Guard Against all Covetousness / Luke 12:13-21 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday August 3rd 2025 / Season of Pentecost / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday August 3rd 2025: Season of Pentecost / Luke 12:13-21 “Guard Against all Covetousness”     

Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And [Jesus] said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear 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, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends, when someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” And Jesus shoots back, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” What Jesus is saying is ‘go get a lawyer.’ ‘Find someone to deal with the paper work of your trouble, oh sure you might be able to weasel some money out of your brother today but in the end your trouble won’t go away.’ Jesus knows the true trouble this guy in the crowd is dealing with: it’s a deep and sinful lack of contentment. No amount of legal wrangling will put this sinful condition to rest, no amount of clever paperwork will lighten the burden of this unwholesome desire. This used to be called avarice, today we call it greed, Jesus calls it covetousness, and this is the word that should twig a memory: the 9th and 10th commandments deal with coveting; “You shall not covet your neighbor's house,” “You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his.” Yet North American culture is built on coveting, advertising is built on coveting. We are encouraged to want and desire what we want and desire and to never let up, to strive and fight tooth and nail to lay up treasures for ourselves, treasures we have longed for and wished for and leered at with a kind of lust and we are told that this is ok, as long as no one gets hurt. But someone always gets hurt, and if no one else does by some miracle, there is always you. You will always lose when coveting has gripped hold of you and you dance its rotten dance of death. Coveting is sin and if your eyes are bigger than your cheque book and you can’t be satisfied with what you have, then coveting can lead to theft and adultery and other great debasement. Scripture warns us against this when Saint James writes that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”[1]

How to get this across to the man who wants to have a piece of his brother’s inheritance? Jesus tells the parable; “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’” notice that the man never even considers that he may have too much for one man and that the answer may be to give the extra surplus of good away. Remember Jesus says “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” This man’s abundance in the parable is great and he wants nothing but to keep it for himself to swim in it like Scrooge McDuck in a pile of golden cartoon coins. His solution: the man says ‘I will do this: I will tear 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.”’

“Relax, eat, drink, be merry” This is something called Epicureanism,[2] a popular idea of the day, a popular idea today, though most won’t know where the idea came from originally. This is rooted in Greek Philosophy and Jesus knows that the crowd is infected with this dangerous teaching a teaching that asks nothing of the next day’s morning and focuses only on the evening of this night. It is a short sighted philosophy that loves the life lived today and cares nothing of what tomorrow might bring, let alone what eternity might bring for the one who has not loved his brother, his neighbour, for the one who has not loved or thought of God, who never turns to God for forgiveness, never repents of their covetousness. The Epicurean will say “death is nothing, therefore there is nothing to fear,” “live for today, for tomorrow you die” The Christian will say “death without Jesus is hell – and it is eternally harmful to die without Jesus. With Christ you can live for today and you can live life without a fear of death.” Christian freedom without Christ Jesus is nothing more than Epicureanism. It will, in The End, bring pain and suffering.    

“relax, eat, drink, be merry.” The man in the parable says, “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ [Speaking to the crowed Jesus remarks,] “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

If we were to end right there then there would be little in the way of Gospel for you today. This Parable held in isolation with no additional teaching will crush you because we are all guilty of coveting. So what does Jesus do next? Jesus directly addresses His disciples saying,

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.     

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”[3]

Contentment is the opposite of coveting, contentment is the art of setting aside anxiousness: Anxiousness is the gasoline on the fire of greed, a fire that leads to death. Have you been burnt by anxiousness? Has your anxiousness to provide been a justification for theft: For coveting? Where are your treasures? Are they in ever and ever larger barns where they will stay when you die? Or are your treasures stored up in heaven?

As Christians we place our hope and trust in Christ Jesus, we do this by the unearned faith we’ve been given as a gift. We don’t always do it well and when we have failed in trusting that God will provide, it is Jesus who will forgive us. We can’t afford two pastors; we won’t raise enough money to fix the roof. When we repent of our lack of trust in the Lord and set aside the worldly advice to “relax, eat, drink, be merry,” trusting first and foremost in what we think is our personal wealth; when we repent and give up the anxious coveting and desire of worldly gain, there Jesus is, in repentance Jesus is right alongside of us forgiving us: Forgiving me, forgiving you, forgiving all of us. He is wonderful at contentment, Jesus covets nothing, He in fact always fears and loves God His heavenly Father and did not scheme to get His neighbour’s inheritance or house, or get it in a way which only appeared right; Jesus’ whole life, then and now, is one of help and service so that we might keep the things we have, the things we need.         

Remember earlier I mentioned that Scripture warns us against sinful desire when Saint James writes that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” Think about this for a minute, think about how Jesus is the opposite of this. Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit,[4] the Lord and giver of life and when Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, in His birth Jesus brought forth life. John says, “In [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of men.”[5] Jesus in His birth did not bring forth death He brought forth life, and when Jesus was fully grown, when He’d lived His life, walked the walk and talked the talk perfectly, taught and served the needs of others and fulfilled the requirements of the law, when he’d gone to the cross and died and on the third day He was risen up, when all of this had happened Jesus didn’t bring forth death. As Jesus walked out of the tomb He brought forth life, eternal life for all that believe in Him.

This life that Jesus brings forth is the opposite of sin and death, the opposite of everything that the devil and the world tempts you with, this gift of life is a treasure stored up for you in heaven, a treasure that you can’t hide away in a barn, an inheritance that you can’t steal from your brother or neighbour, an inheritance that is yours even though you have sinned the sin of covetousness and base desire and have been a thief either by the work of your hands or in the work of the imagination of your mind. In the forgiveness won for you upon the cross all this sin is washed away and you will be given a better treasure than anything found here in this place. Take heart, “[Your] life does not consist in the abundance of [your] possessions.” No, “Your life is hidden with Christ in God. [and] When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”[6]

‘Ok, preacher but what about today? I’ve got some problems; my family is twisted up over an inheritance? It keeps me up at night, that guy with his question to Jesus, in some ways, may as well be me:’   “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”[7] Or maybe the shoe is on the other foot and it’s you who is struggling with anxieties over your finances and your estate planning, over your will, over who will get what when you die? Or perhaps you find yourself obsessed with a future inheritance that might come to you in the near future? Go home this week a mark in your Bible the Old Testament passage we heard today from Ecclesiastes 1:12–14 and Ecclesiastes 2:18–26 and the Gospel reading which this sermon is based on and read these each day for a month and pray about it. Pray for the other people involved; lift them up to the Lord. Consider how you talk about your situation if you find yourself in a conversation about these things, and ask yourself based on the 10 Commandments ‘am I sinning in what I say, think and do about all of this.’ If this is weighing heavy on your heart and troubling you set up an appointment with me to talk about it. Do something about this; don’t just sit there with all of this washing over your soul like a corrosive acid burning away your contentment in life. Ask yourself if fighting over these things with family is worth it? Would seeking harmony and forgiveness be better? Are you well served to be angry and bitter towards the ones you’re call to love and hold dear? Are you well served to be angry and bitter towards God whom you’re likewise called to love and hold dear? Remember what Jesus says, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] James 1:14-15
[2] Epicureanism: a system of philosophy based on the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC.
[3] Luke 12:22-34
[4] Matthew 1:20
[5] John 1:4
[6] Colossians 3:3-4
[7] Ecclesiastes 1:2

Photo Credit: Main photo of red barn cropped from pexels.