Hoarding v. True Satisfaction
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?'
I don’t know about you, but I’m a fan of the reality show Hoarders. In the show, a psychologist, a professional organizer, and a whole clutter clearing team show up to the house of someone with hoarding disorder, a psychological compulsion to save things and to overestimate the value of their possessions. Their houses are usually filled with stuff, to the point where many have just a small area in their home where they are able to sit down, and it’s there that they live their lives. Their relationships with family and friends suffer as the stuff takes over.
The show digs into the lives of the people with hoarding disorder as they begin to clear out the house. It’s a bit voyeuristic really, digging into people’s trauma for entertainment purposes, but I find myself continuing to watch. What strikes me each time is how the accumulation started for protective purposes. They essentially build walls around themselves to provide a sense of stability in the midst of or after trauma. But the stuff separates them from the people they care about. It creates undue burdens and it’s not uncommon that by the time the Hoarders crew gets there, the person is at risk of losing their home entirely. Sometimes the home is already to the point of condemnation. What started as a defense mechanism became a source of ruin. Yet still, the person sees the individual items that they have packed together, those things that they bought with plans and purposes, pieces of a dream they had, and struggle to let them go. They speak about certain family members they were thinking of when they brought in an item that is now ruined, or how hard it is to let go of personal items from a deceased loved one. It takes family meetings and a trained therapist to help them begin to let some things go. They have to learn that the stuff is not love, it’s not connection, it’s not security. Their love and connection comes from relationships with people, not the individual items making their house unlivable. The turn around usually comes when they sit down with their loved ones and hear their concerns. It is a reintegration into their families and communities that helps them slowly begin to heal, though it doesn’t happen overnight. The hope is that they learn to prioritize people over possessions as they continue in aftercare therapy and household organizing. It’s a long process.
The question posed to the hoarder and the question posed to the young man who wanted more of the inheritance is simply this: When do we feel that we have enough? Where does true satisfaction lie?
The man who had more than enough grain to be comfortable for the rest of his life was like a billionaire in his day. Money would never be an issue for him. While others struggled to feed themselves, he never had to worry about what would be on the table. He could eat, drink, and be merry. But in the end, as Ecclesiastes so eloquently puts it, it turned out to all be vanity and a chasing after wind. Where would all of this go when he was dead? Was there even anyone for it to go to? Or was he a rich man without a friend in the world?
This man had people in his life. He didn’t work the fields by himself. He didn’t plant this harvest, pluck it, or pile up his proceeds on his own. If he built a barn, he was not going to be the only one putting it together. Most people in this region lived in small rural communities. They relied on each other to help get things done. This man wasn’t a CEO of a company with thousands of employees. He was someone who hired every person who worked for him. He saw their faces. He knew their families. They were not unknown.The majority of the nation of Israel, the people he hired included, didn’t have much of anything. They weren’t necessarily guaranteed their daily bread, they had to help each other survive. Yet this man put himself above the people who worked for him when making his decisions. They helped harvest the grain but they would not be invited to share in what they had helped produce. The man really seemed to think that he had created this bounty on his own. He wanted to hold onto it at all costs. While he wasn’t a hoarder, like those with the disorder, he overvalued the stuff and honored it above his relationship with the community around him.
This is a danger Jesus continually warns us about. Money and stuff can become addictive. They can begin to control someone if they aren’t careful. Suddenly what was communally produced becomes individually earned. The person at the top becomes blind to everyone who helped them out. The desire to hold onto it all, even if the person has plenty, is alluring. Some commentators point out a message in the Greek text of this Gospel that hasn’t been translated into English. In English, the rich man in the parable is told, “This very night your life is being demanded of you.” The Greek roughly translates “Your soul they demand from you.” Who are they? Some speculate it is the things that he has accumulated. They argue for the translation, “This very night, your things demand your soul from you.” He loses his life because of these objects. They take over, they take charge. But when he dies, what good is all this stuff? There’s not even someone to come and take the things when he’s gone. He’s alone. Because he got addicted to the stuff, because he valued the things over the people around him, he didn’t have the people to eat, drink, and be merry with. He is alone with the stuff, surrounded by his hoard. He doesn’t see how connected he could be, how much good he could do, his ability to uplift everyone around him. Think of how many people could have been fed from the mountain of grain, especially in the economy of Jesus’ day, when very few had storehouses, and many more worked to get just enough.
We all need a basic amount of money and things to survive. This man had the ability to help make them comfortable and happy, just like he was, but he chose not to do so, so they suffered. When there’s not enough money to live comfortably every day of the month, when someone’s paycheck runs out one week and they aren’t paid until the next, more money is a God send. If someone doesn’t have enough of the items they need to comfortably live in their home, stuff creates joy. There’s been research that has proven that. But when all our basic needs are met, when the money to month ratio is well balanced, adding more money isn’t going to increase happiness all that much. When we’ve got enough stuff, accumulating more isn’t going to provide long lasting contentment. It often just leads to the stress of clutter. If we acquire a drive for more wealth, no amount of wealth is going to feel like enough. The risk is falling into a compulsion of hoarding that can drive others away rather than build the community we all need for survival.
Jesus didn’t have a whole lot of personal wealth. He did have wealthy benefactors who helped make sure that he and his disciples had food and shelter. Jesus had enough. Jesus harnessed the power of something greater than wealth to impact the world. He harnessed the power of relationships, of community. That’s where he put his time and his focus. That’s ultimately where Jesus tries to focus the man who came to him.
The man was within his right to be annoyed that his brother got more inheritance. In their culture, the eldest brother got a double portion of the inheritance. Some families then redistributed that double portion so all brothers got the same amount, but that was an option, not an expectation.
But the younger brother wants his brother’s share, so he goes to a great teacher to get some support. There was no legal expectation of equal distribution, but it was probably becoming more common. He wanted backing to elevate the new custom above the old law. A legal expert like a rabbi could help with that. The Torah held the laws that could be potentially reinterpreted to elevate the newer custom over the older law. I can see where Jesus especially might be interested in helping with that, after all, the older brother here is prioritizing stuff over people, putting the greater portion of the inheritance over his brother. This parable could almost more easily be told against him than his brother who came to Jesus. But Jesus really tells the parable for both of them. They are both seeking stuff over people.
The man who came to Jesus had enough to live comfortably. What right did he have to complain? What was more important than wealth was the relationships this man had.Perhaps his relationship with his brother would always be bad, perhaps it was even toxic. They didn’t have to be friends or even talk to each other if that’s what was best for them. But why tear apart what little was left of the relationship between these brothers for additional dollars when the portion of the property he had was sufficient? Why potentially risk other relationships? Legal battles often create rifts in entire communities, creating sides not just between other family members, but between mutual friends as well. Especially in small communities, the division, the creation of sides, could be immensely painful. What would be the gain and how great would the losses be? It had the potential to tear him up and leave him with less support in the end, not more. His brother did nothing illegal, he made a decision that was within his rights to make. What would really be gained from it all?
Jesus called the man to be rich toward God, to put love of God and love of neighbor before all else, the way of deepest happiness first. The power of wealth is not happiness. An accumulation of stuff is not happiness. Having people to eat, drink, and be merry with, having connections and the power of community is happiness. That’s where the greatest riches are, in those moments when we feel completely in tune with God and others. Community is built through sharing of resources.
It is in the sharing of the stuff, in the conscientious redistribution to help those who need it the most, that we can find the face of Christ both in the other and in the mirror. We don’t find God in the silos. We find God in the feast. It is in the feast that we find the abundance God wants for all. I read recently about a practice used at a particular dinner party. Each person was invited to help fill the plate of their neighbor. They were to talk with the person on their right about what they wanted and fill their plate as they passed food around. Once their neighbor had gotten their food, they were invited to look at their own plate, filled by the person to their left. Everyone had well distributed portions. No one had a huge pile of food while another had too little. While they focused on what their neighbor needed, they found that their plate was filled as well. They had all that they needed. They felt more connected, having shared the intimacy of plating food for each other. This is what makes life full. This is living a life rich towards God.
Today, Jesus invites us back to the feast, back to the places where community is formed. Enough isn’t found in the bank account, it’s found in the breaking of bread. Communion is an act of solidarity that doesn’t deny distinctions in power, but invites us all to share in one bread, one cup, to see each other in all our human dignity, to recognize how our lives intersect and to ensure we all have enough. It is a collective meal that unites us together into Christ’s body in the world.
As we come to that feast today, may we be connected in that moment, filled with the bonds of support from our God and our neighbor. May we embody the feast in all that we do, striving for community first, sharing the love of our abundant God with all we meet. May we not hoard our resources but rather help each other all have enough. Amen.
