August 3, 2025
Pentecost 8/Proper 13, Year C
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church
Essex, CT
Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9. 43; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
Back in the early 2000’s when I had given up my regular role as a church musician and instead did supply work when and where I pleased, Tim would make his way on Sunday mornings to a large Presbyterian church on the Main Line outside of Philadelphia. Yes, my beloved was baptized in the Presbyterian Church, but rest assured, I have converted him, and he is now a confirmed Episcopalian. This church in Bryn Mawr is one of the largest and wealthiest of Presbyterian churches and currently has five clergy and 22 staff members, but that’s not why he went there. Tim, being Tim, went to hear a good preacher, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Bey, who could weave a sermon together like nobody’s business. He was so gifted that I would go, too, on those Sundays when I was not otherwise engaged. Speaking in front of several hundred people at each service, Dr. Bey would call out his well-heeled congregation on hoarding wealth and isolating themselves from the concerns of the world. They must have liked him alright because he served there for 17 years.
Now, like a lot of people, Tim sits in the same seat every Sunday when he can. He always has and always will, and he did the same at Bryn Mawr. And every week in the pew in front of him and a little to the right sat an elderly gentleman, dressed in a suit, with his wife and sometimes what appeared to be his children and grandchildren. He shook hands at the Peace, bowed his head to pray, did all the things one does during the service. It just so happened that this fairly nondescript man was one of the church’s, and maybe this country’s, wealthiest members. His name was Jack Bogle. It may be a name familiar to some of you, because Mr. Bogle was the founder of the Vanguard Group and is credited with the invention of the index fund. Now, you’d have never known to look at him that he had great wealth. He gave an extraordinary amount of it away to charity, the church, and the schools he attended, and left much of his estate to charity following his death in 2019.
Jack Bogle could have been one of the wealthiest men in the world had he not structured the Vanguard Group as a nonprofit to keep fees low and returns high. He did not prioritize personal wealth but focused on his investors. In 2008, Bogle published a book entitled Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life. He starts his book this way:
At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel “Catch-22” over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have…enough.”[1]
Enough. When is enough, enough? When the top 10% own 69% of this country’s wealth? When the top 10% own nearly 3/4 of the world’s wealth while half the global population has no measurable wealth? When a median white family in the U.S. has six times the wealth that a median Black family does?
When is enough, enough? This story Jesus told his listeners is known as the Parable of the Rich Fool. In truth, to be rich in 1st century Palestine might have meant that you owned a couple of goats, maybe a patch of land, a few sheep. Poverty was so pervasive, that ownership of much of anything could count one as wealthy.
What makes him a fool is not really his wealth. It’s his stance towards his wealth. Notice how many times he uses first-person pronouns and possessives here:
“What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops” (12:17)?
“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. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry” (12:18-19).
I count eleven times…in three sentences. He has an abundance of crops and engages in a conversation with himself about what he’ll do about it. There is no consideration of who else might benefit from these crops, who might not have such a great harvest, who might be hungry. He’s only worried about looking out for #1.
If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is… Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).( Colossians 3:1,5)
Greed is idolatry. Idolatry is putting something in your life before God, and Jesus repeatedly warns of the dangers of wealth and money, because he knows that if your heart is about accumulating more or protecting what you have, your heart is not fully with those things that are above.
And remember, Jesus and his companions are on the road to Jerusalem. There is a sense of urgency. “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you” (12:20). This was a real threat, both when Jesus was walking the earth and when Luke’s gospel was written some fifty years later. There is not time to hoard what you have. Your job as a follower of Jesus is, in Luke’s telling, to “bring good news to the poor” (4:18), not to build bigger barns.
When you’re on the road to Jerusalem, when is enough, enough?
The late New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey rewrote this parable that begins with two sons arguing over their inheritance in a way that points to reconciliation and hope rather than greed or brokenness.
A certain man had two sons. One was rich and the other was poor. The rich son had no children while the poor son was blessed with many sons and many daughters.
In time the father fell ill. He was sure he would not live through the week so on Saturday he called his sons to his side and gave each of them half of the land as their inheritance. Then he died. Before sundown the sons buried their father with respect as custom required.
That night the rich son could not sleep. He said to himself, “What my father did was not just. I am rich, my brother is poor. I have bread enough and to spare, while my brother’s children eat one day and trust God for the next. I must move the landmark which our father has set in the middle of the land so that my brother will have the greater share. Ah—but he must not see me. If he sees me, he will be shamed. I must arise early in the morning before it is dawn and move the landmark!” With this he fell asleep, and his sleep was secure and peaceful.
Meanwhile, the poor brother could not sleep. As he lay restless on his bed he said to himself, “What my father did was not just. Here I am surrounded by the joy of my many sons and many daughters, while my brother daily faces the shame of having no sons to carry on his name and no daughters to comfort him in his old age. He should have the land of our fathers. Perhaps this will in part compensate him for his indescribable poverty. Ah—but if I give it to him he will be shamed. I must awake early in the morning before it is dawn and move the landmark which our father has set!” With this he went to sleep, and his sleep was secure and peaceful.
On the first day of the week— very early in the morning, a long time before it was day, the two brothers met at the ancient land marker. They fell with tears into each other’s arms.
And on that spot was built the city of Jerusalem.” [2]
This entire section of Luke is less about ownership of possessions than it is about ownership by possessions. It is a fearsome thing to be trapped by golden handcuffs. Joseph Heller understood this when he said, almost lamenting, that the wealthy party host would never have something he – Heller – had, which is enough. Enough to see us through each day. Enough to share with our neighbor. Maybe when we can all say that we have “enough,” the new Jerusalem will come.
[1] John C. Bogle, Enough: True Measure of Money, Business, and Life. (Hoboken Wiley, 2008) 1.
[2] https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/pdfs/readings/196_ordinary-18.pdf