6 February 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
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“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” Luke 12:21
Jesus tells a story about a successful farmer. “The land of a rich man produced abundantly,” and he has a problem every farmer would like to have: no room for the harvest. So he plans: “I will pull down my barns and build larger ones… And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” He talks only to himself; there is no God in his plan and no neighbour. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” Jesus does not condemn the harvest. He condemns the barn that has no door to the poor: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
Paul gives Timothy the positive side of the same teaching. The rich are not to be haughty, nor “to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,” and so “take hold of the life that really is life.” This is the last Saturday before the Great Fast. Fasting without almsgiving would only fill a different barn. St Basil the Great, preaching on this parable, said that the bread we store belongs to the hungry and the coat in our chest belongs to the one who has none (in substance). Tomorrow, Catholicos Day, our Church asks every parish to share for the needs of the whole Church; it is a good place to begin being rich toward God.
Theme: “Not rich toward God.”
On the eve of the Great Fast, the Church puts almsgiving beside fasting.
“Put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.” Psalm 62:10
“As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” 1 Timothy 6:17
Apply: Thank God today for three things money cannot buy.
“Do not be afraid when some become rich, when the wealth of their houses increases. For when they die they will carry nothing away; their wealth will not go down after them.” Psalm 49:16–17
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” Luke 12:20
Apply: Decide what you will give away this Lent, not only what you will give up.
“Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full.” Proverbs 19:17
“They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,” 1 Timothy 6:18
Apply: Give generously at the Catholicos Day collection tomorrow.
A life that stores up only for itself is foolish before God.
Generosity is the true wealth that lasts.
Take-home resolution: Keep a Lenten box for the poor at home from tomorrow until Pesaha.
Dear friends, the rich man in the parable had a good harvest and a simple plan: bigger barns and a comfortable life. He spoke only to his own soul (Luke 12:18–19).
God said to him: You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? (Luke 12:20). His barn had no door to God or to the poor.
Paul tells Timothy to command the rich not to hope in uncertain riches but in God, and to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share (1 Timothy 6:17–18).
Tomorrow the Great Fast begins in our Sunday worship, and it is also Catholicos Day. Let us open our barns: fasting with almsgiving, so that we may be rich toward God. Amen.
Children, a rich man built bigger and bigger barns for himself, but forgot God and the hungry. During the Great Fast, can you save something and share it with someone who needs it?
Lord God, you richly provide us with everything. Free us from hoping in uncertain riches and from barns built only for ourselves. Make us rich in good works, generous and ready to share, so that we may take hold of the life that really is life. Bless our Major Archbishop-Catholicos and our whole Church as we begin the Great Fast. Amen.
On the eve of Kothine Sunday, when the Great Fast opens, both readings talk about money. First Timothy tells the rich where to set their hope. Jesus tells of a rich man who spoke only to himself and heard God's voice too late. The question for the Fast is plain: what is my wealth for?
Setting.
The letter is addressed to Timothy, left in charge of the Church at Ephesus (1:3), a rich city. It names Paul as its author, though many scholars think the Pastoral Letters come from a later disciple writing in his name, while others defend Paul's authorship; the Church receives them as inspired Scripture either way.
Earlier in the chapter comes the warning that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (6:10). These last verses show that there were rich members in the community, and that the writer does not tell them to leave. He tells them how to be rich as Christians.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (6:17)
This is not hostility to the good things of creation: God gives them “for our enjoyment”. The contrast is between two places to put one's hope, and one of them is unsure.
“They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,” (6:18)
A play on words: be rich, in a different currency. The true measure of riches is what passes through the hands.
“Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge;” (6:20)
“Knowledge” here is gnōsis. St Irenaeus took the phrase “falsely called knowledge” into the title of his great work against the Gnostics around the year 180.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that the goods of creation are destined for the whole human race (CCC 2402), and that the tenth commandment forbids greed (CCC 2536). It quotes St John Chrysostom: “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs” (CCC 2446).
Setting.
A man in the crowd has just asked Jesus to make his brother divide the family inheritance (12:13). Jesus refuses to act as judge, warns against “all kinds of greed”, and adds that “one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (12:15). This parable, found only in Luke, is his illustration. Right after it comes the teaching about the ravens and the lilies (12:22–31).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’” (12:17)
He is the only one in his own story. Nobody else, not a family member, not a neighbour, not a poor person, appears in the whole of his thinking. St Basil, preaching on this passage, gives the answer he should have found: the bread you store up belongs to the hungry (in substance).
“And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” (12:19)
Enjoying life is not the sin. The sin is the plan, in which his soul's whole future is built on barns.
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (12:20)
This is the only voice in the story apart from his own. “Demanded” is the language of a loan called in. Life itself was only ever on loan, and the question at the end brings us back to the brothers and their inheritance.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that Jesus asks his disciples to prefer him to everything, and it warns against attachment to riches (CCC 2544–2547). St Ambrose, writing on the rich man's barns in his book on Naboth, says that the bosoms of the poor, the homes of widows and the mouths of children are the barns that last for ever (in substance). In the Great Fast now at the door, almsgiving is not an extra, but one of the three pillars of Christian penance, together with fasting and prayer (CCC 1434).
Is it wrong to save money or to be rich?
The reading does not say so. The man's harvest is good, and the Bible praises foresight (Proverbs 6:6–8). First Timothy addresses the rich without telling them to leave. The Church recognises the right to private property, while teaching that created goods are meant for all (CCC 2402–2403). The fault in the parable is that he saved for himself alone and left God out. The question for me is whether there are others, and God, in my plans for what I own.