Asking the Lord for help

3 August 2025 Rev Andrew Gamman

Readings: Colossians 3.1-13 & Luke 12.13-21

Ask the Lord for help

As we meet Jesus in Luke’s gospel today, he was getting a hostile reception from the religious leaders but a warm reception from the crowds. Such was his popularity that thousands of people (Luke 12.1) had gathered around him. Someone in the crowd approached Jesus asking for help with a problem concerning his family inheritance. This man believed that his brother had unfairly taken his share of the family wealth. Such problems were often brought to Rabbis to settle.

Similarly, we come to God with the problems we can’t work out. “Lord, can you sort this out for me?” It is a good thing to come to the Lord with our requests. But rather than giving a direct answer to the man, Jesus addressed the bigger issue at play. He responded with a story about a person who had an abundance of possessions. His parable raises issues for us. Jesus suggests that we…

Stop and reconsider

His story about building bigger barns raises questions for us:

-          How do we regard wealth and its accumulation?

-          How important are our possessions in the bigger scheme of things?

-          Where do our relationships, particularly our relationship with God, fit in our value system?

-          What do we believe is of enduring value?

Jesus’ story has been labelled “The parable of a rich fool” and it was the answer to the man’s question about his inheritance. But it was not the answer that he was looking for. How often is it the same with us when we come seeking the Lord’s help? We may come asking for the same thing over and over again. It could be that we are seeking the Lord to help us to get recognition or promotion. Or maybe we want a bigger house… or a better spouse! And all along the Lord’s reply is that we what we need is a change in perspective. That’s our answer. We need to lift our eyes above our selfish desires and see things from a divine perspective. But we don’t hear this answer to our plea for help because it is not the one we are wanting.

In Jesus’ story the man with a large farm had a bumper crop. Such was his good fortune that he needed to start building bigger barns to store, not just his crop, but also all the possessions he was now able to afford. This, he thought, would give him both security and a good life. But God called him a fool!

Bigger barns, flasher cars and smarter gadgets never seem to deliver quite what they promise.

Both the Gospel reading (Luke 12.15) and the Colossians passage (Colossians 3.5) warn about the dangers of greed. The Greek word used in the Bible is “pleonexia” (a desire to have more) which appropriately sounds like some kind of disease.

The advertisers sell us on an enriched lifestyle. The current advertisement for my car (an Outlander) has the slogan “For your out there life”. We like to think we are “out there” sort of people. So the ad’ says, “For mums and dads multitasker too – you’ll have a moment to enjoy the view”. But the latest things quickly date, and we seem to be constantly dissatisfied… or suffering from pleonexia. Of course, we are! The consumer society runs on dissatisfaction. It’s infected with pleonexia.

Pleonexia isn’t just an individual disease. Nations can be infected with it too. We see this in the desire to accumulate wealth and influence to the detriment of the poor;  in a loss of compassion for the outsider and in a lack of care for the good earth. And what’s the end result of our rampant consumerism? What’s the end result of our hoarding? We plunder the earth for resources and, in doing so, destroy the environment in which we must live. We’ve changed weather patterns with the waste we put into the air; and the microplastics we’ve put into the sea have spread even into the ice shelves of the Antarctic. In our desperate plight to attain more, we lose sight of those things of greater value. Could it be that more isn’t always better?

The story is told of a fisherman who was relaxing in the sun alongside his little fishing boat and talking with his friends when a rich entrepreneur passed by.

“Not fishing today?” asked the friendly entrepreneur.

“I’ve already caught enough fish,” replied the fisherman.

“But look, the sea is calm. Go out and catch more fish and you can sell them. With the money you earn, you could buy yourself a bigger boat with a bigger motor. That way you could get out to the reef where the fish are far more plentiful. Before long you’d be catching and selling so many fish that you’d be able to buy a fleet of fishing boats.”

“Why would I do that?”

“With all the money coming in you’d be able to sit back and relax and do whatever you want.”

The fisherman just smiled and said, “But that’s what I’m doing now!”

Prepare for the end

The rich farmer in Jesus’ story thought he’d done everything to ensure his security. But he had neglected to consider that the one thing that’s sure for all of us is that we will die. What good are all our possessions to us when we die? We can’t take them with us. In previous generations, life expectancy was much shorter. An awareness of death and an expectation of life beyond death was never far from mind. Christians lived with the thought that they would be accountable to God. Jesus’ warning that, at the point of death, one might appear “poor in the sight of God” (Luke 12.21) was a real and sobering thought.

For me and my family, who are currently caring for someone in palliative care, this brings these issues home. As it does for all of us when we attend the funerals of friends and family. I’m reminded of what was said about our friend Lynne, which I shared at her recent funeral: She had come to see God as that still small voice that urged her on to be a good and loving person. What a good thing to be able to say about someone at their funeral! Jesus is encouraging us all to live in a way so that we are rich toward God – what Jesus calls having “treasures in heaven”. 

The story of the man with the bigger barns is designed to make us sit up and take notice - to re-evaluate our priorities. I’ve observed that this sometimes happens when a person has a life-threatening health incident. It is not uncommon, at such a time, to want to re-assess and get life into a new perspective. After such an experience some people have spoken of an increased appreciation of others, or a desire to do something significant in the way of serving people

or serving the Lord. But it shouldn’t take a scrape with death to make us think about our standing with God. Jesus’ story of the bigger barns is all we need.