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| Upsized Living in a Downsized Economy, #5 |
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Sermon # 5: How Do I Keep My Possessions From Possessing Me?
As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple [in Jerusalem] treasury. Jesus also saw a poor widow put in two coins. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but this widow out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Luke 21:1-4 [Jesus said,] “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Matthew 6:24 The ancient Greek author Aesop wrote a number of fables; short stories that reveal basic human nature. One of Aesop’s fables was about the destructive quality of seeking more possessions. In “The Dog and His Shadow,” a dog received a fine, meaty bone. The dog bit down on that bone and headed home. With the bone firmly between his teeth, the dog crossed a bridge over a small, still pond. When the dog looked down into the water, the dog saw his own reflection magnified. Now, unlike human beings, a dog’s brain is not very big, just the size of a small tangerine. This dog thought that the other dog under the water had a larger bone. The dog on the bridge decided to seize by force the new, larger bone. The dog bent over and barked at his own reflection. And as the dog barked, the bone between his teeth fell into the water and was lost.
Ever since Aesop wrote his fable, people, with much bigger brains, laugh at the ignorant dog. Then, we catch Aesop’s message. Many people want more than what they have. Yet, often in the process of seeking more possessions, we lose what we have graciously been given. This morning, in my fourth sermon on “Upsized Living in a Downsized Economy,” I invite all of us to learn from Aesop’s fable. We can either wisely use what God has given us, or in our zeal to acquire more lose everything we have. Since September, I have described how this Great Recession has changed lives and institutions throughout the world. As Time magazine recently said: “The Great Recession is transforming how we spend, whom we trust, where we save, and what we really value.” (Time (April 27, 2009) p. 21. Thanks to this Great Recession, I believe that all of us have learned some lessons. Again, as Time magazine said, “No one wishes for hardships. But as we pick through the economic rubble, we may find that our riches have buried our treasures. Money does not buy happiness.” (Time (April 27, 2009) p. 23. Money did not buy us happiness, and the pursuit of money led us over the cliff of financial crisis. One of the lessons we have learned is that someone else did not create this recession. I believe that the sins of gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, and pride as practiced by all of us led us into this recession. All of us need to repent of our excesses. But beyond laying blame, we have learned some valuable lessons in this Great Recession. The first lesson was to live more simply. Jesus Christ invites us to be more like children and be satisfied with the possessions we already have. We do not always need more and more. As the song says, it is a gift of God to be simple and through our simplicity we may be set free. The second lesson from this Great Recession is to serve. As Jesus washed feet, many of us have discovered during these days the joy of offering our time and talents for the sake of our families, our neighbors, and the world. There is real joy in caring for persons who need our help. I have the opportunity this week to listen to my own sermon about service. Last Saturday morning, I pulled into a gas station to fill up my car. As I was pumping gas, a young woman walked over and asked if I had jumper cables in my car. I looked over and saw her older car. Her young daughter was standing next to an open engine hood. The woman said that her car battery had died for the second time in two days. Fortunately, I had a set of jumper cables in my car. I bought those cables twelve years before and had never used them. In just a moment we had her car running. As I was putting down the hoods of the cars, she offered me a crumpled up $5 bill. I thanked her but refused her money; she clearly needed her money more than I. And then, without any forethought, I handed her my jumper cables. For twelve years, I had carried those new cables around in my car and never used them. I suspected that she would need them again soon. That simple act of service gave me a warm glow the rest of the day. To live more simply and to serve more graciously upsizes our lives in this downsized economy. Let me share a third way to upsize our lives: to give more generously. While God created us to share and give to others, in the past generation we have been more tempted to spend on ourselves and hoard our wealth. For the past few decades, we have been bombarded with the promise that true contentment can be found only through the things we possess and the size of our bank accounts. The problem with focusing our lives on our possessions is spiritual. When we focus on our possessions, we begin to worship things rather than God. To go deeper in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we must become dis-possessed from our possessions. Beyond living simple lives and sharing our talents, we must also learn how to be generous with our financial resources. Becoming dis-possessed from our possessions is not easy. Consumerism has been the dominant ethos of American life. Shopping for ourselves had become our national pastime. Still today, Concord Mills remains our state’s number one tourist attraction, a modern cathedral to the religion of acquisitiveness. Jesus Christ understood this habit of acquisitiveness and its potential to hurt our souls. Jesus said to his disciples: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15) Two-thirds of Jesus’ parables warned his followers about the dangers of money. A life that celebrates possessions alone and their immediate enjoyment never made or makes sense. Time spent roaming the mall disconnected us from people we love. Families went to war over inheritances. Eating out at costly restaurants replaced cooking soul food at home. Far too many people took on foolish levels of debt, merely renting lifestyles they could not afford. We now know that in the unchecked pursuit of possessions, we lost more than we gained. Our unrestrained consumption almost consumed us. When we derive our identity from the things we possess – cars, clothes, credit cards, electronic devices, and vacations – we forget that we were created in the image of God. And when the train wreck of the Great Recession arrived, we wonder why we did not get off the tracks before the train arrived. Other people learned this lesson before us. Some years ago, newswoman Barbara Walters interviewed billionaire Ted Turner. In their conversation, Walters recounted many of Turner’s most prized possessions at the time: ownership of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, television networks, yachts, ranches, and tremendous bank accounts. Just before the interview ended, Walters asked, “What does it feel like to be so wealthy?” Turner responded, “It’s like a paper bag. Everyone sees the bag. Everyone wants it. Once you get the bag, you discover that the bag is empty.” Turner revealed that his own pursuit of possessions did not leave him fulfilled but empty. [In Fil Anderson, Running on Empty: Contemplative Spirituality for Overachievers (Waterbrook: Colorado Springs, 2004), pp. 27-28.] Can we become dis-possessed from our possessions? Jesus believed that we can break the power of our possessions over us. Jesus proved that it was possible by pointing out to his followers a woman whose possessions did not overwhelm her. One day, while Jesus and his friends were in the courtyard of the temple, the main religious edifice in Jerusalem, they observed people placing their financial gifts in a large collection bowl. This action resembles people putting their money into a Salvation Army kettle before Christmas. In those days before paper money, the sound of the metal coins would declare to everyone who gave what. Large, heavy coins sounded loudly throughout the courtyard. In the hearing of Jesus and his followers, some rich persons quite obviously offered a large number of heavy coins. Then a widow arrived. In that culture and time, widows were among the poorest people in the land. Then, this woman contributed just two, lightweight coins into the common pot: clink, clink. Jesus simply stated, “This poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on” (Luke 21:3-4). How could two small coins outweigh significantly larger gifts? The religious treasurers probably appreciated more the gifts of large contributors. For Jesus, the issue was not how much the woman contributed. Instead, did her possessions possess her or did she have control over her possessions? How much did she give up with her offering? The answer: she willingly gave up all her financial possessions. What did she have left after her offering? Absolutely nothing. This woman understood that she was totally dependent on God for everything. She gave away her total savings but kept intact her dependence upon God. Her example has become a model for all persons who follow Jesus. The alternative to our sinful lives of acquisitiveness is a spiritual life of generosity. The deepest kind of happiness comes from giving, knowing that we offer our possessions to help other people. When we become dis-possessed from our possessions, our lives make a difference. The Bible tells us this truth again and again. The bulletin insert this morning provides for you Scriptural text after text about the relationship of us to our money and to our God. I am not going to read all this wisdom from the Bible to you. But I do invite you to take the sheet home, do not leave it in the pew, and read these words in quiet. What is God saying to you through them? In the next two weeks, for the sake of your soul in this Great Recession, I invite all of us to fill out the yellow financial pledge card. Not for the sake of this congregation but for the sake of our souls. I cannot tell you how much to give. Some of us give 10% of our income. A few give more. Most of us give less. Your commitment depends on your income, your priorities, your debts, and ultimately your confidence in God. Let me be clear. There is no one absolute biblical model for giving of your money. There is no divine 1040 form with thousands of pages of instructions and a heavenly Internal Revenue Service checking your statement. A group of angels with green eyeshades in heaven are not auditing your returns. Your giving is a private agreement between you and God. What is required is intentionality. What do you “choose to give?” Do you control your money or does your money control you? Ultimately, stewardship is a grateful response to all we have received from God. Let me end with two stories of people who know these biblical truths. The first story is about a very rich man. Back in the summer [Newsweek (June 8, 2009) p. 21], Newsweek printed an article written by Peter Peterson. Peterson, a self-made billionaire, had just created a new foundation to give away his money. Listen to Peterson’s witness: In 2007, the company I cofounded . . . held a most successful public offering. I found myself, at age 81, an instant billionaire. I wish I could’ve called my father, a Greek immigrant who had spent most of his life running a 24-hour diner in Nebraska. . . . I was a millionaire 1,000 times over. But immediately I began wondering: what do I do with $1 billion? The idea of trying to make the money grow felt empty to me. For my father, who saved or gave away so much of his modest income, the ultimate curse was “big spender.” So buying a yacht was out of the question. . . . I was liberated. I was free. But I was joyless. I found my new life to be a kind of metaphor for my declining years – one might say a slow dying. . . . So I started looking at the lives of other billionaires. Almost all the ones I most admired were major philanthropists: Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg . . . – each with a passion to do good, each getting so much pleasure from giving their money away. [If Peterson had known about Central, he would have added names like Valda Harry, Miriam Schramm, Norman Bisnar, Hildreth Jordan] I decided that’s what I wanted to do. . . . Kurt Vonnegut [an author] once told a story about seeing Joseph Heller [another author] at a wealthy hedge-fund manager’s party at a beach house in the Hamptons. Casting his eye around the luxurious setting, Vonnegut said, “Joe, doesn’t it bother you that this guy makes more in a day that you ever made from your book Catch-22?” No, not really,” Heller said. “I have something that he doesn’t have. I know the meaning of enough.” Peterson then ended his witness this way, “I have far more than enough.”
At the other end of the financial spectrum, I often tell the story of Edith. Edith was the closest person I have ever known to the widow Jesus saw in Jerusalem. Edith was a member of my first congregation in Kannapolis. Edith was born in a family of tenant farmers and worked at Cannon Mills all her life. She never married or had close family. At her retirement, Edith’s wealth consisted of a four-room mill home, plus her Social Security check. Edith did not own a car. Each month when she received her check, my job as her pastor was to take Edith to the bank to cash her check and drive her from from store to store paying her bills. Each month, Edith also gave me ten percent ($40) of her Social Security check ($400) in cash to place in the church offering plate. One month, I refused Edith’s gift saying “Edith, you need this money more than our congregation.” Edith then told me, “Andy, if you will not take the cash, I will just send it straight to the church treasurer.” She continued, “I am not giving this money for our church, or for you, or for me, but for God. This is my way to saying ‘Thank you’ to God. You will not and cannot take away my chance to give.” I was wrong; Edith was right. What can we learn from the dog and his shadow? From Jesus watching the widow and her two coins? From Ted Turner, Peter Peterson, and Edith? Can we use our money for the sake of God’s people? Can we become dis-possessed from our possessions? Can we discover the joy of generosity? Each of us must answer these questions for ourselves. Questions for Thought and Discussion This Week:
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