Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
If the text for Derek’s lesson last week could be summarised by saying, “Do not value possessions enough to worry about them”, then we could summarise this week’s text with, “Do not value possessions enough to seek them”.
Mmm, two lessons in a row on possessions – stuff – things – materialism. One lesson is difficult enough to avoid, but if you try hard enough you can distance yourself from its thrust and focus. Two lessons in succession on the same kind of topic is a lot harder to bear.
Especially when one of those lessons comes from me. Or at least, from my perspective, that’s how I feel standing here this morning. This is not an attempt at an apology, nor is it a thinly-veiled boast – it is simply what it is. I am blessed financially and materialistically. There is no avoiding that fact. And that fact might become an obstacle to some listening to and contemplating my thoughts this morning, because let’s face it, how easy must it be for someone like me to say ‘don’t value possessions enough to seek them’?
Doesn’t that sound just a little hypocritical? Maybe it says more about me than it does about you, but I was concerned that my message – or my illumination of Christ’s message – might be drowned out by the noise of the things I own. Or maybe it says more about what I think you think of me than it does about what you think of me.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter – or it shouldn’t really matter – to you about the things that I own. That’s a matter for my conscience, just as the things you own are a matter for yours.
That I have taken the time to discuss this is an indication of how importantly we rate stuff and how tender a subject our approach to materialism and wealth is. I can’t think of too many other topics where I would’ve felt obliged to issue a disclaimer right away.
Why do we feel prickly when this subject is discussed, why do we tend to feel defensive and immediately grasp for a reason why what we have is OK? We’ve all heard of preachers and TV evangelists, bedecked with expensive jewellery, living in opulence with upmarket cars… we disagree with their outlook and their materialism, but if we’re honest with ourselves, the main difference between them and us is that they have formed a theological justification for their wealth, while we have no such defence. We’re materialistic, not because we think it’s OK, but because we like things.
I am, unfortunately, not unlike Derek Two Laptops. We went to view the showhome in Carmunnock – it was lovely. Really lovely. The ‘cheapest’ house was £350k. We went to look for fun, and because we were curious. In the next day or so I calculated that a mortgage for the cheapest would be around £3500 per month. And then I tried to work out how we could afford it.
I’d like to take some time here to make the point that £3500 per month mortgages and houses costing upwards of £350k aren’t inherently bad or sinful. This is not my point. I remember when I was younger, a preacher linking BMW-ownership with being unable to serve two masters. I spoke with him after and I thought then and I still do now, that he missed the point.
Possessions – wealth – stuff – these are not an issue. Until they are the issue. In 1838, Short Comments on Every Chapter of the Bible included this regarding chapter 6 of Matthew:
“The worldly man is wrong in his first principle”
I know I probably shouldn’t, but I love that sentence because it seems to me to open up a world of insight. The worldly man is wrong in his first principle – that of being focused on worldly pursuits. He’ll always miss the target, because his initial action was completely wrong.
It’s right that we use our God-given talents, isn’t it? We’re told that if we don’t use our talents, we’ll lose them. What happens though when your talent is professional football or motorcycle racing or brain-surgery? Is it wrong to earn a high salary because you can?
Consider Brooke’s friend – Sonny (Gary Wayne Simpson III) back in the States – he grew up at the same congregation that Brooke grew up in, and we see him most times we visit. Brooke’s father told us that he resigned from an extremely well-paid job because it didn’t sit well with him that a Christian earn so much money.
It would appear that it didn’t occur to him that, if he stuck at that job, he could have donated more to his own congregation and to more good causes, than he now can on a less well-paying job. Unless he acknowledged in himself that he wouldn’t have done that – unless he realised that his salary expectations were becoming what was important to him.
Before I was at school, my Dad was at college, teacher-training, and in his holidays he was a truck-driver for a local firm. The owner of the firm used to work 7 days a week and would always be found in the office on a Sunday. His reasoning for that was that if he wasn’t, someone else would be in their office, which meant he’d be losing money. The guy was minted! But his wealth and his possessions weren’t enough. He had to have more.
Christ wants us to view our earthly possessions as, essentially, worthless. That’s not to say that our possessions are evil or bad, but that instead of furnishing our homes, upgrading our homes, renewing our cars or keeping up-to-date with this season’s fashions, we should instead have our eyes fixed on what’s really valuable – our treasure in heaven.
Possessions – stuff – things – these aren’t inherently bad. But they do distract us from what we’re about. Our Lord has an entirely different value-system than that of the world. He demands that we help those who can’t help themselves, right? We know of the abundance of teaching around feeding the poor, helping the needy, caring for widows and the elderly, etc. Do you think we should prioritise these before our own needs – look at me, I said needs. Perhaps not our needs – but should we prioritise these before our own wants?
Last Sunday night, as advertised, we discussed this congregation’s proposed budget for 2008. In order for this body to operate financially on an even keel, relative to last year’s giving, an extra £60 per week has to hit the plate – if we as a Church want to do what we’ve planned to do. £60 sounds a lot, if you think you’re the only one that gives. But say twenty people give, that means you only need to find an extra £3… if that meant you couldn’t live this week, then maybe you shouldn’t be digging that deep. But first ask yourself whether that takeaway meal or SKY Box Office or work night out or the Starbucks skinny mocha with an extra shot and no whipped cream is really part of what you need… or what you want.
After all, what is the point in continually sacrificing? We’ll never finish meeting the world’s needs. The world’s?! We’d never be able to meet Castlemilk’s, let alone the world’s! But what if the world’s needs are a call to us to continue sacrificing? Do we look around the congregation and think to ourselves, ‘there probably are 20 people here who can give £3 extra a week, so I don’t have to’? Do we gauge our behaviour against the Gold Standard, and His teaching, or against our fellow-Christian, with all their blemishes, weaknesses and faults?
This comes from a commentary from biblegateway.com:
One researcher suggests that professed followers of Christ account for 68% of the world’s income (chew on that one for a little while!), yet only 3% of that goes to the Church and a tiny percentage of that goes on world missions. Perhaps if more Westerners lived, even briefly, among the desperately hungry, or developed relationships with people from lands where gospel-workers are few, our priorities might change. Meanwhile Jesus, who already sees all the needs of all people, summons us to value what matters most to Him – and if not yet out of love for them, then at least out of love for Him who loves them.
How can we claim not to value our wealth more than our brothers and sisters when we see they have a need yet we don’t sacrifice what should matter less to us than their need? How many times, for example, could I have given someone a lift to here or there or home after service, except that the Celtic game was on Setanta or a motoGP was on SKY or I wanted to go home and get my bike or I just wanted to go home.
We “need” a newer car, the latest mobile upgrade, the fastest PC, the next must-have fashion accessory, another holiday in the sun… meanwhile, evangelical ministries to the poor estimate that 40000 people die of starvation and malnutrition daily. This equates to roughly 27/minute – 20 of whom are under 5 years old.
Twenty-seven people/minute is also roughly equivalent to the loss of life caused by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, every three days.
But we “need” a newer car, the latest mobile upgrade, the fastest PC, the next must-have fashion accessory, and another holiday in the sun…
In the early ‘90s, this country took a step backwards, in my opinion, as the Government awarded Camelot the contract for a National Lottery, – incidentally, passing-over rival bids that offered to give more funding to good causes than the winning bid.
Since 19 November 1994, Camelot – whose website proudly proclaims is ‘serving the nation’s dreams’, has created a few millionaires and multi-millionaires, and created thousands more vain-hopefuls, dejectedly standing in queues twice a week with their ‘lucky numbers’, fervently wishing it could be them. Why? So they can help others, or so they can be rich?
Two jackpot-winners were in the news in the last couple of weeks, with stories that fit with my lesson quite well. 58-year old Steve Smith, of Hemel Hempstead, a £19m winner and Angela Kelly, 40-years old, from East Kilbride, winner of £35m.
Steve Smith was in the news last week because he has an aortic aneurysm which surgeons can do nothing about because it’s too small. He has to wait until it’s a bit bigger until it can be operated on – except that between now and when it could be big enough, it could kill him. And even £19m can’t open private hospital doors or specialist clinics. BBC News quoted him saying, “I would give all [£19m] back if I am allowed to still be with my wife because there are no shops in the cemetery, are there?”
Angela Kelly made the news because she purchased a £225k house for her boyfriend’s ex-wife, because she knows how much he loves his kids and so she wanted him to know they were comfortable.
These stories hit the news – I didn’t have to search for them, I found them as headlines in the last couple of weeks – because they’re anathema to popular culture. Lottery-winners are expected to “enjoy their winnings”, which is really a euphemism for spend it on themselves. Charity on the other hand, is unexpected and causes a stir – but does charity have to occur on such a grand scale?
John Wesley felt that defying material prosperity was part of holiness. He warned that riches increased believers’ conformity to the world. He lived as simply as possible and gave everything else he had to the poor, and called for others to do likewise. Wesley felt that ‘we give to God not by giving to the Church, but by giving to the poor’. If you didn’t give all you could, Wesley taught, then you were in disobedience to Christ’s teaching.
The 19th-century evangelist Charles G Finney noted that the church had adequate funds to evangelise the world, if it so chose, and warned that God requires us to relinquish ownership of everything so we no longer consider it ours. He further exhorted that ‘young converts should be taught that they have renounced the ownership of all their possessions, and of themselves, or if they have not done this they are not Christians’.
Now, some commentators regard Wesley and Finney to be legalistic in their views, that they are I suppose too black-and-white and that life isn’t as straightforward as they make out.
When John the Baptist tells us to share our possessions and food, when Christ preaches giving all our possessions away, and when James talks of faith without works, we describe it as hyperbole – exaggeration or overstatement. I have seen even the first verses of today’s text described in such a vein.
Perhaps we do so because we have too much at stake to listen to the message openly – too much stuff that is, that’s interfering with the call and demands of God’s Kingdom.
This section closes (before continuing to Derek’s passage, from last week) with Jesus’ world-famous statement that you cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve both God and Money. The NIV seems to have made a hash of the translation – He didn’t say serve as in service, as in a waiter or butler or such. He meant slavery. Slaves only had one master. And the Money that’s referred to? That’s the old Authorised Version Mammon, which could mean money but in context implies property – possessions – stuff, and not just stuff, but things deified. So more accurately, we cannot serve both God and the Idolatry of Materialism.
There are three responses to Christ’s devaluation of possessions and material wealth:
1.There’s nothing wrong with making money – indeed not, and this isn’t the issue being discussed, it’s what we do with what we make that’s at stake.
2.I don’t love wealth or possessions, I just accumulate them – this is just dishonest, if we are seeking to accumulate wealth and possessions for ourselves (and if we’re accumulating them, then they aren’t for anyone else), then we do love them.
3.You’re right, Jesus. Help me to do what I know to be right.
Think about it – which response is yours?