what is life? and the American dream (part one)

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?” 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.” Then he told them a parable: “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?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:13-21; NRSVue

It seems like the push and pull of our lives is mostly about taking care of ourselves and our families, which in itself, held in its proper place is right and good. But what is involved in that becomes the issue.

This is related to financial advisers telling people how much they need for retirement. And it’s really far more than what people actually need to live. But the idea is to carry on close to the same way the person or couple were living before.

Jesus’s parable of the rich fool, quoted above, helps us see the foolishness of a large aspect of “the American dream.” The idea that we have to have a lot stored up which we essentially hoard with the thought that we need that to live. While too many others around us are struggling to make ends meet, some falling through the cracks. There is indeed something wrong here with what we’ve been told, the idea and promise of “the American dream.”

In the end, what does all of this matter if our lives are not in line with Jesus’s teaching? What if we have that big house with all the luxuries we think we have to have, things we have come to consider essentials? Is that life? Jesus says it isn’t.