Things You Have Prepared

'The Things You Have Prepared, Whose Will They Be?' Commentary by David B. Gowler Cite Share Show Bible Passage Read by Ben Quash This parable’s subsidiary story—as the more muted colours suggest—unfolds on the painting’s border, whose background includes quotes from ads illustrating the consumerism that leads to the rich man’s fate (e.g. ‘Essentials for Every Hom[e]’). The story begins at the top left with two small houses. Interspersed with the narrative episodes in the border are examples of the worldly goods that the rich man craves, and his acquisition of such goods leads to the following stage of the story in which the house on the left is bulldozed to build a mansion that will hold his increasing possessions. It is this mansion that is depicted in the third episode in the sequence (at bottom right). Continuing to move clockwise, the final scene shows a ‘For Sale’ sign in front of the mansion—the man has died—which reminds viewers of Luke 12:20: ‘And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ The border thus illustrates Jesus’s condemnation of avarice and its connection to wickedness (e.g. Luke 11:39). But the parable is ultimately about community: relationships with God and other human beings. The rich man of the parable isolated himself from others because of his wealth. He lacks community because greed inevitably leads to fractured relationships. The interior image with rich, warm colours captures the central message of Jesus’s parable: the isolation that results from the destruction of relationships in contrast with the necessity of community. In the mansion left of centre, the rich man dines alone in a large dining room, relaxing, eating, and drinking (12:19), while the angel of death announces his imminent demise (v.20). The contemporary modern artworks displayed in three rooms of the mansion are among the material goods the man has accumulated, and the sculpture in the room on the right could represent either the rich man’s heartlessness (personal correspondence with Janknegt 2024)—note the hole in the chest—or foreshadow the appearance of the angel of death. In contrast, in the small house next door, a family of eight crowds around a dining room table. They are celebrating their life together—a family that symbolizes true human community of the sort that the rich fool should have attempted to build and maintain. What remains worthy of preservation is the community found in this humble house, which is also a reminder that ‘life does not consist in an abundance of possessions’ (12:15).