Pentecost 8C (Luke 12:13-21)

​When you see someone, what do you actually see? Or, maybe more honestly—what are you hoping to get from them? Imagine that every time someone walks into the room, you put on a different pair of colored glasses. Blue for Theodore, yellow for Henry, green for Dorothy. Each color changes what you notice. Maybe blue means comfort, yellow means competition, green means support.

In today’s gospel, someone in the crowd looks at Jesus through the lens of possession. He’s not interested in Jesus’ teaching or wisdom—he just wants Jesus to help him get his share of the inheritance. He’s wearing what I’d call the “lens of wanting.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with seeing someone as a means to an end—sometimes that’s just practical. We all do it. The key is that the person’s role actually matches what we’re asking. If my staff come to me for vacation requests or reimbursements, that’s fine. I’m their manager; that’s part of my job. But the man in the gospel? He should’ve gone to Judge Judy, not Jesus.

So Jesus replies, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” When I read that, I think of the song by No Vacancy, “Fight for Love”—especially the line, “I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover.” That’s what Jesus is saying here: “I’m not here to take sides in your disputes. I’m here for something deeper.”

Jesus then tells a parable to help the crowd—and us—refocus. Greed, that endless hunger for more, never satisfies. It just puffs us up. But why do we keep trying to fill ourselves up with more? It’s almost as if we believe life will just keep going, that we’ll always have time to get more. But Jesus’ story is a wake-up call: one day, life ends. All that striving and stockpiling—what’s it for?

The truth is, this endless desire comes from what Kierkegaard called “existential angst”—that deep, unsettled feeling about our own existence and meaning. It’s not just fear; it’s that underlying anxiety that maybe we don’t matter, that life could slip away unnoticed. So we try to make ourselves bigger, more important, to defend against that angst. But in the end, greed can’t save us. When life is over, it’s over. The only thing left is the echo of that desire, passed on through our culture—just look at advertising.

So what do we do? Jesus says, “Be rich toward God.” Store up treasures for God. In other words, fill your emptiness with God’s presence. Feed on the breath of God in your heart by faith with thanksgiving. Turn that craving for more to the desire for God’s breath in your being.

How do we do that? The first step is to breathe. Simple, but hard when you do it with heedfulness—paying attention. Notice how your mind moves, what lenses you’re putting on, and gently bring yourself back to the present moment. That’s where God is breathing life into you, right now. That’s how we begin to be rich toward God.