Homily

This parable of the barn-building man is only in Luke's Gospel and it carries two very important themes of Luke's Christian viewpoint. The first one is about putting your faith in God rather than having faith in yourself or in your material possessions. The second theme is not so obvious but it's still there. Who is in this parable besides God on the night of the man's death? No one else. The rich man is all by himself and notice when he talks about what he will do with his new wealth, he doesn't mention the poor who might be helped by his fortunes. He doesn't even mention family or relatives. It's all about him, and he will eat, drink and be merry for many years or so he thinks.

When the rich man comes into the super-abundant harvest he makes a plan, he takes action: he will build barns to store his grain. There's nothing wrong in doing that; of course, there is nothing wrong with making a plan. We have our daily routines that we don't have to think about very much, such as going to work or school, having a morning cup of coffee, checking email. We don’t need to plan routine actions. But we need to make plans for things that are not part of our normal routines. For example you probably have some kind of plans for Thanksgiving next week.

We make plans because we need to think about how to deal with a different situation, something unusual, out of the normal, not a part of our regular life. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving every day, every week or every month, and if we want to celebrate it in some special way, then we need to make a plan for how to do it. Nobody gets up on Thanksgiving Day and says, "I wonder what will happen today?" No, there is usually some kind of plan no matter how simple it may be.

We don't have to plan for the routine and the regular events of our lives. We also don't have to plan for sinning. Did you ever think about that? We usually don't find any need to plan for doing wrong; most of the time we just jump into it like seasoned veterans who have practiced doing wrong so often that it's as easy as falling off a bike. Seriously though, isn't there some truth to this? We can plan our sins, and sometimes we do, because some sins require timing, coordination, extra effort, and thought, such as in robbing a bank. That should probably be planned if you don't want to get caught. But many of our sins come to us very naturally without any need at all to think about how we will execute them. We take them on the fly, as they present themselves to us; no need to wait until we can think about it and then decide how to act. Temptation comes, choice made, deed done.

On the other hand, we know it's harder to practice virtue, because, unlike sin, it takes a good deal more effort many times, to do what is right, especially when we are tempted in the other direction. It just doesn't seem to come so easily to us, this doing of virtue, as sin does. Therefore, I suggest we embrace the idea of making plans to be good and to do good, and not evil.

Many years ago I was pulled over on Coburg road by a vigilant police officer. I went through the intersection on a yellow light. Apparently the officer felt the light was way too yellow for me to proceed. “It’s a warning light, not a go faster light,” he instructed me. The $185 ticket helped me plan to do good and not evil when, in the future, I saw yellow.

So it is a good thing to plan to better obey the traffic rules and to often remind yourself that the police have it in for you so be careful. There are areas in, or aspects of, our lives that we have tried to work on, especially if they have bothered us. And yet, I think in general, we don't spend an excessive amount of time on planning for good actions and avoiding bad actions. It's almost as though we think goodness falls our way as easily as sin, and that it is just natural for us to keep getting better and better without too much of any special kind of care and attention. But I don't think, if we really stop to consider it, that we can make that kind of assumption.

It is good for us to plan to be good and to plan for specific types of virtue we may want, or that we should want, to grow in. Maybe we realize we need to be more patient with other people and even ourselves. Why not deliberately plan, every day, considering the situations, the people, the means, the reactions, the remedies, the thoughts that need to be handled so that I can grow in patience? Only good can come out of this kind of planning. Why not make a plan about how to do better at work, or how to be better at home, or with this person, or those people. Why not make a plan for situations that are likely to come up and you know you'll be tempted to do wrong? Make a plan, and keep on planning to do better in specific ways with other people or situations, so that we can better live in more virtue than we do right now, and if we ask the Lord to help us and guide us in these efforts we can be sure that He will support us by His grace in achieving our good intentions. We may not see overnight success. Sin just seems to tumble out but virtue is usually gained bit by bit, but that should not discourage us from seeking what is good, should it?

It may not seem natural to plan for thinking and acting to grow in a greater specific virtue in specific ways, for specific people and situations. But it could become natural for us with effort and practice. We probably have some type of plans for Thanksgiving Day. Why not also a plan to focus on growing in some good virtue? We may not need bigger barns to store all our stuff, but we could all use bigger hearts to do good, to avoid evil, to love our God and love our neighbor.