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How much of my life has been bound up with money! All my life, I have had to work to earn it. I had to work to earn it at one job or task or another because I found out early on that my widowed mother was right: it does not grow on trees. And if it did, such a tree certainly did not grow in our yard.
I.
Money is a problem to all people, and it always has been. Why else would roughly 2,350 verses in the Bible speak to money and possessions? Why else would so many of all the sayings and parables of Jesus that are recorded in the gospels have to do with money and material possessions and our relationship to them? That amounts to one of every seven verses in the synoptic gospels and 16 of the 38 parables Jesus told.
Why is this so? It is so because Jesus recognized that whether you are rich or poor the truth in our text applies to all of us: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”
A fragment of that verse, incidentally, is one of the most often misquoted texts in the Bible. You have probably heard it rendered as “money is the root of all evil.“ But it is not money that is the problem; it is the love of money. And the “the root of all evil” is a King James Version mistranslation. Clearly, there are many sins and crimes that have nothing to do with money. The writer was merely being emphatic when he said that money is a root of all kinds of evil. As one commentator said, “When one is dealing with a degrading vice, the interests of virtue are not served by qualified assertions.” Does that remind you of some recent political advertising?
Truly, however, there is no kind of evil that cannot grow out of the love of money--when the desire for more money becomes merely unfettered greed and people become unrestrained in their drive for more money.
The desire for money, when it takes hold, can become like a thirst that is insatiable. The Romans said that wealth is like sea water. The more of both you taste, the thirstier for them you become.
The desire for wealth is founded on illusions. It is founded first on the desire for security from the world’s hard knocks. But it cannot buy security from what life deals to us. It cannot deliver us from sickness, sorrow, or tragedy or death. It cannot buy health.
It is further founded on the desire for comfort and luxury. But it cannot protect us from broken hearts and grief, nor from the loneliness we experience inside ourselves. It cannot buy love. Even the Beatles, wealthy beyond our imagining, knew that. They sang, “I'll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too. I may not have a lot to give, but what I got I'll give to you. I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love. Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so. Can't buy me love, no, no, no, no.”
The desire for money can make us into selfish people. It creates a competitive spirit within us. It means nothing to the money-motivated person that someone else must have less in order that he may have more…or that someone else must lose in order for him to win.
The desire for wealth can so fix our thoughts upon ourselves and our own affairs that other people become merely the means to enriching ourselves…or mere obstacles in the path to riches.
One of the strangest things about the desire for wealth is that it is founded on the desire for security--but it results in worry and anxiety, the fear of losing what one has. The more a man has to keep, the more he has to lose.
By far the greatest danger of the love of money is that it may lead us into wrong ways of getting it. Some people will swindle and cheat to get money. We read about them every day.
Most people will not go that far, but all of us may be tempted to bend the rules a little…cut the corners, just a bit…neglect to mention a fact or two…just slightly mislead others…or silently allow them to mislead themselves…deliver just a little less value than we could have.
And some may not do any of these things, but so drive themselves down the road to financial success that they use up their bodies…and their minds. They never stop to smell the roses…and if they have heard it, they do not reflect on the proverb that says, “There are no pockets in a shroud.”
II.
We have not been talking about money, but about the love of money and what it can do to people. Clearly, money is an important concern to us and to all people. Our task as Christians is to keep money in its proper place in our lives. There are still a few stories in the news to gladden our hearts, and one of those in the past week was about the elderly couple in Canada who just gave away to charity 98% of the $11 million they had won in the lottery. They said they are just plain country folks who didn’t need more than what they already had, and so they prudently put 2% in savings and gave away the rest.
A realistic and proper concern for money is a realistic and proper concern of Christians. We ought to examine on a regular basis the way we think and feel about money.
Money is the way the world works. There is no escaping it. To seek to be independent, to pay one’s bills, to provide a home and opportunity for one’s family, to provide for one’s own old age--all this is a Christian duty. Paul tells us in I Timothy 5:8 that anyone who does not provide for his own has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Christianity does not argue for poverty. Jesus Christ does not urge us to be poor. Rather he is presented to us as one who chose to be the friend of the poor. But there is no special virtue in being poor, and there is no happiness to be found in struggling to make ends meet. Rather, the Christian church--including this tiny island of Presbyterianism that we call Faith Church--has been told by its Lord to seek by any and all means within both our individual and our corporate powers to work to improve the economic lot of the world’s poor people.
Money, Christians, is neither good nor bad. It is simply dangerous. With money, we can do great good. In the pursuit of money, we can do great evil.
Money is a responsibility. It brings with it power into our pockets and pocketbooks--the power to do evil or to do good.
The habit of liberal giving to people and causes that need our money is the greatest antidote to any selfishness or sinfulness concerning our money. Stewardship is a wise and deliberate dedication to God of a portion of that which we have been given by God. The money in your pocket or pocketbook has inscribed on it “In God We Trust.” Our use of our money will testify silently as to whether we trust in God--or in money itself.
III.
Paul wrote that he had learned to be content in whatever circumstances he found himself. Most of us have not, most of the time. But can we learn that contentment, that state of mind that trusts in God rather than in treasure? Yes, if we work at it.
Peace of mind will never be found in more money. It can be created only in us. The contentment that Christ can bring is more profound than anything that money can bring us. It is a state of mind that is independent of money. It is the state of self-sufficiency.
Sir Henry Wotton wrote, a long time ago, of the character of a happy life and said that the person was blessed, “Who God doth late and early pray more of his grace than goods to send, and is Lord of himself, though not of lands, and having nothing, yet hath all.”
Socrates marveled, “How many things there are which I can do without.”
Epicurus said, “To whom little is not enough, nothing is enough.” And he went on to say that to make a man happy, “Add not to a man’s possessions, but take away his desires.
And the rabbis of old taught their congregations: “Who is rich? He that is content with his lot.”
Our western developed society, unlike other societies in undeveloped parts of the world, has seen each succeeding generation, by and large, enjoy more material prosperity than the preceding generation. The middle-class income of a family headed by a college graduate in the United States makes us richer than 95% of the people on this planet--and richer than 99.9% of all the people who ever lived.
My parents would have counted themselves wealthy to have enjoyed what I take for granted. The economic and material world of my children is vastly different from the one my wife and I entered into when we first began our married life. And my children’s children think that world as I describe it to them is simply quaint. They cannot imagine a world of just 60 or so years ago in which television was only just being born. And in a store that sells memorabilia, when I pointed out to one of my camera-in-his cell-phone grandsons a black, rotary-dial telephone, he asked, “What is it?”
I am content, when I look at the reality of my life, when I look at that which is real in my life. The peace of contentment grows out of a concentration on the things that are permanent…the things we can take with us.
There are just two things we can take with us: our selves--whatever they have been--and the trusting conviction that we go to the one who is our friend and the lover of our souls.
Before we go, we will find happiness and contentment on this planet when we escape the slavery of money and possessions, when we find a different kind of wealth in the love and fellowship of family and friends and fellow Christians, and when we realize that our most precious possession is our relationship to God, made possible through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Remembering to Say "Thank You" (Luke 17:11-19)
I was taught to say “thank you” to anyone who gave me anything or did anything for me. I say “thank you” to the wait persons who refill my water glass in a restaurant. I say thank you to the mail person and the Fed Ex person and the man who picks up our trash. I taught my children to say “thank you,” and they have taught their children to say it.
Saying “thank you” is one of the conventions of politeness. But there is a “thank you” that goes far beyond conventions. It is the “thank you” that comes from the heart, when your heart has been touched by someone else’s love or kindness. It is the spontaneous “thank you” of being touched by the unexpected goodness of another person. It is the emotion that wells up in us when we realize that someone is doing something for us out of love or friendship--and for no other reason.
It is the “thank you” that is accompanied by a lift and a lilt in your heart. It is the “thank you” that sometimes causes me to say, with a little smile, “Thank you, God; thank you, Jesus,” when I realize that something good is flowing into my life…when I remember for a moment that the good in my life far outweighs the bad…when an unexpected gift comes my way.
One of my favorite grandchildren stories--and if you have heard it before, just enjoy it again--is about our grandson Stefan and an Easter egg. When he was just a little guy, he offered to peel an Easter egg for me, and when I said that would be nice, he did so--right down to the yolk. And as he handed me that little yellow ball of cholesterol, he said, “Because you are the best man in the world.” My thank-you to Stefan including hugging him to me, both in love and so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. I was also saying in my heart, “Thank you, Lord, for the love of my children and grandchildren.”
I.
Today’s gospel lesson is about 10 people who were helped in their misery by Jesus, but only one of them returned to thank him. How could the other nine fail to give thanks? Perhaps they were too eager, after their long isolation, to rejoin their families and to resume normal life. Under the same circumstances, would we stop to give thanks? How often do we stop to give thanks for our blessings? How often do we forget to thank God? How often do we fail to thank our spouses for loving us, for putting up with us? Our parents for what they have done for us? How often do we forget to thank our friends for being our friends? Our neighbors for being pleasant? Is thankfulness our habit?
This story is one of those told about Jesus, not by Jesus. It was told by Luke the Gentile, who never knew Jesus in person, as far as we know. This story is an allegory, and it is easy to tell who the players are. Of the ten lepers, nine are the Jews who considered themselves the upright, God-fearing, all right, okay children of Israel. Such were the Scribes and Pharisees who could not, would not, listen to and accept the teachings of Jesus, and with whom Jesus had to contend so often. Their leprosy, allegorically speaking, was their pride in their leadership role among the people and their inability to see themselves as sinners in need of the forgiveness of God.
Leprosy, today called Hansen’s Disease, was greatly feared in the ancient world. Today it is treatable and curable with antibiotics, but in Jesus’ time it was a chronic, wasting disease that killed people slowly. And with leprosy, unlike many other diseases, you never got better--only worse.
The book of Leviticus, the third book in the Bible, devotes two whole chapters, the 13th and 14th, to leprosy. Dermatologists have identified at least seven separate medical problems described in those two chapters that were called leprosy. Many of those skin diseases often went away after a while, and so there are explicit instructions in Leviticus as to how the priests should determine that a person was clean again, as opposed to “unclean.”
Such diseases were believed to be punishment for sin, all the more reason why the diseased persons were condemned to live outside human contact and be shunned, unable to participate with their people in the worship of God.
Leviticus declares, “The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his (mouth) and cry ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.”
In that time, you had better hope you never had an outbreak of psoriasis or a persistent skin rash, because it meant you were unclean and exiled from your community until the disease went away and you showed your once-again-clean body to the priest.
II.
In Luke’s story, ten lepers were healed and declared clean again by the priests--but only one returned to thank Jesus. And the one who returned was, among the Jews, a double outcast. The first reason for his exclusion was simply that he was a leper.
The second reason was that he was a Samaritan. Samaritans were scorned and hated by the good church folks of Jesus’ day. They held Samaritans in such low regard, so despised them, that they would walk miles out of their way to keep from setting foot on the lands of this inferior class of sub-humans. Are there any parallels in our modern-day social and religious prejudices?
This passage of scripture is another of gospel-writer Luke’s picture post cards showing how Jesus’ own people rejected him, but outsiders and outcasts did hear and accept him. Luke was himself an outsider, a Gentile. He delights in telling stories of outsiders whom God has blessed, and he even makes Samaritans the heroes of some of his stories.
The nine, Luke is saying, might have been healed physically, but not spiritually. The outsider, the despised Samaritan, received a spiritual blessing that Jesus’ own people denied themselves. And the underlying, undergirding message in the story is that God is no respecter of persons--not of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Asians, Africans or Caucasians. All humans are God’s children and God loves them all.
Let the simple little hymn of our childhood continue to ring in our ears: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” It is a children’s song, but God would have us know a supremely important aspect of our own childhood, and that is that we never outgrow being the children of God our Father. God longs to take us--all of us--into his lap.
III.
Another major lesson in this story is that having faith means getting up and doing something. It is as the Letter of James reminds us, that faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. The people in this story were told by Jesus to get up and go and do something: show themselves to the priests, submit to a physical examination. Verse 14 of our text says that “as they went, they were made clean.” The lepers were not healed immediately, but instead were healed as the obeyed Jesus’ command to go and do something. If they had not taken action, they would have continued to languish in their isolation and rejection.
Faith is not a feeling; it is a venture. In what ways is God calling you and me and this church to move, to step out in faith? It seems that we ask God for things and God’s reply is, “Go and do something.” Our faithfulness in the going and doing is the proof of our faith. Faithfulness in the going and doing is also the bringer and strengthener of faith.
God desires that we see our lives as a journey. The best kind of journey has lots of interesting side roads and rest stops, but it is a journey. A journey means progress toward a destination--or perhaps a number of destinations, one after the other. Faith is not a state of mind; it is a lifestyle.
God’s blessing on us is in the going and the doing. It is on the journey, in the going, that we experience the beauty of the world. It is on the journey, in the going, that we experience the helping hands of family and friends and fellow church members. It is on the journey, in the going--and not immobilized in our spiritual easy chairs--that we experience the presence and the power of the spirit of God, the companionship of Jesus, in our lives.
And when we experience that power and presence, it should be as natural as breathing to pause now and then, and smile in our minds--smile in our minds--and say, “Thank you, Jesus.”
Meister Eckhart, a mystic, writer and theologian said, about 700 years ago, “If the only prayer you ever said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.”
Saying “thank you” is one of the conventions of politeness. But there is a “thank you” that goes far beyond conventions. It is the “thank you” that comes from the heart, when your heart has been touched by someone else’s love or kindness. It is the spontaneous “thank you” of being touched by the unexpected goodness of another person. It is the emotion that wells up in us when we realize that someone is doing something for us out of love or friendship--and for no other reason.
It is the “thank you” that is accompanied by a lift and a lilt in your heart. It is the “thank you” that sometimes causes me to say, with a little smile, “Thank you, God; thank you, Jesus,” when I realize that something good is flowing into my life…when I remember for a moment that the good in my life far outweighs the bad…when an unexpected gift comes my way.
One of my favorite grandchildren stories--and if you have heard it before, just enjoy it again--is about our grandson Stefan and an Easter egg. When he was just a little guy, he offered to peel an Easter egg for me, and when I said that would be nice, he did so--right down to the yolk. And as he handed me that little yellow ball of cholesterol, he said, “Because you are the best man in the world.” My thank-you to Stefan including hugging him to me, both in love and so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. I was also saying in my heart, “Thank you, Lord, for the love of my children and grandchildren.”
I.
Today’s gospel lesson is about 10 people who were helped in their misery by Jesus, but only one of them returned to thank him. How could the other nine fail to give thanks? Perhaps they were too eager, after their long isolation, to rejoin their families and to resume normal life. Under the same circumstances, would we stop to give thanks? How often do we stop to give thanks for our blessings? How often do we forget to thank God? How often do we fail to thank our spouses for loving us, for putting up with us? Our parents for what they have done for us? How often do we forget to thank our friends for being our friends? Our neighbors for being pleasant? Is thankfulness our habit?
This story is one of those told about Jesus, not by Jesus. It was told by Luke the Gentile, who never knew Jesus in person, as far as we know. This story is an allegory, and it is easy to tell who the players are. Of the ten lepers, nine are the Jews who considered themselves the upright, God-fearing, all right, okay children of Israel. Such were the Scribes and Pharisees who could not, would not, listen to and accept the teachings of Jesus, and with whom Jesus had to contend so often. Their leprosy, allegorically speaking, was their pride in their leadership role among the people and their inability to see themselves as sinners in need of the forgiveness of God.
Leprosy, today called Hansen’s Disease, was greatly feared in the ancient world. Today it is treatable and curable with antibiotics, but in Jesus’ time it was a chronic, wasting disease that killed people slowly. And with leprosy, unlike many other diseases, you never got better--only worse.
The book of Leviticus, the third book in the Bible, devotes two whole chapters, the 13th and 14th, to leprosy. Dermatologists have identified at least seven separate medical problems described in those two chapters that were called leprosy. Many of those skin diseases often went away after a while, and so there are explicit instructions in Leviticus as to how the priests should determine that a person was clean again, as opposed to “unclean.”
Such diseases were believed to be punishment for sin, all the more reason why the diseased persons were condemned to live outside human contact and be shunned, unable to participate with their people in the worship of God.
Leviticus declares, “The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his (mouth) and cry ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.”
In that time, you had better hope you never had an outbreak of psoriasis or a persistent skin rash, because it meant you were unclean and exiled from your community until the disease went away and you showed your once-again-clean body to the priest.
II.
In Luke’s story, ten lepers were healed and declared clean again by the priests--but only one returned to thank Jesus. And the one who returned was, among the Jews, a double outcast. The first reason for his exclusion was simply that he was a leper.
The second reason was that he was a Samaritan. Samaritans were scorned and hated by the good church folks of Jesus’ day. They held Samaritans in such low regard, so despised them, that they would walk miles out of their way to keep from setting foot on the lands of this inferior class of sub-humans. Are there any parallels in our modern-day social and religious prejudices?
This passage of scripture is another of gospel-writer Luke’s picture post cards showing how Jesus’ own people rejected him, but outsiders and outcasts did hear and accept him. Luke was himself an outsider, a Gentile. He delights in telling stories of outsiders whom God has blessed, and he even makes Samaritans the heroes of some of his stories.
The nine, Luke is saying, might have been healed physically, but not spiritually. The outsider, the despised Samaritan, received a spiritual blessing that Jesus’ own people denied themselves. And the underlying, undergirding message in the story is that God is no respecter of persons--not of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Asians, Africans or Caucasians. All humans are God’s children and God loves them all.
Let the simple little hymn of our childhood continue to ring in our ears: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” It is a children’s song, but God would have us know a supremely important aspect of our own childhood, and that is that we never outgrow being the children of God our Father. God longs to take us--all of us--into his lap.
III.
Another major lesson in this story is that having faith means getting up and doing something. It is as the Letter of James reminds us, that faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. The people in this story were told by Jesus to get up and go and do something: show themselves to the priests, submit to a physical examination. Verse 14 of our text says that “as they went, they were made clean.” The lepers were not healed immediately, but instead were healed as the obeyed Jesus’ command to go and do something. If they had not taken action, they would have continued to languish in their isolation and rejection.
Faith is not a feeling; it is a venture. In what ways is God calling you and me and this church to move, to step out in faith? It seems that we ask God for things and God’s reply is, “Go and do something.” Our faithfulness in the going and doing is the proof of our faith. Faithfulness in the going and doing is also the bringer and strengthener of faith.
God desires that we see our lives as a journey. The best kind of journey has lots of interesting side roads and rest stops, but it is a journey. A journey means progress toward a destination--or perhaps a number of destinations, one after the other. Faith is not a state of mind; it is a lifestyle.
God’s blessing on us is in the going and the doing. It is on the journey, in the going, that we experience the beauty of the world. It is on the journey, in the going, that we experience the helping hands of family and friends and fellow church members. It is on the journey, in the going--and not immobilized in our spiritual easy chairs--that we experience the presence and the power of the spirit of God, the companionship of Jesus, in our lives.
And when we experience that power and presence, it should be as natural as breathing to pause now and then, and smile in our minds--smile in our minds--and say, “Thank you, Jesus.”
Meister Eckhart, a mystic, writer and theologian said, about 700 years ago, “If the only prayer you ever said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.”
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