Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
Luke 12:16-21
From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke
by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria
16-21.
And He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich
man brought forth plentifully, and he thought within himself, saying,
What shall I do, because I have no room where to gather my crops? And he
said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and
there will I gather all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my
soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine
ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this
night they shall require thy soul of thee: then whose shall those things
be, which thou hast prepared? So is he that layeth up treasure for
himself, and is not rich toward God. The Lord had said that the
life of a man is not lengthened by an abundance of possessions, and now
He offers this parable in confirmation of this truth. See how He
describes for us the insatiable thoughts of the foolish rich man. God
did His part and showed His mercy; for all the ground of the rich man
brought forth plentifully, not just one of his fields. But the rich man
himself bore so little fruit from the mercy shown him that even before
he had gathered the crops, he imagined them already locked up for
himself. See also the pleasures of the rich man: What shall I do? Does
not the pauper say the same thing as well, "What shall I do? I have
nothing to eat or to put on." Think, if you will, about the words of the
rich man. What shall I do, because I have no room where to gather my crops? At
the very least, he could take a good rest. If both the pauper says,
"What shall I do because I have not?" and the rich man says, "What shall
I do because I have not?" then what do we gain by gathering more and
more? We do not gain any rest, and it is clear from all the cares that
come from our further efforts that we are piling up for ourselves only a
great multitude of sins. Yet the foolish man says, I will pull down my barns, and build greater.
And if your land yields even more bountifully in the future, will you
pull these down and build again? But what need is there to pull down and
build? You have available to you as storehouses the stomachs of the
poor which can hold much, and are indestructible and imperishable. They
are in fact heavenly and divine storehouses, for he who feeds the
pauper, feeds God. See something else that is foolish: my fruits and my goods. The
rich man did not consider that he had received these things from God.
If he had, he would have treated these things as would a steward of God.
But he imagined that these things were the fruits of his own labors,
which is why he usurped them for himself, calling them my fruits and my goods.
"I am the sole owner," he thinks, "and there is no one else entitled to
a share. These things are not God's, but mine, and therefore I alone
will enjoy them. I will not now take God in as a partner to enjoy my
profit." Because he spoke foolishly, let us see what happened. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. He
determines that he will have a long life, as if length of years was
something else he could obtain by working his land. But a long life is
not a crop you can grow, and it is not another of your belongings. "Eat, drink, and be merry.
Three cheers for the good things of my soul!" But to eat and drink are
the good things only of an irrational soul. Because this man has an
irrational soul, it is fitting that he plans to reward himself with
these things. But the good things of a rational soul are to understand,
to reason, and to be glad in the law of God and in good thoughts. Do
eating and drinking not suffice for you, 0 fool, but you must also order
up for your soul that which accompanies these things, namely, shameful
and base pleasure? Euphemistically did the Lord employ the words be merry, indicating by them the most wanton passions which are the consequence of too much food and drink. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night they shall require thy soul of thee. The words God said unto him do
not mean that God conversed with the rich man, although the parable
puts it in this form. Instead, the thoughts that came into the mans mind
are what God spoke. Thou fool. He calls
him a fool because everything he wanted was foolish, as we have shown.
And every man like him is foolish and acts in vain, for, as David says, In vain doth every man disquiet himself
[Ps. 38:14]. Why? Because he stores up things without knowing for whom
he gathers them. How can he not be called a fool who does not know that
the length of a man's life rests with God alone and that no man can
set the limits of his own life?
Notice also the words, they will require.
Like some stern imperial officers demanding tribute, the fearsome
angels will ask for your soul, and you will not want to give it because
you love this life and claim the things of this life as your own. But
they do not demand the soul of a righteous man, because he himself
commits his soul into the hands of the God and Father of spirits, and he
does so with joy and gladness, not in the least bit grieved that he is
handing over his soul to God. For him the body is a light burden, easily
shed. But the sinner has made his soul fleshy, something in substance
like the body and like the earth, rendering it difficult to separate
from the body. This is why the soul must be demanded of him, the same
way that harsh tax collectors treat debtors who refuse to pay what is
due. See that the Lord did not say, "I shall require thy soul of thee," but, they shall require.
For the souls of the righteous are already in the hands of God. Truly
it is at night when the soul of such a sinner is demanded of him. It is
night for this sinner who is darkened by the love of wealth, and into
whom the light of divine knowledge cannot penetrate, and death overtakes
him. Thus he who lays up treasure for himself is called foolish: he
never stops drawing up plans and dies in the midst of them. But if he
had been laying up treasure for the poor and for God, it would not have
been so. Let us strive, therefore, to be rich toward God, that is, to trust in God, to have Him as our wealth and the treasury of wealth, and not to speak of my goods but of "the good things of God." If they are God's, then let us not deprive God of His own goods. This is what it means to be rich toward God:
to trust that even if I empty myself and give everything away, I will
not lack the necessities. God is my treasury of good things, and I open
and take from that treasury what I need.
