TEXT: LUKE xii. 16-21.
TO-DAY the harvest thanksgiving is celebrated through out the land, and it is most fitting that it should be with all of us a day of great and joyful giving of thanks. Although there are but few among the masses of people crowded together in this as in other great cities, who have any direct share in this great business of agriculture, yet we are all aware that it is the prime source of our common prosperity; indeed, I may say, the first condition of the development of our mental powers. So well do we know this, that whatever may be a man’s special calling or business by which he seeks at once to advance the common good and to benefit himself, we speak of it in every-day language, and not inappropriately, or without good reason, as “his field and his plough.” And so it is. All the different occupations of men that have to do with our existence and ordinary life in the world form a great inseparable whole; each is supported by the rest; failure in one direction spreads its effects far around; while every success, and, still more, every improvement, causes universal joy and gratitude among intelligent people, even among those who have no direct share in it. In the words of our text we find, it is true, a harvest joy,—the joy of a man over a year’s rich and blessed produce of his fields; but it is joy of a kind that the Lord condemns as folly. Are we to suppose from this that He disapproved of and condemned joy altogether, and therefore wished also to repress the thanksgiving for any favour or blessing from God, thanksgiving that flows only from joy? We cannot admit such a thought. It was the kind and manner of this joy that He blamed. And we find the key to the whole in the closing words of our text: “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself”—who rejoices over earthly riches—“and is not rich towards God.” We find it also in the words that immediately precede these verses: “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.” We cannot, in deed, say of the man in our text, that he was covetous in the strictest sense of the word, for he not only wished to gather up goods, but to enjoy what he had gathered. But because he thought only of himself in connection with what God had given him; because his joy was entirely on his own account,—utterly selfish,—this is why the Saviour charged him with folly. And let us not omit also to notice that though the Lord tells us nothing more of what passed in this man’s mind, He brings clearly to light the folly of his soul, when He tells us that he was reminded by a voice from heaven (a voice which in these days is speaking so loudly to us)1 of the uncertainty and transitoriness of earthly life: “This night thy soul shall be required of thee.” Let us try to see, then, how the Saviour makes use of this the remembrance of the transitory nature of earthly life to warn us against selfishness in our joy and gratitude for God’s earthly blessings, and to give to that joy and gratitude a higher direction.
I. The first point, then, that we have to consider in our text is the saying of this man to himself: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry.” These words, if we take them just as they stand, suggest a very primitive and crude state of things as compared with our present ways. The man who had reaped so rich a harvest is described to us as if he only thought of using and consuming in his own household what he had gained; although, of course, that would take a long series of years; he regarded it as his own provision, intended directly for his own use. The growth and increasing strength of association among men has brought us far beyond such a state of things. That which each one gains or produces, in what ever way or by whatever business, does not remain shut up with himself—it goes out into the general circle of commerce. But it does so because there is and must be something that we want above everything else,—above that thing itself which we have, and it is to the acquisition of this something that those among us who are like-minded with this man direct all their efforts. What will this bring to me? each one asks himself; that is, how much will it bring of that which will procure for you everything else? And if that is plentiful and abundant, he says in the same way, “Soul, thou hast great store of this much-praised representative of all things; now consider how thou wilt use thy treasure; use it entirely according to the desire of thy heart; eat, drink and be merry!”
Now here we have the two great motive powers,—human covetousness and self-indulgence,—and we see the conflict there is between them in each individual. To acquire and to enjoy, to gather up and to use,—how clearly each one reveals his character by the way in which he balances these against each other, and how long the greater number remain undecided as to which way they shall take! Some choose the plan of spending the greater part of their lives in continually accumulating, continually acquiring; but this with the hope of being able at last to rest and enjoy in comfort what they have gained; they are content in the meantime with rejoicing in their increasing gains, that at last, when they have enough, they may give way to and gratify every bent and desire of their souls. Others again—and it looks as if this word of the Lord were directed somewhat more specially to them—who hear already, at least afar off, the voice from heaven, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee!”—these others set acquiring and enjoying closer together, gathering and acquiring- as much as they can according to the order of nature in the short space of a year, in order at once to take the good of it; the next year, they say, will bring new activity, and as its result, new enjoyment. But the one plan is no better than the other; for if it were said to those last, there is no question of the course of a year, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, their calculation would be as mistaken as the other.