The Bigger Barns
The Teaching
Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
— Luke 12:15
I will pull down my barns, and build greater;
— Luke 12:18
But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
— Luke 12:20, King James Version
Commentary
Someone in a crowd asks Jesus to make his brother share an inheritance. Jesus refuses to judge the case and tells a story instead. A rich man’s land has a good year. There is nowhere to put it all, so he will tear down his barns and build greater ones. Then he will tell himself to take his ease, eat, drink and be merry.
The parable does not condemn the harvest. It condemns the barns: the reflex that answers more with a bigger container for more. Every enlargement becomes the new size of the problem. The ending removes the future the barns were built for. This night. The question that follows is not whether he deserved what he had, but whose it will be now.
It sits on the Map beside the Lilies of the Field, the Map’s text from Matthew, which Luke tells a few verses later in this same chapter. The lilies neither toil nor spin. The rich man toils and builds and still cannot rest.
Related: `matt-lilies` (The Lilies of the Field) · `chr-ecclesiastes` (All Rivers Run to the Sea) · `suf-takathur` · `gno-thomas-54` (Blessed Are the Poor) · `per-knowing-enough`
Sources: sacred-texts.com/bib/kjv/luk012.htm
Alternates: The Rich Fool · This Night
Themes
Connections 5
Travelled
Judaism reached Christianity by 30 CE. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.
Arose apart
Both took shape before Christianity and Sufism were in documented contact (from 700 CE).
Travelled
Christianity reached Gnosticism by 100 CE. The same milieu. Irenaeus wrote against the Gnostics (c. 180); the Gospel of Thomas, whose Gnostic character is itself disputed, shares sayings with the Gospels.
Where This Appears
Sources
sacred-texts.com/bib/kjv/luk012.htm