Adult Object Lesson: Luke 12-The Rich Fool
Jesus Helps Us Define True Treasures
Today’s story starts with a brother asking for his share of the inheritance.
Today’s object is a box filled with modern “stuff” and a photo of a storage shed. If you can project images use a photo (or several) like this one. Just google storage unit/images to find tons of them.
This is a parable about modern America. It is a parable about values and relationships—priorities.
Some ideas for what to put in the box: A collection of remote controls, a collection of knickknacks, t-shirts, cans from the garage, old sports equipment or toys, old trophies—the types of things we hang on to for reasons we can’t explain.
Use a collection of different things or a collection of same things. We all have multiple remote controls for equipment that died long ago. A collection of one teenager’s T-shirts can fill a dresser drawer.
As you talk about this parable, take the items out of the box. Just holding the things up may cause your congregation to smile.
The modern storage unit will resonate with your congregation. People have so much “stuff” they rent a shed to store it. Often they pay the rent for a few months and then walk away. They forget about the stuff when they have to pay to own it. After a few months, all that stuff isn’t worth the trouble to retrieve it.
On our own, we don’t think of giving it away. In the end, stuff is worthless.
We know that Jesus is asking us to think about our values.
Today even intangible things have value. We can fight over ideas in court for years! Who thought of Facebook first? Who first used the word “muggle” as in the Harry Potter stories? Once success is obvious, we all want a piece of it. We want to transform ideas to gold.
How many of us would fight for what we believe in court?
True success is in building relationships and remembering priorities. Relationships give us something to hang on to. That’s why we make the effort to get home for Thanksgiving—to remember to phone on birthdays or holidays—to show up for worship on Sunday morning—to pray daily.
We don’t need a storage shed or a bigger house. We just need to value the blessings God gave us and show our appreciation.
Heaven is where the heart is.
The painting above by British artist, Arthur Hughes and was painted in 1881. It is called “Saying Grace, The Skipper and His Crew.”