Luke 12:13-14 (ESV)
[13] Someone in the crowd said to
him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” [14] But he
said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
Isn’t this a matter of Justice?
Shouldn’t Jesus be a champion of justice? In a world where justice means equality
and equality means that everyone has the same opportunities, provisions, and
property, Jesus actions here make no sense. But that’s not what justice means,
and this life is not all there is. Rather than joining the family quarrel about
inheritance, Jesus tells a story that demonstrates just how temporary and
uncertain opportunities, provisions, and property can be. It all comes down to
perspective.
Most conflicts between people
come down to a desire for control, power, or stuff. None of which last and none
of those are worth the broken relationships. When our eyes and our hearts on
set on earthly stuff we can never acquire enough. We just keep amassing stuff. We
keep building bigger barns, or in our case more and more storage units. I once
asked an old man at an auction who was buying up everything he could, what he
was doing with all that stuff. He said, “I put it in my garage and when I die
my kids will have to get rid of it.” That sounds a lot like the rich man in
Jesus’ story here in Luke 12.
So where are your eyes and your
heart set? We’re too often like Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. “Mom,
there is something I really need that I didn’t know I needed until I saw the
ad.” My personal challenge today is to look up rather than around, to set my
heart on things above, not on things on this earth. Will you join me?
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