‘Make sure you save something for a rainy day’. I heard this a lot in my childhood days. Building up a reserve of money was seen as a wise and careful thing to do, especially as household cash was limited.
Making the most of earning money became quite a driving force in my teenage years. Our street housed several miners, who received a coal allowance from the N.C.B. as part of their wages and there was competition to see who could be first to shovel it onto people’s coal houses, at a shilling a load.
Hard work, but it paid! As did opening-up our local newsagent’s at 5.30 a.m. each morning, a morning newspaper round, and an after-school job at the local filling station. It felt good to have a healthy amount of cash available - enough, eventually, to buy myself an ancient Lambretta scooter. Who needed a Raleigh 10-gear racing bike with dropped handlebars after that?
Amassing cash felt like a worthy achievement. It gave me choice, and a bit of independence, which made it all worthwhile. What hadn’t dawned on me at the time was that I’d grown up in a generous extended family. Money was always tight, but we knew we were cared for, and this had subtly shaped my thinking about money and responsibility. The family mattered.
Working hard to make a better life for ourselves was a constant theme in our growing up. Dad vowed that none of us would work down the pit and we were encouraged to achieve and open our horizons. I thought I’d work in the Civil Service in Newcastle when I left school, but I somehow ended up in teaching. It was the prospectus from St. John’s College, York that did it. Yes! Of course! Be a P.E. teacher!
This was a real step into the unknown, from my home culture into a strange, broader and more challenging world, but the basics of my upbringing did stick with me, which remains a blessing.
Perhaps this is where the rich man who wanted to build himself bigger barns went wrong.
I’d often wondered why his efforts weren’t seen as ‘worthy’, as much of what he did was exactly what I’d done through my teenage years, and I still aspired to achieve in my profession. Work hard. Gather wealth. Make sure you have a safety net for when you hit a bad time. And, yes, look forward to that retirement, sitting in your back garden as the sun sets, sipping a glass of red wine and feeling … oh, so mellow and content. And self-satisfied. So what’s wrong with that?
This parable began with the man asking Jesus to intervene in a family dispute about sharing out the estate. Jesus knew that the real motivation was not the rights which came as part of Jewish culture and family life, but greed and selfishness. The man turned away from the teachings of his culture, he was out for himself, and had no intention of using his wealth for good.
It’s all mine. Hands off, brother. Hence Jesus’ seemingly harsh words to the man, rather than trying, in this instance, to be a peacemaker.
This key message of the parable reflected the core values I was shown as a child, because looking out for each other and using our wealth for the common good, even if it was just taking a bag of tomatoes from dad’s greenhouse to a neighbour, was a crucial part of ‘being’.
This all sounds wonderful and laudable, but I’m not that far away from dreaming I might win millions on the lottery and find lots of good things to do with the cash. I could handle that and it wouldn’t change me. Oh, really? Temptation and selfishness lurk round the corner. Thoughts which are not so far from the rich man and his barns, wanting more, just for the sake of it.
Jesus encouraged all of us to use our talents and do well, but it has to be for the right motive. At the end of this parable, Jesus asks the man to picture himself with all his wealth, but he faces death that night. Then what?
Let’s be grateful for our wealth, whatever form this takes, but remember how Jesus has taught us to use it.
Rob Calvert.