But God said to him, “Fool! This very night your soul will be demanded of you. And the things you have hoarded, whose will they be? It will be like this for everyone who stores up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:20-21
“God steps into this story, as God is wont to do, right in the midst of his moneymaking and merrymaking and calls him a fool. The man intended for his hoard of good things to contribute to living it up…This man has a bigger problem than bulging barns that he fails to face. He is mortal. Securing his economic future does not mean his future is secure…Since death is inevitable and its timing is unknown, that should inform what one should do with disposable wealth…
God is the sole owner of all that we possess, including our very selves…Because the man is a fool, he forgot that our lives are on temporary loan from God…God next asks the fool about all of the things he has prepared: “Whose will they be?”
…The rhetorical question connects the request of the bystander who is locked in a dispute with his brother over the family inheritance (12:13). One can imagine the family of the rich man in the parable gathering to mourn his sudden death and then arguing about who is going to get all the good things stashed away in the big barns.”
David E. Garland in Luke (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011) 515-516.
A friend asked me to research what people blessed with huge sums of money should do with those funds. This text is insightful. Some people may choose to hoard treasures for themselves. If they do, at some point, God may likewise label them as fools, require their souls of them, and their next of kin will fight over what they have left behind.
There’s an alternative! The message of the text linked to generosity is clear: choose instead to be “rich toward God” through enjoying and sharing God’s abundance according to God’s instructions. What will you do when you are blessed abundantly? Moneymaking and merrymaking can destroy people or become their greatest legacy when linked with generosity.