A hundred years ago, the nation faced a familiar question:
Why were so many trapped in poverty while so few thrived in immense wealth?

In the 1920s, during the era of the so-called Robber Barons, the economic gap was stark. Industrial titans like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Clay Frick amassed vast fortunes while millions of workers labored under brutal conditions.

In Carnegie’s steel mills, laborers worked 12-hour days, six days a week, for wages that barely covered basic needs. Injuries and deaths were common, with little regard for safety or support.

Frick was known for his ruthlessness. Carnegie, by contrast, presented himself as a man of the people. Yet his actions told a more complicated story. He once said after busting up a union: “If I had raised your wages, you would have spent that money on a better cut of meat or more drink for your dinner. But what you needed, though you didn’t know it, was my libraries and concert halls. And that’s what I’m giving to you.”[1]

Wage suppression and dangerous working conditions were, to Carnegie, justified by his philanthropy. He believed in helping those who helped themselves—just as he had done. In his mind, culture and education were more valuable than fair pay.

That philosophy gave him a way to reconcile his wealth with the suffering of those who built it. His giving prioritized legacy over justice.

Rockefeller found a moral counterweight in his relationship with Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, whose modernist, inclusive Christianity challenged old certainties. Rockefeller saw in Fosdick’s theology a way to modernize faith—and maybe soften the edge of his conscience.

During this same era, a major theological battle raged across American Protestantism: Fundamentalists vs. Modernists. Church historian Diana Butler Bass writes how this battle split churches, cost people careers, and played out dramatically in places like the Scopes Trial. For a time, liberal and moderate Protestants seemed to win the war.

But by the 1970s, fundamentalists re-entered public life with renewed force. And now—we’re living in an age of new robber barons—without the balance of good theology. The tech bros, the billionaires—they operate with little moral check.

The old barons at least had someone like Fosdick in their ears. Today’s titans have only echo chambers. There’s no Elon Musk Center for Cancer. No Mark Zuckerberg Institute for Global Poverty. We don’t get even a concert hall. They build bunkers, buy islands, and launch rockets. We do have The Gates Foundation, but I wonder… is it enough?

You might be shocked to hear all this punching up when our culture loves to punch down. It’s a good reminder that the source of our woe are not the folks making minimum wage. They aren’t costing us as much as these folks. Nor were the billionaires considered essential 5 years ago in the pandemic, it was the cooks, fast food workers, RNs and janitors that were required to show up and risk their lives for us.

And many of them are bolstered by a theology that sanctifies wealth. Diana Butler Bass writes that fundamentalist theology views the world through a rigid hierarchy—God at the top, followed by rulers, clergy, men, races, and classes. The implication is clear: if you’re wealthy, it’s because God put you there. If you’re poor, it’s your fault.[2]

That’s not the Gospel. Which brings us to today’s scripture.

In Luke 12, a man interrupts Jesus to settle a family dispute over inheritance. Jesus refuses, and instead tells a parable. A rich man, flush with success, has a problem: not enough room for all his stuff. So he tears down his barns and builds bigger ones. With everything safely stored, he dreams of relaxing—eating, drinking, and being merry.

But God says: “You fool. This very night your life will be demanded of you. And the things you’ve prepared—whose will they be?”

Scholar R. Alan Culpepper[3] lifts up five themes in this story:

1. Preoccupation with possessions.
   The man talks only to himself, about his things. There’s no mention of family, workers, neighbors—just stuff. He’s rich in goods, but poor in relationships.
2. The illusion of self-sufficiency.
   He believes he can secure his future alone. No need for community, God, or connection. But none of us paves our own road entirely. We stand on the shoulders of many.
3. He asks what he should do with his surplus. There’s no thought of generosity. Greed has crowded out compassion.
4. The emptiness of hedonism.
   His dream is to indulge every whim. But as Rob Bell once recounted, a friend who sold his business and got everything he ever wanted was left bored and restless, worried for his soul and his kids.[4]
5. A misguided life strategy.
   The rich man may have believed he was wise, maybe even moral. But his life plan collapses in the face of death. His stuff outlives him, but his legacy ends there.

This parable is a mirror. It reveals the assumptions we carry: about wealth, meaning, and success.

The late theologian Walter Brueggemann once said: “The world’s economy loves things and uses people. God’s economy loves people and uses things.”[5]

History is cycling again. The wealth gap is growing. New batch of robber barons but it’s the same foolishness and vanity all over again. There is nothing new under the sun. The foolishness of hoarding and indulgence is on full display. But the difference? The new robber barons don’t have good theology in their ears. They’re unchecked, untethered.

And meanwhile, the theology that does speak into their world—the fundamentalist strain—tells them that wealth is a reward from God, and poverty is a sign of sin. That some people don’t even deserve a living wage.

But Christ tells a different story.
In Christ, all are in, and none are out.
In Christ, the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the sick are visited, the prisoner is remembered, and the lonely find community. I saw this truth firsthand last year during my sabbatical. With fewer night meetings, I reconnected to my true treasure: Kate and the kids, my mom and sister, my D&D group, my music, my friendships. I worked on projects with Sam and Amos. We found community at Wild Goose Festival. Thank you again for that gift.

People are the treasure. And people are what the rich fool forgets. His barns are full, but his life is empty. Jesus asks, “What does it profit someone to gain the world but lose their soul?”

And friends, our lives are being demanded of us—not just at death, but with every choice we make. We can follow a theology that justifies comfort and hierarchy, or we can follow Jesus—the one born poor, who sided with the marginalized, whose mother sang that the rich would be sent away empty and the poor filled with good things.

It may sound radical, but you know it’s true. We are called to love people and use things—not the other way around. What’s a new car without someone to drive around? What’s a promotion without friends to take out to celebrate? Ultimately, things are just things. Often the things we treasure most are attached to people and memories. It’s not the thing that has the power, it’s the person and our relationship with them. Sometimes we forget and attach power to the thing and not the relationship it is based on… like the rich fool and his barns.

Don’t be the rich fool. Know that your life is full not because of what you’ve earned, but because of who you’ve shared it with. All your success means little if you have no one to celebrate with, no one to bless with generosity. It is not good for us to be alone. So go. Live generously in community. Love deeply. And remember it’s not always what matters…. But who. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Works Cited

[1] Free for All: The Public Library, PBS, season 26, episode 16, aired April 29, 2025, segment featuring Carnegie’s remarks, accessed via American Experience on PBS.

[2] She has an amazing 4 part series which can be found here: https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/the-fundamentalists-are-winning

[3] Luke, New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, page 257.

[4] Rob Bell, “What Is an Immigrant?,” episode 392 of The RobCast, podcast, 15 min, June 15, 2025, Spotify, accessed [7/20/25], https://open.spotify.com/episode/0BwI0gJA5p8yvVZSVWPntF

[5] Please see: Walter Brueggemann, Money and Possessions, ed. Christine Roy Yoder, Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016).