By Drew Williams
An area of the brain linked to generosity triggers a response in another part of the brain related to happiness.
That was the finding that research conducted by University of Luebeck in Germany revealed based on MRI scans of the brain. The journal Nature Communications reported on this finding, saying, “…study provides behavioral and neural evidence that supports the link between generosity and happiness… Generosity and happiness improve individual well being and can facilitate societal success. However, in everyday life, people underestimate the link between generosity and happiness and therefore overlook the benefits of generosity.” I think we already knew this. But why do we often live like we don’t?
I wonder if our problem is that money talks. In point of fact, money lies. On the very subject of money, money will teach you to lie to yourself! So, what kinds of lies does money tell? Legion. Let me describe two barefaced, whoppers that are exposed in Jesus’ parable of the man and his barns (Luke 12: 13-21).
In this parable, a certain rich man (let’s call him Barney) yielded a bumper harvest. On top of “more” he gets a whole lot “more.” His conclusion is that this is obviously a good thing. After attending to certain details, our man declares, “I’ll say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry!” (verse 19). But notice that upon news of the bumper harvest, Barney’s very first thoughts are actually about what he does not have. He said, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops” (verse 17). Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry”’ (Luke 12: 17-19).
I am counting six personal pronouns and a possessive adjective in two and a half verses. He only says “you” once and it’s as he was inviting himself out for a self-congratulatory drink! In his words, you can hear his world shrinking around him.
The first lie that he is swallowing hook, line and sinker is that more is always merrier! This deception is blinding all his senses to anything or anybody beyond just him. His one desire is to protect his bounty in what he thinks will be a secure compound—a little world that he likes to call “Fortress Barney,” a highly- securitized bank vault bounded to the north, south, east and west by his self- interests. And on this fortress is fastened a great big sign: ALL MINE!
The tragedy is that it is not! It is not his at all. Not any of it. He has run off with someone else’s wealth. The book of Chronicles makes clear the provenance of all of Barney’s bounty, “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours” Chronicles 29:11. This makes Barney the caretaker and what we have here is the caretaker taking care of no one but himself. In the financial world, I understand that sometimes this is referred to as stealing. Barney is caught in a world of self-concern from which he cannot see anything but his own selfish desires. He has a scarcity mindset that is causing him to view the world as a place of deficiency, vulnerability and insecurity. He is deliberately cutting himself off from all others—especially others in real need. More is always merrier? Without some very intentional care, “the more the merrier” is fear of scarcity and it is isolating.
The second big lie that money tells in this parable is that more is always life-giving. You could argue that Barney has clearly been to wealth management school and his plan to expand his storage capacity is actually a very smart plan. Managing your assets is what smart people do, right? In fact, if Barney is really smart, he will get those new grain storage towers fitted with remote sensor computer-controlled temperature and humidity units to perfectly preserve the longevity of all that lovely grain. This way he can have the option to hold and not sell this year when probably Barney is not alone in receiving a bumper harvest and it is likely that there is a lot of grain to spare. Those air-conditioned barns will allow him to hold the stock and then in a few years’ time, when harvests have failed and grain is scarce and prices have rocketed, Barney is going to make a killing! How very smart he is! What’s wrong with that?
He is certainly not a fool for being a productive farmer. There is nothing foolish about his plan, if there is no infinitely valuable God and no resurrection. Barney has missed one critical variable in his algorithm: that all of it—everything he owns, not just his grain, his barns, but most importantly the very breath in his lungs—belongs to God and God could foreclose at any moment!
The parable continues. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.’” Money will whisper (or shout) that the pursuit of more will always lead to more and greater life. The truth is it has the power to steal life from us—starting today and potentially eternally. More is always life-giving? More has the power to be enormously self-destructive.
So how do we silence the lies and live into the truth? Jesus uses a very interesting phrase: “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:20, ESV). To be rich toward God is to mute the lies and live in the truth.
But what does it mean to be rich toward God? Essentially this is about our hearts being drawn toward God as our true riches. Being rich toward God means using earthly riches to show how much you value God. The issue is not that the man’s fields prospered; the issue is that God ceased to be his supreme treasure.
We might think that perhaps the antidote to greed is contentment (“If I could just learn to be content with what I have…”). Again, that would be a kind of moral choice and I don’t believe I can get there by moralism. I need more! Greed is too strong. Money talks too loudly. The way to silence the lies and grow “rich toward God” is Spirit-led generosity.
And that begets another question. How much do I need to give to be generous? How much would Barney have had to give away to please God? This is a reasonable question on the surface but it implies a work-based relationship with God (“If I give enough, will I be doing enough to please God?”). The Apostle Paul corrects this mistaken view: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
It is not the amount we give that gains us favor in God’s eyes. All of our possessions belong to Him anyway. Our objective, according to the Westminster Short Catechism, is to “…glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Giving generously is to give in such a way that God is glorified. A.W. Tozer wrote, “Before the judgment seat of Christ my service will be judged not by how much I have done, but by how much I could have done.”
If Barney had given to glorify God and sought to enjoy Him forever, how would things have worked out differently? Instead of saying to himself, “Soul, you have ample goods laid by for many years: relax, eat, drink and be merry.”, what if he had said something like, “God, all of this is yours. You have made my fields prosper. Show me how to express with my riches that You are my treasure and these riches are not. I don’t need a bigger barn for a safety net. I do indeed want joy in my life. But let it be the joy that comes in the fullest blessing of giving, because You have promised that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
And God may well have said, “Barney, it was my choice to bless you abundantly, so go build your barns, and celebrate tonight because there are some poor harvests on the horizon and you will have ahead of you the far greater blessing of feeding a lot of hungry people.”
The Rev. Drew Williams is senior pastor at Trinity Church in Greenwich.
