Since I am no longer serving a congregation as a full-time pastor I have decided to share my thoughts with you here in my blog and on Facebook.
I will re-work some of my sermons for a more general audience with sincere hope that you may find my writing not only interesting but perhaps even helpful as we travel this road of life together.
On December 6, 2017 Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham wrote an article titled;
“The richest 1 percent now owns more of the country’s wealth than at any time in the past 50 years.”
He begins his analysis with the following two paragraphs;
“From 2013, the share of wealth owned by the 1 percent shot up by nearly three percentage points. Wealth owned by the bottom 90 percent, meanwhile, fell over the same period. Today, the top 1 percent of households own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. That gap, between the wealthy and everyone else, has only become wider in the past several decades.”
I’m sure that some of you “old timers,” like me, will remember the 50’s Jack Benny television programs and his reputation for being extremely tight with his money. One of the best-known skits is when in his monologue he said:
“The other day a robber confronted me insisting; ‘Your money or your life!’ ” Benny just stands there with that wonderful look of puzzlement on his face for several moments. When pushed by the robber for his decision, the characteristically frugal Benny replies, “I’m thinking about it!’”
I wonder if you have noticed that there has been an ever-increasing interest in hoarding these last couple of years, and there is even a weekly program on public TV that addresses what really amounts to an addiction to “stuff” in our culture.
This is a modern version of the foolish man who Jesus speaks about who filled all his granaries and then dropped dead before he could enjoy any of his massive wealth!
Hoarders in the extreme are virtually buried in things. Boxes, paper bags, appliances, all kinds of things stacked high and wide and everywhere so that a person cannot even walk through a room in the normal way.
The program begins with a disastrous situation and then shows how through therapy and help people can overcome this addiction to stuff.
The overly simplistic yet most helpful explanation as to why this happens to people are that our culture has driven into our collective unconscious mind that what we own or have, defines who we are as human beings. Turns out that is an outright lie – and flies in the face of the Gospel.
This hoarding mentality is particularly dangerous because in most cases it creeps up on you unannounced and catches you unawares. Like other psychological abnormalities it thrusts you into denial, so that it may continue to overpower you.
People are shocked when they realize how deeply they have enmeshed themselves in acquiring things they do not need, or really want, when they are finally able to appreciate the depth of their problem.
You and I don’t have to be clinically tied to our possessions and be hoarders to appreciate the deeper lesson here…. that to identify with what we have so that we might find value as human beings never works….and in the extreme will rob you of your God-given self and destroy you spiritually.
When we are born into the world as infants we are necessarily totally self absorbed and self-centered. That is good, because we are at birth and infancy completely dependent on others to feed, cloth, bathe, and quite literally to keep us alive. As we grow and mature, however, it is hard to let that self-centeredness go and reverse the process into putting the other person first!
I’ve often thought that the so-called “original sin” is not a single act or moment that happened in the Garden of Eden after creation, but rather the idea that Genesis expresses with these words spoken by God, surprisingly in the plural:
“Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’ – “
Through our self-absorption and self-righteousness, we begin to think that it’s all about us….and who we are, and most especially in our culture what we have. If we allow our things to define us we will never achieve the balance that we so desperately seek in life.
French psychiatry professor David Servan-Schreiber wrote a fascinating article about identity and happiness titled: “Giving is Getting.” come as a surprise. As we know, Jesus drives that point home with a vengeance, turning all human logic upside-down!
“The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.”
“In order to live, you must die to self!”
“Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me!”
What Schreiber affirms from a clinical standpoint is what the Scriptures have been telling us all along. One problem is we don’t like to listen to things we disagree with. In 2nd. Timothy, chapter 4 it is recorded;
“Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the uttermost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.”
In simple terms, people will go where they hear what they want to hear…. not what they need to hear! In many churches circles these folks are known as “Entertainment Evangelists.”
They often use whatever means are available to attract people and hold them by giving them what they enjoy.
They also, almost always preach what they, without shame call, the “Prosperity Doctrine.”
That means, simply believe in God and you will be materially wealthy beyond your wildest dreams! The problem is that this is blatantly false and the absolute opposite of what Jesus and the New Testament record teaches us.
As a recent in-depth study about wealth and happiness showed, and was announced on the morning news, the only correlation between extreme wealth and happiness is a negative one. Because, the more you have…. the more you want….and there is never enough!
Wealth too, like hoarding, can become an obsession or addiction.
There have been many studies to prove the truth of what Jesus teaches about giving and how powerful the effects of it are…. Dr. Schreiber cites just one example in the magazine ode:
“At Vancouver University in Canada, researcher Elizabeth Dunn gave small amounts of money to two groups of students. Members of the first group were told to spend it on themselves, paying bills or buying something. Members of the second were to use it for buying gifts or making charitable donations. When the groups came back at the end of their day out, the researchers wrote in the weekly journal Science, the individuals who bought themselves clothes or electronic gadgets had experienced a moment of pleasure but gained no lasting satisfaction. Those in the other group, however, having used their money to make others happy, came back beaming with pleasure.”
The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote a delightful short story titled;
“How Much Land Does a Man Need,” that captures beautifully what I am trying to say in my writing. I encourage you to read it when you can. Tolstoy ends with these words;
“Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.”
Apparently enough, is just enough! just Janis, Jesus and Tolstoy!
Just Janis 