Exegesis of Luke 12:16-21

By efaller, Student

A research paper on what this parable meant to Jesus, Luke, and what it can mean to us today

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Luke 12:16-21 is a Parable, “a short story based on a familiar life experience used to teach a spiritual lesson,” about a Rich Fool. The closest parallel to this parable can be found in Sir 11:14-19. It is a parable that deals with the “folly of life devoted to the accumulation of material riches. ” This parable, though seemingly simple and straightforward held different meanings for Jesus when he told it to the crowd two thousand years ago, for Luke, the Evangelist, who wrote it down, and for us today.
The point that Jesus makes in telling the story of the Rich Fool is that to place property above all other considerations is to close oneself off from God. He is giving a stern warning against greed and covetousness, the desire to have what one has not, which not only lead to trouble but also express a wrong attitude towards life, according to which possessions are all that really matter. One would only need for God to take away one’s life, and at once it becomes apparent how useless one’s possessions can be. The rich man had failed to gain the true riches a right relationship with God during his lifetime. He did not work for things that last forever; he spent his time trying to heap of things that do not last, like money, land, and other possessions. In the parable, Jesus is telling his audience that life is more than trying to gather up wealth, that their possessions do not define them as a person. They are more than what they possess, they are who they are, a person who God loves, and that is something that no one can take away from them . Jesus brings a consideration of death into human existence. The material riches of any man offer no protection against the uncertainty of life, and pass into the possession of others when he dies and no longer serve any purpose for him. In the face of death, money, position, fame, success, and status all seem so petty and one can see the folly of living a life for material possessions only.
In Biblical terms, a fool is one who either does not believe in God or conducts himself as though he does not. Thus, the Rich Man is called the Rich Fool, a godless “and therefore senseless” person. He has broken himself off from God because of his greed. Jesus used this parable to view greed for material goods as a deterrent to reaching God and making spiritual progress. The entire essence of what Jesus is saying, the moral of the story, can be found in verse twenty-one. Jesus shows a picture of a man who lays up treasure for himself but is not rich in God’s favor, showing that the two pursuits, for wealth and a healthy relationship with God cannot be both the highest on one’s list, it is an either/or situation.
The danger of material riches is a major theme in Luke’s account of the Gospel. There is a search in each individual’s life for the right balance with property and possessions for while they themselves are good, the desire to have them can lead to sin. His word usage brings out and stresses several points that he wishes to convey though it requires one to look at the original Greek to understand some of the passage’s significance. Luke’s problem is not with the size of the harvest but with the rich man’s insistence of gathering of it all up and storing it for his own use, seen by the Repetition of the Greek word for “gather” in verses eighteen and nineteen His self-centeredness is reflected in the frequency of the words I, me, my, and mine. When the man had an overabundance of goods, he never thought of giving any away, to those in need, all he thought about was gathering and keeping for himself. Luke is showing us this attitude as the “reverse of Christianity.” Instead of denying himself, he affirmed himself; instead of finding happiness in giving, he tried to conserve it by keeping. In addition to the choice of pronouns, Luke shows the man’s self-assurance by having the rich man’s plans push confidently into the future tense, “I shall… I shall…I shall…”
By means of soliloquy, Luke causes the man’s thoughts to be “stripped of pretense or polish for public consumption.” Soliloquy is often used in Lukan parables, for it offers direct and convincing characterization. He is reminding the readers of his Gospel, “The secrets of one’s heart are not hidden from God.” The man did not include God into his thoughts; the man thought to himself, without “reference to divine ideas and guidance.” He has shut everyone else out of his life, other human beings and God.
Just as he never saw beyond himself, the Rich Fool never saw beyond this world. His plans were made solely on the basis of life here. He speaks of eating, drinking, and being merry in verse 19. Luke uses this Epicurean idea to depict earthly pleasures, as the parable distinctively shows us that the earthly and the divine as not the same, that our plans are not the same plans as God’s. The last words of the soliloquy, “be merry,” use alliteration in Greek; and the first words of God’s speech mark the reversal of that alliteration using another one, the Greek “Fool.” This sharp contradiction between the man’s greedy monologue and God’s speech can also be seen in the contrast between God’s announcement of “this night” and the rich man’s presumption of “many years.”
From Greek, verse 20 could be translated to say, “They will demand your life from you” in place of “your life will be demanded from you.” This phrase has been interpreted many different ways, as the subject is unstated. Some scholars believe that the verb should be understood as God speaking of himself in the third person plural . Others believe this idea to be less convincing than the idea that it is referring to the angels who will carry the dead to heaven . Still others believe that the subject is none other than the man’s goods, that his possessions will take his life, or perhaps his soul, from him.
Because of the complex economic and cultural differences between first century Palestine and twenty-first century United States, it may be difficult for some to understand the full import of the parable of the Rich Fool . However, it still applies to us today. Though the Rich Fool was only a farmer, he stands for all humans who are “seduced by greed.” The Rich Fool was not criticized because he was rich but because he was a fool, a godless person . We must ask ourselves how we regard our possessions. We should not worry about them as if they were the most important things in our lives. They do not define us as people, our thoughts and actions do. It is all about having the right priorities. Just like the Rich Fool, we have earthly pleasures in today’s world. We must strive however, not to live around them, to focus our life upon them, as that is a false attitude and “spiritual fulfillment can never come from earthly enjoyments.” The goal in life is not to pile up riches for oneself; it is to grow in a loving relationship with God. We should seek first to find God before anything else. Wealth is not necessarily a bad thing, except when it is placed before God, when it creates an obstacle in our relationship with him, and when it does, we just have to make a decision about our priorities. A good example of this is the story of St Francis of Assisi. He discovered that his wealth and possessions were hindering him in his spiritual quest so he left them to live with the poor and devote his life to serving God, achieving great happiness and joy. St. Francis never criticized the rich, however, he just realized that it was a problem in his life and that he needed to solve that by relieving himself of material possessions.
The Parable of the Rich Fool really asks us to examine how we find our happiness and joy in our lives, if we find it through accumulating of material possessions or by expressing our love for one another and God.