Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

Dear friend, wel­come to anoth­er week of grace! Wel­come espe­cially to the month of August. To have exper­i­enced this day is a sign of God’s grace. As we learnt last Sunday, God has also giv­en us today the grace to live this day and this month. 

In the past three Sundays, we have reflec­ted on Jesus’ teach­ing on the true sig­ni­fic­ance of neigh­bour and on how to be a good neigh­bour (cf. Luke 10:25–37); the neces­sity of hos­pit­al­ity and the invit­a­tion to avoid dis­trac­tions so as to be able to make the right choices in life, espe­cially in terms of spir­itu­al life and etern­al life (cf. Luke 10:37–42); and how to pray and the need for con­stancy in pray­er (cf. Luke 11:1–13).

The problem of inheritance

“Someone in the crowd said to him, teach­er, tell my broth­er to divide the fam­ily inher­it­ance with me” (Luke 12:13). The prob­lem of inher­it­ance is an age long prob­lem. Every gen­er­a­tion exper­i­ences it, though dif­fer­ently. Today in our vari­ous soci­et­ies, the issue of pat­ri­mony has become a source of dis­har­mony in many fam­il­ies, vil­lages, com­munit­ies, towns, States, Regions and Nations. It has giv­en rise to hatred and enmity among chil­dren of the same par­ents, people of the same cul­ture and who share com­mon belief, and in most cases, lives are equally lost. When we reflect on the plea of the man from the crowd who beckoned on Jesus to inter­vene between him and his broth­er in shar­ing their father’s pat­ri­mony (cf. Luke 12:13), the impres­sion is that they have been quar­rel­ling and could not reach any agree­ment on how to share their inher­it­ance. It is also pos­sible the juni­or broth­er has been insist­ing on shar­ing things but the seni­or broth­er has not respon­ded. But did Jesus actu­ally come to settle inher­it­ance issues? The dis­pute over inher­it­ance is wit­nessed mainly in the case of the death of the fath­er or the moth­er as the case may be. In some cases, argu­ments on inher­it­ance are giv­en pri­or­ity over the buri­al and mourn­ing of the deceased per­son. Some­times, this even takes place while the per­son is still alive and on sick bed. This is scan­dal­ous! In the Lukan lan­guage, those involved in this ignoble act are fools. That is, deprived of com­mon sense and divine wisdom.

Conclusion

Beloved friend, with the story of the rich farm­er, Jesus teaches us more on the van­ity of mater­i­al acquis­i­tion. This does not mean we should not work hard for mater­i­al pos­ses­sions. We need them for our earthly susten­ance. What Jesus is say­ing is that we should not live and behave as if our entire life and exist­ence depends and should be meas­ured solely on the immens­ity of our mater­i­al goods. Hence, he warns, “watch out and guard yourselves from all kinds of greed, for a person’s life does not con­sist in the abund­ance of his or her pos­ses­sions” (Luke 12:15). The watch word here is greed.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 18^th Sunday is found in The Word of Life, vol. III, pages 420–434. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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