The Rich Fool

My bid for the scariest passage in the Bible is Luke 12:2-3:

There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

That’s an apocalyptic passage. Some day, Jesus is saying, all will be made known and everyone will get what they deserve. Like every apocalypse, it’s Very Bad News for those who abuse power. It would be a terrifying thing to be Dick Cheney or Karl Rove and to read such a passage and believe it were true.

But as with all of Jesus’ apocalyptic sayings, it’s a double-edged message. It is a source of hope, an affirmation that, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.” But it’s also more than a bit discomfiting — there’s nothing I have said in the dark that will not be heard in the daylight, too? Um. Oh. Here’s hoping the arc of the universe also bends toward mercy.

The rest of this chapter, Luke 12, is an equally unsettling mixture of comfort and warning. Here Jesus presents some very reassuring images of God — “not one sparrow is forgotten,” “consider the lilies of the field,” “Do not be afraid, little flock.” Yet these are all intermixed with constant reminders of mortality and inexorable judgment — “I will show you whom you should fear.”

You won’t find a better summary of or commentary on this entire chapter than what Shakespeare provides in Hamlet V.ii:

Not a whit, we defy augury: there’s a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?

That’s Luke 12, right there. Watchfulness and readiness, providence and death, “no man has aught of what he leaves” and “five in one family divided against each other.”

This passage also has much to say about the privilege and responsibility of stewardship. “Who then is the faithful and wise manager?” Jesus asks in verse 42, explicitly summarizing a theme that threads through the entire chapter. That word “manager” (or “steward” in the King James Version’s borrowing from Wycliffe’s “sty-warden”) is, in the Greek, oikonomos. That’s the same word from which we get the English word economist. “Economics” and “stewardship” are, thus, the same thing — etymologically, if not in practice. (Fun with Greek: Next time you meet an economist, ask them where they studied sty-wardening.)

This Wednesday morning visit to Luke’s Gospel was prompted by the suggestion, in comments to the previous post, that Luke chapter 12 offers some kind of refutation of the estate tax. That’s not exactly the kind of oikonomia this passage concerns itself with, but as someone who is both a Christian and a supporter of the American estate tax, I need to explore whether or not this claim is defensible.

Short answer: It’s not defensible. It’s not even comprehensible.

Here are the two verses — Luke 12:13-14 — which our friend suggests require faithful Christians to campaign for the abolition of the estate tax:

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” …

There are several biblical passages regarded as classic texts on the subject of taxation, such as Romans 13:1-7, but I’ve never before encountered anyone suggesting that this passage should be one of them because, well, it has nothing to do with taxes.* The dispute here is between a man and his brother, which is why I like to think that Jesus heard this and thought, “Hmm, two brothers in a dispute over their inheritance … I could use that.”

Characteristically, Jesus answers with a question and a parable. That parable, usually called the story of the Rich Fool, is found in Luke 12:13-21 — which is how this passage is usually cited so as to avoid chopping it off mid-paragraph the way our friend in comments has done. Here’s the whole thing:

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ‘

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

As I said, this passage has nothing to do with the subject of taxation — that’s not the kind of economics/stewardship being discussed here. But our friend in comments wasn’t merely trying to glean from this parable some guidance on the unrelated subject of taxation. He was arguing that this parable provides incontrovertible proof that the unperturbed hoarding of wealth is a divinely appointed human right. Reading this passage in this way takes loads of chutzpah and more than a little bit of insanity.

I believe that a progressive estate tax is wise, prudent and just policy for a society concerned about equality of opportunity and the preservation of democracy and personal liberty rather than oligarchy. That belief is based on a host of principles — e.g., justice and liberty are Good Things — and prudential judgments that I believe are both reasonable and congruent with my Christian faith. This is, in other words, not a sectarian belief that I would seek to impose on secular society, but rather a conclusion that I think would be shared by all people of good will.

That’s quite different from a sectarian belief based upon proof-texts or on an unexamined, visceral “What would Jesus say?” approach.

But, as a purely sectarian exercise, what would Jesus say? As Luke 12 illustrates, Jesus didn’t tend to offer straight answers. Or, rather, he offered very straight answers, but to different questions than the ones he was asked. I think the conversation would boil down to something like this:

“Teacher, what sort of estate tax policy should we support?”

“Don’t leave an estate. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

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* Although, if I worked for the IRS, I’d have a little plaque with Luke 12:2-3 on it hanging behind my desk.