Luke 12:13-21
Bleak House
is one of Charles Dickens’s great novels.
It centers on characters who are thrown together by a fictional lawsuit
called “Jarndyce versus Jarndyce”.
Dickens describes the case this way:
“This scarecrow of a
suit has, in the course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows
what it all means. The parties to it
understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can
talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all
the premises. Innumerable children have
been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it;
innumerable old people have died out of it.
Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing
how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was
promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce
and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real
horse, and trotted away into the other world.
Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; …there are
not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in
despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its
dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.”
Then,
in chapter 65 of the book, the lawsuit comes to an end because the entire
estate is finally used up in court costs and lawyers’ fees.
It’s
a great joke as Dickens tells it but it isn’t all that funny if your last name
is Jackson and you’re trying to get your slice of Neverland Ranch. It isn’t funny if your last name is Mandela
and you’re part of a big argument about who gets buried where, since where
there are tourists there will be concession stands. You don’t have to travel far to see it in
person: in Northeast Philadelphia, there is a Geiger’s Bakery that makes great
buttercake and a Geiger and Sons Bakery that makes great buttercake from the
same family recipe. Do not get them
confused with one another; it gets ugly.
Even Jesus wanted to stay out of that kind of dispute.
“Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher,
tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set
me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’” [Luke
12:13-14]
What makes it so awful is that when
families fight over inheritance, two rotten aspects of human nature come into
play. On the one hand is greed and on
the other is envy. Money or property or
possessions can and do come between people who should love one another. At the least, you would think they would treat
one another with whatever respect comes with being kin. When the fur starts to fly, though, it is
hard to stop. The time comes when it
becomes impossible to sort through the right and wrong of it all. It’s far better at the outset to hear Jesus’
warning:
“Take
care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not
consist in the abundance of possessions.” [Luke
12:15]
Although
poverty will definitely make your life harder, riches will not necessarily make
your life easier – at least not the kind of riches that can be put into a will.
It isn’t just where inheritance
comes into play, or even sibling rivalry.
Jesus’ teaching is that we should be, as he says, “rich toward God”, a large part of which is to be in good relation
to the people whom God has put into your life.
That won’t happen if money or possessions are more important to you than
they are. There’s a line in Hello, Dolly! where the title character
says, “Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread
around, encouraging young things to grow.”
John Wesley had a lot to say about
the influence of money on spirituality.
In 1786, he wrote about his concern for the revival that gave birth to
the Methodist movement.
“I fear, wherever riches have increased, (exceeding few are the
exceptions,) the essence of religion, the mind that was in Christ, has
decreased in the same proportion. Therefore do I not see how it is possible, in
the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both
industry and frugality; and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, and
anger, and love of the world in all its branches.”[1]
Perspective and priorities matter so
much. What is most important? Is having cash on hand right now a reason to
destroy the environment for future generations?
Is a CEO’s ability to boast about his or her compensation (and boasting
can be done by ostentation as well as by word) so important that somebody else
is not paid a living wage? Again, it is
not that people don’t deserve fair compensation – but at whose expense?
In the end, it may even be at the
expense of the one who amasses the riches.
“The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What
should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 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. And I will say to
my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink,
be merry.’ 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?’” [Luke
12:16-20]
Good
question! Or will two brothers be
fighting over them?
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