18th OT C ~ Lk 12:13-21~ "Trust-worthy" ~Rev. Richard Eslinger, PhD

Rev. Eslinger shares a homily, and commentary, "Pastoral and Rhetorical Elements in a Homiletic Example”

It happened again. Someone in the crowd asks Jesus a question seeking his “Dear Abby” response to a concern. Here, it is someone who obviously has a big problem with a brother who has not, he believes, acted appropriately about a family inheritance. And as with other such requests and questions, Jesus responds by way of a parable. The story both addresses the request somebody has, and always brings so much more to the table. That is very true here as Jesus tells this story of a rich man who plans to increase his own wealth and his own control of everything, including his own life.

Jesus sets the scene: A rich man encountered a big problem. That problem

was an even bigger harvest than usual. In fact, it was a real mega-harvest. The

kind where the stalks of corn held three or four ears, each bursting with tender and juicy niblets. It was the kind of harvest in which the bean stalks were so luxurious that they had intertwined to the point that it was difficult to pick the pods. The kind of harvest where the grains of wheat were so heavy that the stalks bent over toward the ground. It was a “bountiful harvest,” a bumper crop, and something of a miracle. Sometimes we bump into a more modest version of such a bumper crop.

The AARP-supported provision in the new tax bill for those 65 and older

increases the standard deduction by $3200.00 and adds a 65-plus bonus

deduction of $6,000, through the 2028 tax year. (1) So for some of us, tax time next year will provide something of a nice harvest. This will feel good, yes. But it’s not at all in the same ballpark with what this rich man was feeling. How much more is this mega-harvest that has come upon the owner! Clearly, some plan was needed by this rich man, who was about to become much richer.

Now when there is a huge issue we encounter—for better or for worse—our

usual approach is two-fold. On one hand, we “take it to the Lord in prayer”

(picking a verse from the old hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”) or we

share our new fortune or misfortune with a select group of family and friends.

Mostly, when these crucial times arise, we do both. We come before our Faithful

God and we take the situation to those closest to us here on earth. However, St.

Luke is quite clear that this rich man did neither—he certainly does not turn to his

Creator and Redeemer and probably does not have any friends or trusted family

anyway, let alone seek their counsel. Rather, he turns to his only trusted

friend,…himself. He asks himself “What shall I do?” The conversations we

usually find in Jesus’ parables here becomes a soliloquy. The rich man hijacks the

parable and speaks only to himself, his own psyche or self! Jesuit parables scholar

John Donahue comments that “Instead of thanking God for the bountiful harvest,

he decides to build ever larger barns in which to store all acquired grain and

goods.”( 2 ) Once he has achieved this goal, the now very rich man can relax. He tells himself, “rest, eat, drink, and be merry.” Of course, the rich man’s friends could

have told him—if he had any friends and if he had shown any interest in hearing

them—that the more popular saying adds, “for tomorrow we die.” The saying

remains popular after all these centuries. Walmart even sells a “tomorrow we die”

tee shirt, in basic black, of course! But since this very rich man did not allow

himself any friends other than himself, he was unable to heed their wisdom. And

he certainly did not ask the God of Israel for any wisdom here. No, he was in

conversation solely with himself.

Suddenly, this internal conversation is ended, permanently. God interrupts

his soliloquy with an announcement. “Fool,” God begins. Any person of faith in

Israel would immediately recall that the Psalms caution, “The fool in his heart says

there is no God.”(3) But our rich man has lived much of his life as if God didn’t

exist. So he was in no way aware of the foolishness of his behavior. But his status

as a fool now comes into bright clarity. He thought he could eat, drink, and be

merry, all on the strength of his own wealth. But now God proclaims a different

fate. “Tonight,” the Sovereign Lord of all creation declares, “your life will be

demanded of you.” Fr. Donahue is helpful here again. He notes that “The word

‘demand’ is commonly used for collecting a loan.” He adds, “The rich man did not

realize that the fruits of his harvest were ‘on loan’ from God and not to be used for

his own gratification. (4) If this is the case, then all our blessings along with the fruits of our labor are also “on loan” from God. But the rich man is suddenly informed that even his own life, that precious “self” of his, is also “on loan” from God.

Not only is the loan of his ‘self” going to be collected this night, but all those big

stuffed full barns will be lost to him as well. He has not provided for any heirs,

obviously, and so his holdings after “this night” will be tied up in legal disputes.

The produce stored in them will be ruined before anyone can enjoy them. Isolated, filled with despair, seeing his earthly treasure disappear before is eye, the rich man becomes the opposite of a blessed person. In one instant, he has become accursed.

There is an old song that remains in use in some churches at the money

offering:

We give Thee but Thine own,

Whate’re the gift may be.

All that we have is Thine, O Lord,

A trust, O Lord, from Thee. (5)

Unfortunately, this rich man never heard the song and certainly didn’t sing it or

believe it. But God’s people in Christ live by this song. Personal income,

inheritance, sheer gifts from family or friends, all are trusts from God. But at the

heart of the matter, we know that even our own life comes as a gracious gift, a

“trust,” from our God. It is precisely this revelation that sustains us and

invigorates our family and parish life. We are blessed by our relationship with

God, with each other, and with God’s world which needs us. What the rich man in

Jesus’ parable encountered as curse, we discover to be the richest of blessings in

Jesus Christ.

Amen

1 See: https://www.aarp.org/money/retirement/big-beautiful-bill-tax-changes.html.

2 John R. Donahue, S.J., The Gospel in Parable (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1988), 177.

3 Ps. 14:1.

4 Donahue, 178.

5 Lutheran Service Book, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 2006, 781.

Excursus: “Rhetorical and Pastoral Elements of a Homiletical Example”

Richard Eslinger

Rhetorical Concerns

As David Buttrick and others have taught, a homily is composed of a series

of “moves,” each with its own features and conceptual focus. * Then, the moves

are shaped in to form a plotted language. That is, if we follow along with the

shape and movement of a biblical narrative—the “mode of immediacy”—the

moves in the homily will reflect the movement, the plot of the biblical text. (The

other mode is that of reflectivity, although we will remain with the mode of

immediacy here with the Parable of the Rich Man.) What we have developed,

then, is a plot in this homily that mirrors the three scenes in the Parable of the Rich Man.

These are:

A problem has emerged for this rich man. He is about to become even

more wealthy. This problem: a much bigger harvest than usual, a

“bountiful harvest.”

-

Now this rich man is revealed to have another big problem. He trusts

neither God nor confides in other persons. So, in order to address his

bountiful harvest crisis, he turns to the only one he trusts—himself. In a

soliloquy, he talks to himself and decides that he will tear down all of his

barns—packed as they are with previous harvests—and build bigger

barns. He consults no one beyond his self, his “psyche.”

Then, a decisive act of God ruins his plans. The Lord God addresses the

man and says “Fool, this night your life will be demanded of you.” The

God of Israel then adds, “and the things you have prepared, to whom will

they belong?” The Lord God speaks of the man’s life as being “in trust,”

as being “lent” to him. Now it will be taken away.

A crucial concern as we shape each of these in the homily is that of making each

conceptual—as listed above—concrete in the hearing of the assembly. Otherwise,

depending solely on “talk-about” speech, the language is in jeopardy of never

really forming in the hearing of the worshippers in the first place. It is through

some concrete imagery at the heart of the move that ensures that the assembly will be able to track along in the sequence of moves that mirrors the scenes in the parable. This shape of a move in the mode of immediacy applies both to biblical narrative and to texts in other literary forms within Scripture.

The imaged material in the three moves of this homily is easy to discern. In the first move, a brief example related to the prospect of having an unexpected and bountiful harvest is the AARP material that deals with the over-65 tax break in the new tax bill. The imaged material in Move 2 expands on the full popular saying, “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” (The image of the black tee shirt advertised on Amazon with this saying is especially visual!)

The image in the third move deals with God’s decisive intervention related to the fate of the rich man. The Fr. Donahue quote regarding the text’s use of a Greek word that is commonly used to speak of the collection of a debt along with the imagined “pay on demand” note provides the needed concretion. The specific image is that of a legal notice stamped “Do Now!”

This concrete imagery—one each per move—relate to the several options we have available. First, we can depict a solitary image itself, available by way of one or more of the human senses. This is best seen in the third move with the legal

paper being stamped “Do Now!” The image is visual and stable. These features

reflect the unwavering status of the Divine act of “demanding” the rich man’s life.

The second version of concrete imagery is the example. In this approach, a

reference is made by the preacher in one move or another to some event or artifact that is already in the congregational consciousness. That is, with the use of an example, we do not need to add much more than a naming to evoke the reference. The primary test for the use of an example is whether the brief labeling will, in fact, bring forth bright awareness among the listeners. The example of a black tee advertised on Walmart with the text that ends with “tomorrow we die” should meet this test.

Since an example within a move does not bring with it much of any narrative quality, we can also build an example system, eliciting more than one example out of congregational experience. (Such example systems are a feature of

African American preaching.) The third variety of concrete imagery is a brief

story illustration. We preachers have a heritage filled with overdone, emotionally

and theologically excessive story illustrations. But the first rule here is that an

illustration is employed in a move when the material is not known by the assembly. That is, the story is imported into a homily in order to bring its own meaning to play. Especially in homilies employing the mode of immediacy—such as our current one on the Parable of the Rich Man—it is essential that the story

illustration be concise and not become a substitute for the primary narrative of the biblical text. The illustration related to the AARP comments on the outcomes for persons over 65 in the new tax bill passes this test.

However, there is a further test that may bring problems if we attempt this particular short illustration. There are also pastoral considerations in play in every homily as well, and especially in this first move.

Pastoral Considerations

In his magisterial book, Homiletic, David Buttrick devoted 486 pages to the

development of his homiletical method. However, we readers need to search far

and wide to find material that raises pastoral considerations of our preaching. A

brief section in Homiletic dealing with emotion in preaching is quite valuable here

(77-78). However, in our politically and ideologically divided country during

these days, we may bump into pastoral issues almost weekly. It is clear to us,

given these divisions, that the employment of the AARP report on tax breaks for

persons over 65 could run into trouble since these provisions were in the “Big

Beautiful Bill” of President Trump. For these homilists whose parishes include

some or many “anti-Trump” members, the illustration would immediately backfire.

It would not serve as an illustration of the “bountiful harvest”: that sparked the

Rich Man’s decision to build bigger barns. Rather, for those finding the President’s

persona and policies to be distasteful, the entire homily could be nullified as a

proclamation of the Gospel. We bump into decisions related to pastoral issues

frequently, though perhaps not evoking the intensities of the present age in our

society.

If we do find that some significant portion of the assembly would be reactive

to the AARP illustration, we should, therefore, leave this story back at the place

where we pray and prepare our homilies. Given that in my present parish, the

AARP little story would definitely evoke such a negative response, my own search

for an alternative led to the following journey:

You hit the lottery! Here, the adequacy of this example (no longer a

story illustration) depends on our exegeting the parish as to various

attitudes toward state-sponsored gambling. Also, the analogy between

the Rich Man’s bountiful harvest and having a winning lottery ticket

doesn’t stand up very well. There is really no work involved in hitting it

big in the lottery and the huge cash windfall does not fit well with a more

conceivable grand harvest. (My sense, though, is that winning the lottery

will find its way into lots of homilies on this Sunday in Ordinary Time!)

You are chosen as “Employee of the Year” at work and receive a

nice plaque and a gift certificate for a dinner out. This example may

seem to serve well except for one crucial problem. In this “Employee of

the Year” example, the honor is given to someone precisely because of

their character and the quality of their service. But in the Parable the

Rich Man himself certainly does not merit an award for his attitude or his

action! The bountiful harvest comes in spite of his despicable vices

centering in this radical self-centeredness.

You get a notice from the Internal Revenue Service. Although filled

with anxiety as you open the epistle, it announces you have overpaid

your tax bill and will receive (“in four to six weeks”) a check for a rather

large sum of money. This illustration has the advantage of not being

grounded in the recipient’s morality and behavior and is much more

realistic in its “harvest” than the winnings on the state lottery.

I would go with this IRS refund example. On the other hand, barring any

anticipated “friction” within the parish, the original illustration would otherwise serve best. But my hunch is that this may not be the case for some significant number of us!

________

*David Buttrick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures (St. Louis, MO: Fortress Press,

1987).

I invite your thoughts and reflections on this musings. Please contact me at

Eslingerde323@gmail.com. Thanks! RE