THIS Gospel passage is often called the “parable of the wealthy idiot”. That label isn’t a worth judgement passed by readers; for Jesus tells us that the person within the story is wealthy, while God tells us that the person is a idiot. The parable comes with an ethical, but it surely may not what we assume it to be. We must break the habit of pondering spiritually, and as an alternative think when it comes to hard money. Then can we understand how “it’s with those that store up treasures for themselves but should not wealthy toward God”.
The story comprises a factual event: the wealthy idiot will die on the very night of his self-congratulation. And it comprises a mirrored image on his attitude to his possessions: NIV translates it: “This is how it’ll be with whoever stores up things for themselves but isn’t wealthy toward God.”
The riches being bestowed could also be literal (money, property) or spiritual (virtues). Here, the correct way of “being wealthy” is contrasted with how the idiot was “being wealthy”, which was evidently a richness towards himself. Surely, we’d think, being wealthy toward God must mean abounding within the virtues proper to a right relationship with God.
That is a wonderfully satisfactory idea. But is it what the Greek means? We might think that “being wealthy towards God” is easy, but wrestling commentaries suggest otherwise. They twist the words around, to say “wealthy in God’s eyes”; or argue that the clever person stores up treasure for God’s keeping, as if God were a bank and their good deeds were money deposits.
The simplest reading of the Greek is usually the one to go for, unless the explanations to not accomplish that are superb indeed. This produces a meaning that somebody who is smart gives riches to God. If that is correct, it must mean that God is due to this fact the recipient of those riches, and likewise, indirectly that we want to fathom, their beneficiary.
How strange to think about God because the beneficiary of our bestowing what we value! The turn of phrase (“enriching towards”) isn’t common, but there’s a parallel in Romans (10.12): “The same being is Lord of all, enriching all those that call upon him.” So, “enriching towards” is directed on the one who’s the recipient of those riches.
If we spiritualise the moral and make the bestower of the riches wealthy in goodness reasonably than wealthy in goods, we risk missing the purpose of the parable altogether. It is some extent that Jesus makes repeatedly elsewhere — admittedly with greater clarity. “Being wealthy towards God” is an idiomatic way of referring to the Christian practice of almsgiving. It gives the reader a theology for the act of giving alms, by showing that a present made to fulfill the needs of a fellow human being is actually a present given on to God.
This interpretation of the parable isn’t my very own. The case is made by a scholar, Joshua Noble. He argues that the true conclusion of this Gospel passage isn’t Luke 12.21 but 12.33 (which is an optional verse in next Sunday’s Gospel): “Sell your possessions and provides alms.”
One reason that I find Noble’s argument convincing is that it suits Luke’s preference — evident elsewhere — for concrete over abstract. I even have noted this before as a feature of Luke’s Beatitudes (“blessed are you poor”, not “blessed are the poor in spirit”, Luke 6.20, Matthew 5.3). Another reason is that I’m convinced that Luke’s is the only interpretation of the Greek of verse 21, which we want to know as something like “bestowing riches upon God”.
The parable of the wealthy idiot suggests that, once we bestow our riches on other people as an alternative of ourselves, we’re really bestowing them on God. It recalls the moral Jesus draws from the parable of the sheep and the goats: “Just as you probably did it to one among the least of those who’re members of my family, you probably did it to me” (Matthew 25.40).
Scholars who make us query the meaning of verses of scripture which we thought we knew are a blessing to Christians. Their life’s work is to “search the scriptures” (John 5.39), but to not undermine our faith. Instead, by fine-tuning our reading of scripture, they enrich us by “enriching God”.
