept of “many”!
9. “My ship has come in. I won’t have to work, and I’ll have
plenty of stuff ’til I die!” Hey! This is what I call livin’!
10. That’s all there is to life when you’re made in the image of
God?
11. Hoarding and hiding?
12. That’s what they mean by “be merry”? So much for desire.
1. One could assume that the rich fool laid up for himself and as a
result wasn’t rich toward God.
1. But that’s not quite right.
2. The truth is, he wasn’t rich toward God, and as a result he
couldn’t afford not to lay up for himself.
3. Giving a real offering to God doesn’t make you rich toward God.
4. It means you already are.
5. Already rich enough and merry enough to lay up thank-you
presents in heaven by taking care of people here.
3. (Aha) When the man asked Jesus to get him his money, Jesus was not
saying, “You’re asking too much!”
1. Wake Up! Wake Up! You’re Asking Too Little!
1. But what about this poor guy in the crowd?
1. What does a wrong question and a stiff warning and a sad parable
change?
1. The man in the crowd now knows that he’s not rich toward God.
1. He’s going to lose his soul, and Jesus is headed for Jerusalem.
1. When the man asked Jesus to get him his money, Jesus was not saying,
“No can do! You’re asking too much!” Instead, He was saying:
1. “Wake Up! Wake Up! You’re Asking Too Little!”
2. Ask me what I mean by “rich toward God.”
3. Ask me where I’m going and why.
4. Ask me why it matters to you.
5. Say to your soul, “Soul, you’re not rich toward God. You
haven’t any good things, and you haven’t many years, but
death will spring
on you like a trap, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.”
1. None of our good deeds could ever make us rich toward God, and every
sin put us deeper in the red.
1. And death picks people off and hell gulps people down even while they
go about their business, because death knows and hell knows
there’s no one
big enough to stand up against them.
1. Or so they thought.
4. (Wow) You’re out. Clean out your desk. This is not a negotiation!
This is a Hostile Takeover! Jesus is in.
1. There’s a new kid in town.
1. They call him Immanuel.
2. He’s not a consultant, and he’s not interested in a merger when
it comes time to pay for your sin.
3. He looks at you and me and every sinner and says:
1. “What goes around comes around.
2. I know you planned on facing death, hell, and the grave when
the wrath of God falls, but you know something? You’re out.
3. Clean out your desk. This is not a negotiation! This is a
Hostile Takeover!
1. That’s why Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem—so they could slap it.
1. He aimed his feet to where the nails were waiting.
2. He reached his goal and things got hostile.
3. They crucified him.
4. The sky turned black, and it was Jesus’ turn to ask the
question:
1. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
1. What did I do to deserve this?
5. The voice in the parable answered:
1. “Fool!”
6. But this time it was no parable.
7. This was the real voice of God the Father aimed right at Jesus!:
1. “Fool! Their souls are required of you this night.”
1. He became sin for us.
2. This is the Hostile Takeover of what we had coming.
3. The Hostile Takeover of our judgment:
4. “Not rich toward God.”
5. The notice of accusations against us that hung over our
heads was ripped from us and was now hanging over his head
on the cross.
1. “And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”
1. And the things he had prepared,
2. the life so devoted,
3. such a bumper crop of good deeds of love, righteousness, and
innocence that he had to build bigger storehouses for it all!
4. Whose will they be?
5. Whose?!! Yours.
1. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was
rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you by his poverty might
become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
1. It was all for you.
1. With every good work and every act of love in his sinless life,
Jesus laid up many good things for you for many years.
2. Because of Jesus, You are rich in God.
5.(Yeah) At this altar, you will show what it really means to eat,
drink, and be merry!
1. At this altar, you will show what it really means to eat, drink, and
be merry!
1. You can afford anything, especially if it means good news to
those who have been slaves to the giant corporation of sin,
death, hell,
and the grave.
Conclusion
1. While you give yourselves away, announce that hostile takeover!
1. all power is given to Jesus in heaven and in earth:
1. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I
am with you
always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20).
2. New products and services: the forgiveness of sins, the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
3. New Owner.
4. No worries.
5. Amen.
1. Let us pray:
D
4
Heav’nly Father, may our caring
Bear the imprint of Your grace;
With the Son and Holy Spirit,
Praise be Yours in ev’ry place! Refrain
ref
Lord, we pray that we, Your people
Who Your gifts unnumbered claim,
Through the sharing of Your blessings
May bring glory to Your name.
Text: © 2004 Gregory J. Wismar. Used by permission: LSB Hymn License no.
110000247
1. The peace of God, that transcends all understanding, guard your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
1. In the Name of the Father…Amen.