Theological Truth: The gifts God gives us are meant to be shared.
In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
A tech millionaire sells his company and decides to begin traveling the world in search of true wisdom and the meaning of life. While visiting India, he learns of a famous holy person. Better yet, the learned sage lives up a mountain not far from the route the tech millionaire has mapped out, so he gets off the train, grabs his suitcase, and proceeds up the trail to visit the holy sage. He arrives at the top of the mountain with his suitcase in hand, finds a small cabin, knocks on the door, and is invited inside.
Upon entering, he notices how sparsely furnished it is—nothing but a bed, a table, and a chair. Having come from a big house in Silicon Valley, he’s surprised by the cabin’s austerity, so he asks the sage, “Where’s all your stuff?” To which the wise man replies, “Right here in front of you. Where’s your stuff?” The traveler says, “Mine’s in this suitcase….but I’m just passing through.” The sage replies, “So am I.”
We are all just passing through…and we all know that…at some level…some of the time. And yet most of us feel the need to collect, carry and keep so much! It reminds me of the first time I walked the Camino. I had read about the importance of not overpacking. Walking with a pack 12 to 15 miles a day for over a month has a way of acquainting you with every fraction of an ounce! Nevertheless, being either a slow-learner or a glutton for punishment, it wasn’t until the fourth day that I relinquished my extra shoes and second jacket. And another two weeks before I let go of the 20-year-old sleeping pad that I hadn’t used. It’s difficult for us to let go of our material possessions, and so we go to great lengths, and take significant risks, to hold onto them.
Jesus is well aware of our materialistic tendencies, and he knows the spiritual risks they pose. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed,” he says, before telling the parable of the rich farmer who accumulates so much, that he tears down his barns to build bigger ones in a never-ending cycle that consumes his attention and, ultimately, his life.
Jesus talks about money more than any other subject. It’s estimated that about a sixth of his words and a third of his parables are devoted to the subject. (MacNaughton, More Blessed to Give…, p. 12). He knows we need to guard against all kinds of greed, and not only greed for money, but for the things wealth and possessions promise to provide: security, prestige, status, peace of mind, health, love. It’s not that money or possessions are evil, but they’re dangerous. They promise to provide things that they can’t deliver, which is a sly and seductive way of hooking us into endlessly pursuing “more” and thoughtlessly hoarding what we have. It’s a spiritually poisonous path that turns us inward and cuts us off from God and one another. We wind up babbling to ourselves like the foolish rich farmer. The more we have, the more we need, and the more obstructions there are to the abundance of real treasure God wants to give us.
Bruce Rockwell, a banker and an Episcopalian, had a spiritual awakening about his problematic relationship with money in a most unlikely place: a stewardship conference! The preacher at the conference, The Rev. Dr. Thomas Carson, read the passage we just heard and then asked the attendees to quietly reflect on seven questions. I invite you to do the same.
- Do you ever worry about money…about having enough? About keeping what you have?
- Do you sometimes envy what others earn, have inherited, or have been able to do because of money they have and you don’t?
- Do you ever get anxious about what inflation has done to depreciate your…preparation for retirement?
- Do you ever equate your value as a person with what you earn?
- Is bill-paying stressful for you?
- Has money ever been the source of an argument or misunderstanding with a loved one?
- Do you ever spend more time thinking about money in any one day than you do in prayer?
(Spirituality and Money, Bruce Rockwell, The Episcopal Network for Stewardship)
Bruce remembers, “After posing these questions, Dr. Carson said the following: ‘If you have answered “yes” to some of these questions…’ [Bruce admitted], (Some of these questions!…How about to every single one of them!)…if so,” Dr. Carson went on to say, “You may be having an affair with money, and this affair is buying your soul, taking away your freedom, paralyzing your creativity, debilitating your peace of mind, destroying friendships, breaking up your marriage, destroying your freedom in Christ, and threatening your very salvation.” (Ibid)
Dr. Carson closed his reflection with this quiet observation: “Your view of money is the chief spiritual issue of your life.” In that moment, Bruce realized that both Jesus and Dr. Carson were right. His journey toward spiritual health required setting some things down. To be liberated from the tyranny of money, he had to give it away. Bruce says he began to understand that stewardship is not “merely the church’s fancy word for fundraising. It is not about the church’s need to receive. It is about our need to give. Stewardship is … about [our] need to make thank offerings to God in thanksgiving for all the gifts God entrusts to [us].” Stewardship guards against all kinds of greed, protecting us from focusing on what we have, or envying what “they” have, or obsessing over what we want or what we fear losing, and keeping us focused on all that God has given us.
(pause)
Only you can say whether your relationship with money is a significant spiritual issue. Perhaps your stewardship journey has already liberated you from being possessed by your possessions. If so, fantastic! But I can tell you, for this always-in-recovery materialist, proportional giving, eventually leading to setting aside the first ten percent of my earnings (yes, pre-tax) has:
- opened my eyes to the abundance of God’s gifts,
- allowed me to trust that God does indeed always provide,
- enabled me to see and participate in the joyful generosity of God
- and gifted me with the peace of knowing that there is enough.
If you’d like to know more, please let me know and I’ll be happy to share Bruce Rockwell’s words. Another thing to do is pray a phrase from the Lord’s Prayer twice a day. In the morning: “Give us this day our daily bread.” In the evening: “Thank you for giving us our daily bread.” This will help keep us aware that we are grateful recipients of God’s gifts, faithful stewards of God’s abundance.
We are all just passing through. Don’t carry too much. It only gets in the way of what God wants to give us. By giving it away, we gain all that we need.
