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Today’s gospel exposes an all too timely truth: We live in a barn-building culture.

A farmer experiences several good years. The rain has been seasonable, with neither drought nor flood. Pests have been scarce. No blight to speak of. Each year he has produced more and more grain, so much that his silos are filled to overflowing.

“What should I do,” he says. “I have no place to store my crops?”

So he does what anyone of us would do. He pulls down his storage facilities and builds bigger ones.

And then he buys a new car, moves into a bigger house, buys a lot of stock in Google, Walmart and General Electric and some investment properties at the beach. He contracts with an accountant and a property management firm to take care of it all.

And then he says to himself, “You have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” It’s the American Dream, or at least our contemporary version of it. We live in a barnbuilding culture that tends to reinforce the notion that more is better.

This is directly counter to Jesus’ observation in today’s gospel. Jesus says, “Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

When was the last time you had a really good conversation with someone about what life consists of. If life does not consist in the abundance of possessions, then what exactly does life consist in?

We live in a barn building culture in which a lot of people seem to put a lot of effort into filling their big barns. But what if it is just a big waste of time?

There is certainly a difference between “earning a living” and piling up possessions. There is even a difference between earning a good living and piling up possessions. But what is a good life?

In the parable, after the farmer has built his barns and moved in his abundance of grain, he goes to bed planning the next day to eat, drink, and be merry. But, the next day never comes.

“You fool!” God says to him. “This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

What makes this man a fool? Perhaps in the building of bigger and bigger barns, he missed the opportunity to live.