Bigger Barns

(Here's the piece I wrote for our newspaper recently.)

Bigger Barns
Scripture Text: Luke 12:16-21

Last week I traveled to Asheville, North Carolina with a group from church. While there we toured the Biltmore Estate. What an amazing place! Two hundred fifty rooms. Forty-three bathrooms. Four floors. It’s nearly four miles from the front gate to the front door. Now that’s a long way to go to pick up the mail!

Walking through the house and around the grounds I found so many moments when the beauty and attention to detail nearly took my breath away. What I didn’t understand while I moved from one incredible room to another was why I had such an empty ache inside. Oddly enough, I felt the same kind of ache as we toured a Cherokee village where we learned not only of their culture, but also of the devastating Trail of Tears.

Further reflection has given me some words to explain my ache. Experiencing the extravagance of Biltmore and the devastation of the Cherokee reminded me of Jesus’ story of the man who decided to build bigger barns. It was all about greed and our inability to be satisfied.

This is not a new phenomenon. I find it astounding that in the Garden, where Adam and Eve had everything that they needed Satan was able to hook their greed and lack of satisfaction by telling them if they ate of the fruit they would be like God. Before that moment, did they know they were different? Did they long for more? They had everything, but realized in that moment it wasn’t enough. And it hasn’t been ever since.

This battle with greed and lack of satisfaction poses some challenges as we seek to motivate people to better themselves. For me it is akin to the difference between striving for success and seeking excellence. When I read scriptures I don’t get the sense that God wants His children to simply accumulate more and more, but He does admonish us to seek to add character enhancing qualities that will build up the Kingdom. The things we are to add to our life to keep them from being fruitless and ineffective include: knowledge of God; self-control; patient endurance; godliness; and love for our brothers and sisters (see 2 Peter 1:5-9).

In the story of the rich fool who built his bigger barns, he talked and reasoned with himself. Jesus is quite clear that his life would be required of him because he thought more of storing up earthly treasure than developing a rich relationship with God (Luke 12:21, NLT). Perhaps this would be the best place for us to start dealing with our lack of satisfaction. Peter must have thought so too, as he put knowledge of God at the top of his list. Communicating our needs and wants to God instead of harboring dissatisfaction that festers into greed is what needs to happen.

Setting the stage for the barn story, Jesus clearly lays this foundation: real life is not measured by how much we own. What he doesn’t say is that if we let possessions be our standard than we never will feel like we have enough. Peter’s list moves from relationship with God to relationship with others. That’s where our focus needs to be.

So will you be building bigger barns or cultivating a deeper relationship with God and others? Focus on the latter might result in a lot less struggle, greed, and dissatisfaction. Oh, and you probably won’t have forty-three bathrooms to clean or as far to go for the mail, but what you will have will last for eternity.