Your soul -- not to mention your budget -- is in mortal danger as you approach the grocery store checkout lane.
You say, "How?"
You've carefully filled your cart with the needed items outlined on your list. You patiently wait in line, always seeming to pick the one that's slowest. Yet somehow, by the time the checker begins tallying up the items in your cart, it has suddenly filled up with a pack of gum, a box of Tic-Tacs, a new TV Guide, a four-pack of AA batteries, three candy bars and a magazine for enquiring minds.
If your 5-year-old is along, you may also have accumulated a new Pez dispenser, a Mylar balloon with a Disney character on it and a plastic "cellular" telephone filled with tiny bubble-gum pieces. Stores purposefully pack this kind of junky, funky, consumer gunk into the narrow gauntlet we must run to get to the checkout counter. Things we would never intentionally have gone in search of now languish under our fingertips -- inviting, no insisting, that we grab them.
Although impulsively buying a pack of gum or a candy bar hardly seems earth-shattering or soul-threatening, the truth is that the increasingly voracious appetites of this consumer culture are being methodically nurtured and stimulated by a crass and crushing consumerism. The worldwide ramifications of such little things as a checkout gauntlet are ominous.
After a bad day, our parents sighed, "The world is going to hell in a hand basket." Today we can sigh even more deeply on a daily basis that the whole world is "going to hell in a shopping cart." For an increasing number of people, self-identity and life-purpose are summed up by the mantra "I shop, therefore I am." Raging consumerism has left Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" far behind. Consumer culture has never even heard of, much less considered, God's revelation to Moses, "I am who I am; therefore, you are."
Like the rich young man in today's gospel text, we know ourselves, we identify ourselves, we define ourselves, by our possessions, our things, our "stuff." This young man was so possessed by his "stuff" that he could unstuff himself neither for the sake of the poor, nor for his own sake and his quest for eternal life. Faced with the choice between his old secure, in-control, in-charge self and the unknown possibilities of life as a disciple of Jesus, the rich man clung to his human illusions of power and control.
Who or what controls your life?
I’ve spent some time contemplating that question. Of course I would like to say that God does and at least most of the time that would be true. But, at the same time, it is also true that I am accountable to other people. I am accountable, to varying degrees to all of you. I am accountable to a district superintendent and a bishop. Though I have spoken to the bishop in only very brief conversations over the past nine plus years, make no mistake, I am accountable to her.
I also know that while society may say I am the head of my household, I am also accountable to my wife. Let me spend too much money in the wrong place and the wrong time and I can promise you I will hear about it.
I am also accountable to various people that expect me to pay my bills. If I fail to pay my bills, it won’t take long before they are coming to me or calling me wanting to know when they can expect payment and if I don’t pay they don’t hesitate to let me know that consequences could come my way in pretty short order.
All of that led me to think, what would I do if somehow, someway, I knew beyond any reasonable doubt that God was calling on me to sell all my stuff and give the money to the poor. My brother-in-law told me Cindy and I could come and live with him and my sister. I am not really sure that would be such a good idea. Anyway, I digress. Before about six months ago I think I would have answered that question without hesitation, “Yes, I would do what God was telling me to do.” After moving here and with the difficulty Cindy had in finding work, having to live on less money than we have had in a long time and seeing how difficult it could be to live that way, now, I am not so sure. To be honest, I rather enjoy the lifestyle I have grown accustomed to and while I am sure now I could live on less, I don’t really think I want to. So now, when I am honest with myself, I would have to answer the question, “I am not sure what I would do if God called on me to sell my stuff and give to the poor.”
With that bit of self-revelation my thoughts didn’t stop. I started wondering how the people I know would answer the same question. I thought about calling and asking people directly but if I were to do that in a way that didn’t protect people’s anonymity, I was afraid most of the answers would be said as answers people thought I would want to hear. So I went on line and set up a very short two question survey. The first question was the real question at hand, “What would you do if you knew God was calling on you to sell all you had and give to the poor?” The second question, as it turns out, I didn’t use, “How do you know Keith?”
After setting up the survey I went on Facebook and asked people I know to go to the survey and answer the two questions. I also emailed everyone in my address book except church members and asked Shirley to send emails to our church members asking them to go out and answer the questions as well. This survey is not scientific in the way I set up because it doesn’t ask people across the whole population, just those who have some kind of relationship with me. It also isn’t scientific because not everyone who was given the opportunity to respond actually did.
I am not sure how many possible people could have responded, I know in excess of 1000, but 73 actually did respond, and no, I am not one of the 73. I already knew my answer. By far, the most people, 39 in total, gave the answer “Other.” Then they went in and actually wrote out an answer. After reading those answers I was actually able to move all but four either into one of the answers I proposed or create an entirely new answer category.
With that modification, the new number one answer was, “I would do it. I know what happened to Jonah when he disobeyed God.” 28 people gave that answer. I wasn’t greatly surprised by that number. I was a little more surprised by 12 people saying they didn’t know. That was followed up by eight who said they would figure out their net worth and give 10 percent because all God really expected was a tithe. Six said, in essence, they would put in over-time on their knees because they wanted to really be sure of what God was telling them to do. Four more said they would just continue with their normal giving. Another four said they would try to give a little more than they do now. Four more said they would just ignore this instruction from God. More for humor reasons than anything else I included two possible answers, “I would drink until the feeling went away” and “I would commit myself to an asylum because God would never speak to me.” Those two answers each got one vote. There were also two people that mentioned in the “Other” category, along with something else, they would seek guidance from a pastor or other spiritual director.
Interestingly enough, we all had time to think about our answers before we responded. Jesus kind of put the rich young man on the spot. Though he obviously didn’t live in our consumer culture, the rich young man had the mindset of many of us today. He had the Jones virus, as in, “I’ve got to keep up with the Jones’.” Mark tells us what Jesus was asking was a big deal to the young man. Further, Mark goes so far as to tell us why. He had a lot of stuff. He saw himself in the things he possessed. I don’t know what all he had. Perhaps it was nice clothing or jewelry. Maybe it was horses and oxen and a nice wagon or a chariot. Then again it might have been a three bedroom, two bath house with an attached two car garage. I know, those kinds of houses didn’t really exist in those days but you get my point. What he had may have been a nice house with a nice barn to keep those horses and oxen in. Or, could it have been that he had all of that and more?
Could it have been that the rich young man had gotten used to a lifestyle where he walked out and got on a horse and went for a ride instead of walking everywhere he went as most people in the world of that era did?
That might even be almost as interesting a question to ask as the one I proposed in the survey. “What would you do if you knew God was asking you to divest yourself of all your transportation except your own two feet.” The majority of people in the world, even today, depend on nothing but their own two feet to carry them from place to place. What would you do? How would it make your life change? Without a doubt, we would be more restricted than we are now. We wouldn’t just take off for Lufkin without a second thought, that is for sure. Ten miles on foot, each way, would make us think long and hard before we started on our merry way.
This morning is the second installment in our series, “The Radical Sayings of Jesus.” Last week we talked about being anxious for nothing. Jesus reminded us in the lesson not to worry and to let God take care of us. I am pretty sure of this even though I didn’t ask it in the survey. If we truly believed God was asking us to sell all our stuff and give to the poor, in essence making us one of the poor, there would be a whole lot of us worrying about something in our response. If we were ones who actually followed God’s direction, either immediately or eventually, many of us would worry about how we would live. If we were ones who hesitated or just outright disobeyed God by either ignoring God’s instructions or only going part of the way down the road God was calling on us to follow, many of us would be worried about what was going to happen as a result of our disobedience.
The rich young man was more attached to his stuff than he was to God’s promise. He wanted his stuff. He wanted to be in control of his life and what he had and he just couldn’t let it go.
I think the good news for most all of us in this lesson is, I really don’t think God is calling on us to dispose of our stuff and give it all away. Wesley said, “Earn all you can, save all you can and give all you can.” Most of us can put priority on earning. A few less of us can put the saving part into our application. And, unfortunately, not to many of us, not even we Christians have that giving part down the way we should. This sermon isn’t really a sermon about giving, it’s a sermon about priorities, but saving and giving should be a priority for all of us. I am reminded of something I wish someone had gotten through my thick head when I was a lot younger. It is called to rule of 80 and I believe it is both Wesleyan and would fit our priorities. Take your income. Save 10 percent and give 10 percent and live on the 80 percent. It puts everything a lot closer to where it should be.
It seems to me we miss a lot in life. We miss a lot because we don’t give. I believe God blesses cheerful givers in ways beyond what we imagine. We miss a lot in life because we don’t always save as we should. For many of us, particularly when we are young, saving just isn’t a priority. And, we miss a lot when we get caught up in the consumer culture and we are caught up in all our stuff. Always remember, it is just that, stuff.
Whales are some of the most amazing creatures God made. Fin whales can easily hear the bleeps of other fin whales 4,000 miles away, some scientists argue 13,000 miles away. Humpbacks like to sing in rhyme, and the songs they sing are always changing while at the same time, they are passed from male to male, so that in any one season all the whales of a single ocean will be singing the same song.
In February 1928, a female blue whale who roamed freely throughout the Antarctic for decades was killed. From measurements taken at the time, some scientists are convinced that she was the largest creature ever to have lived on Earth -- bigger than any known dinosaur or leviathan.
But the people who had the privilege of seeing her never saw her. They were in such a hurry to harvest her blubber and find other family members of her huge species that they salvaged nothing -- not a single picture, not a single bone. Nothing.
What are you missing in life because of the blubber? What part of God's kingdom are you not experiencing because of the rush to make a living or just to accumulate one more item of stuff? What good is "stuff" without the stuff of eternity? Will you give up the chaff for the real stuff ... the stuff of life, the stuff of eternity?
