Letter to the Editor by Gerald Holland
The main scripture for our Oct 4 Sunday School class was Luke 12: 16 – 20, where Jesus warned against greed. He told a parable of a rich man who had such a windfall crop that he decided to build a bigger barn, quit working and use the abundant crop to “eat, drink and be merry.” The teacher asked what that said about the man. I said he was a hoarder. After others commented, I said, “I went to a meeting last week. It was sort of a debate. Half the people on the other side kept condemning ‘billionaires, billionaires, billionaires.’ They didn’t offer any solutions. They just piled hate on people who have more that they have. We have billionaires here – the Waltons. They earned it. They do a lot of things to benefit this community. We might not like everything they do (people laughed), but they earned what they’re spending. Mr. Sam fixed it so that his kids could do it. Alice Walton built a highly regarded art museum. Now she’s building a huge medical complex that will help people here and worldwide. But the levelers want to bring everybody down to some equalized lower status because that would make the levelers feel self-worth ”
I decided that Jesus wasn’t just condemning greedy luxury living. He was advocating that the rich farmer should use his surplus to boost prosperity through growth. I thought about Genesis 1:28 which says, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth.” So, I blurted out, “The man could have sold or given seed corn to his neighbors. They could have planted the seed for a food crop and started making themselves prosperous, too. The United States and the whole Western World have built a huge barn that’s full of money. Politicians want to give away everything in the barn, or that they can borrow, so people will vote for them (people laughed). So now we have a system where government is god, providing everything: free food, free health care, free housing, free transportation, free college, etc., etc., and if you don’t want another child, the government will help you kill your baby (consider Hosea 4: 10.)
On a more down-to-earth level, I thought, rats would get into that rich man’s barn and eat the grain before he could revel with it, and a man could, as one of my great uncles did, steal grain with which to make whiskey.