NOTES: 1] Jewish people still commonly look to their Rabbi to settle disputes. Jesus will not take up this role.

WARMING UP: Been involved in any building projects lately?

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Afterthoughts from, follow-up to last week’s Group, or since?

EXPLORING GOSPEL:

13-15    Do we ever find ourselves looking to Jesus as the arbiter of what's right & what's wrong? Or is that the Father's role?
If our answer to either of the above is "Yes", is it because we're interested in what's right for us, or wrong for someone else? Are we at all legalistic in the way we see / approach / practise our Faith? What's made us like that? Did we catch that from Jesus, or from someone (some church?) strong on legalism, judgment, Judgment?
             Does taking a legalistic approach usually centre on greed of one kind or another, possessions, property, rights, status, that kind of thing? How much are things like that issues in our life? In our church life? If our life, as Jesus says, doesn't consist of those kinds of things / attitudes, what does it consist of?

16-21   Have we ever been, or ever known, the kind of person Jesus caricatures in this parable? Is Jesus just on about barns, or do they simply stand for something else? Such as? Is there anything we're storing up to the point of letting it take over our life - material things, or something else? For instance are we building bigger & better barns to store things like doubt, pride, fear, hate, jealousy.........? Is the cutting edge of a parable that it gets so close to the bone? Most of our bones!?
             Do we, like the prosperous man of the parable, ever 'talk to our soul'? Depending on the subject, might it sometimes be a good thing if we did? What kinds of subjects might we benefit from talking to our soul about?
             Are we in the habit of spending a lot of time planning for, agonising over, making provision for the years ahead? Given that to ignore that side of things altogether might be poor stewardship on our part, how are we to tell where the 'line in the sand' is?
             Does it worry us much 'who's going to get what' when we die? Has it struck us - yet - that 'you can't take it with you when you go'? Does that have any practical implications for us in the way we use / hoard / shed our belongings? Given that Jesus doesn't make any comment about what the rich man should have done about his crops, property, etc., can we reach any reasonable conclusions about that? Is the old definition of a parable as 'an earthly story with a heavenly meaning' still adequate?
             What might it mean, in our case, to be 'rich toward God'? What do we have to do to be 'rich toward God'? Might it be harder to be 'rich toward God' in an (our?) affluent society than it might be in a subsistence / survival one? Is the fact that it might be hard just an excuse for leaving things the way they are? Is there some current 'treasure' we may have to shed to become 'rich toward God'? Will any of what Jesus says here make sense until we discover God as our greatest Treasure of all?