A Sermon Delivered by the Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Wrisley on August 3, 2025.

Turn in your Bibles to Luke 12:13–21. Today, Jesus is out teaching crowds of people. Someone interrupts him from within the crowd to ask him to settle a family dispute over an inheritance. Jesus refuses to step into the middle of someone else’s family disagreement but he does not let a good teachable moment slip by. Let us listen together for the Word of the Lord.

Luke 12.13-21

¹³Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” ¹⁴But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” ¹⁵And 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.” ¹⁶Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ ¹⁸Then 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. ¹⁹And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ ²⁰But 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?’ ²¹So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” (NRSV)

Biblical commentator David Schlafer notes, “This parable contains no last-minute rescue engendering a ‘happily ever after’ (ending)… The story leads us to a cliff edge—and leaves us there.”^[1]

The man in the crowd was looking for quick arbitration. He wanted Jesus to take his side in a family dispute. But instead of providing a ruling, Jesus tells a Story; you know, one of those uncomfortable, unsettling stories that answers a different question than the one asked. That’s just like Jesus, isn’t it? So often, when we pray, when we plead, when we ask God for one thing, the answer we receive comes in a form we didn’t expect or even in a form we didn’t want. Yet we discover, it’s just the answer we need.

Jesus’ parable isn’t really about inheritance laws—though we could certainly go there. Deuteronomy 21:17, for instance, makes it clear that the eldest son inherits a double portion of the father’s estate. So maybe the questioner in our Story was a younger brother who feels he is being shortchanged, or maybe he’s just greedy. We don’t know the details. But what we do know is that Jesus shifts the focus from the question of inheritance to deeper questions: What are your priorities? Describe to me the relationship you have with all your stuff, with all your family, and with God?

Let’s also be clear about what this parable is not about.

• It’s not saying that wealth is inherently bad.
  • It’s not saying that saving and investing are unfaithful practices
• And it’s not saying that planning for the future is wrong.

Jesus tells other parables that praise careful stewardship and wise investment. So no, this isn’t a blanket condemnation of wealth. What Jesus is warning us about is something subtler, and far more insidious: the wall that gets built up between us and the kingdom of God. A wall made of misplaced priorities. A wall called greed.

Back in the mid-1980s, I had the opportunity to visit Germany while the Cold War still divided it. A group of us from seminary traveled there to learn from the church in both the capitalist West and the communist East.

It was January, bitterly cold, and we found ourselves traveling the frozen Autobahn through the Fulda Gap into East Germany. Our little group of American seminarians drew attention from the authorities. We were followed, and more than once pulled over by East German police, who searched our Volkswagen van from top to bottom.

When we finally arrived in Berlin, the contrast between East and West was heartbreaking. West Berlin had rebuilt itself into a bustling European center. East Berlin still bore the scars of World War II—buildings pockmarked with shell damage, infrastructure crumbling, streets eerily quiet.

And there was the Wall.

That massive concrete wall, slicing neighborhoods in half. A wall not just of stone and barbed wire, but of ideology and fear. One image I’ll never forget: standing on the western side of the River Spree near the Brandenburg Gate, looking across the frozen water into East Berlin. On the fence where we stood, there were about two dozen crosses—each marking the spot where a man, woman, or child had been shot trying to swim to freedom. Two worlds, 150 yards apart. So close, and yet so very far away. Years later, when I visited Jerusalem, I saw another wall —this one dividing Israelis and Palestinians. It was hauntingly familiar. Here was one wall built by Germans. Here is another wall built by the Jews fifty years later. The irony is profound.

The Berlin Wall was the inspiration for the band Pink Floyd’s album The Wall back in the 80’s. The album tells the story of a fictional character named Pink who becomes increasingly more isolated from the world around him. All the traumatic experiences he has experienced such as war, loss, emotional neglect from his mother, and strict schooling are symbolized as “another brick in the wall” he builds around himself.¹

In today’s parable, Jesus speaks about our human tendency to build walls around ourselves – albeit a spiritual one. The spiritual wall separates us from God and from one another.  Just like the fictional character Pink, we build our wall and it is built, brick by brick, from things like ingratitude, selfishness, and an obsessive focus on ourselves. Together, those bricks form a wall called greed.

Let’s look at those bricks more closely.

The first brick in the wall of greed is the brick of ingratitude. Jesus begins the parable by saying, “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.” The man didn’t do anything remarkable—he didn’t farm better, invest smarter, or pray harder. The land produced. It was a gift. In Jesus’ time, such a bounty would be seen as a blessing from God. But what’s the man’s response? Not a single word of thanks. No prayer. No sacrifice. No recognition of God’s hand. Just a private conversation with himself about building bigger barns.

Second, there is also the brick of selfishness. Not once does he consider sharing. Not with his workers, not with his neighbors, not even with his extended family. He’s a classic hoarder. Compare him with Joseph in Pharaoh’s court, who stored up Egypt’s surplus grain not for personal gain but to feed the people during famine.^[2] This rich man? He hoards, and he gloats. It’s all about him.

Third, we note there is the brick of self-absorption. Look again at verses 17–19. In just three verses, he uses “I” six times and “my” four times. “I will do this… my barns… my crops… my goods… my soul.” The man is talking to himself, about himself, making plans for himself. He’s in love with himself. There’s no room in his imagination for others; there is no apparent room for God either. It’s all about me. Never about we.

So how does this parable speak to the man who asked Jesus about his inheritance? Simple: It’s not the inheritance that’s the issue. It’s about how we relate to what we have. Or as artist Sheryl Crow sings in her song, Soak Up the Sun, it’s not having what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got. 

So beloved, are we grateful for the blessings we have been given? Do we believe we earned those blessings all on our own? Are we generous with our blessings and share them with others? There again, do we hoard what we have, convinced we’ll never have enough? Which personal pronoun best describes your relationship with money — “me” or “we”?

Jesus ends the parable with a sober line:

‘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 (vss. 20-21).

Pastor and scholar Patricia Lull puts it well:

Money is always about more than just money. Our spending, our saving, and our general attitude toward material wealth are all invested with emotions and memories. Our capacity to trust in God can only deepen as other matters (like money) loosen their grip on our lives.^[3]

She’s right. This isn’t just a financial issue. It’s a spiritual one. So, beloved, here’s your spiritual homework this week: Take time to reflect honestly on your relationship with money, wealth, and “stuff.” Where do you find yourself building walls instead of opening gates? Where are you tempted to store up for yourself instead of being rich toward God? As you inspect your wall, do you see bricks of ingratitude, selfishness, and self-absorption?

Because in the end, the question we each must ask is this: How do my life, my spending, my saving, and my priorities, show that I am rich toward God in gratitude, service, and community?

The Holy Spirit add understanding to the reading and the proclamation of God’s Word. And all God’s people said, Amen.

© 2025 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, 8 West  Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801 and shall not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

^[1] Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Locations 11438-11444). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. Article by David J. Schlafer. Words in parenthesis were added for rhetorical clarity.

^[2] See Genesis 41: 46-49.

^[3] Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Locations 11354-11356). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. Article written by Patricia J. Lull. Words in parenthesis were added for rhetorical clarity.

1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Brick_in_the_Wall#:~:text=During%20%22Part%201%22%2C%20the,become%20bricks%20in%20the%20wall. ↩︎