Money, money, money

A Sermon preached on Pentecost XIX, 25th September 2016 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Amos 6:1a, 4-7, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

For the third time in September, our readings focus on the topics of money, wealth, and how to use them rightly. So clearly, somebody expects us to talk and think about this theme. Let me start by quoting those well-known Swedish theologians, Abba: 

“Money, money, money

Must be funny

In the rich man's world

Money, money, money

Always sunny

In the rich man's world

All the things I could do

If I had a little money

It's a rich man's world.”

So is it always sunny in the rich man’s world? Not according to Amos. He sees black storm clouds on the horizon for the idle rich, for “those who lie on beds of ivory” for those who indulge themselves while others suffer and are in need. They “shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.” (Amos 6:4, 7) Then in Jesus’ parable, the future was anything but rosy for the rich man who “was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.” (Luke 16:19) He ends up in Hades, where he is tormented every day, and there is no escape. 

But according to Scripture the risk for the rich is not just a future threat. Too often passages like these have been used as – to quote Karl Marx – opium for the people, a means of keeping the poor and disadvantaged quiet by promising them a reversal of fortunes in the future. But Amos is not talking about a distant heavenly future. If Israel’s society does not change for the better, he warns, if injustice and corruption and abuse do not stop, if the powerful do not follow God’s will, Israel will easily fall to one of the rival powers in the neighborhood, because it will be rotten to the core. And it did, for just 12 years after Amos’ death, the northern kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. 

Jesus’ story about the rich man and Lazarus is also more than just a retelling of a traditional reversal of fortunes story. I did wonder by the way, when reading the passage, whether it was the inspiration for the Charles Dickens story, “A Christmas Carol,” in which it takes three ghosts – of Christmas past, present, and future - to change Scrooge’s mind. But Jesus is not just interested in changing in individual behavior; he wants the whole society of Israel, and through their example the whole world, to return to the standards of the Old Testament – to the godly way of life described in the books of Moses and the Prophets. He wants all the Lazarus’ to be treated fairly and justly in this life, not just the next, and he wants the powerful and the rich to take responsibility for them. In a turn of phrase that with our hindsight sounds ironic, and that Jesus with foresight meant that way, he is however skeptical that this will happen: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:31) We know from history that the Jewish leadership chose a path of violence and that their society in Palestine also fell when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans about 30 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. 

In the Letter to Timothy, the potential for personal ruin and destruction is also not something for the far future, but instead a very present danger.  “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” and “those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires,” he is told. (1 Timothy 6:9-10) Money becomes an addiction, an object of desire in itself, a cause of irrational longing. When John D. Rockefeller was asked how much money is enough, he is supposed to have answered “Just a little more than I have.” 

None of the readings actually says that money or wealth is bad as such. Money can be as much a gift from God, “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Tim 6:17) as our other talents and their fruits. Everything we receive is a gift and comes with strings attached: that it be used to the glory of God, and for the greater good.  Even Mr. Rockefeller eventually came to this realization: “I believe the power to make money is a gift of God … to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind,”[1] he later said.

Our annual stewardship campaign begins next weekend. I am not going to invoke divine warnings of disaster, threaten you with eternal damnation, or the visit of ghosts to change your attitude to money. For one thing, unless you have been hiding it very well, we have no Rockefellers in this congregation, and no idle rich. Though to be clear, from a global perspective we are all relatively rich. For another, unlike the anonymous rich man in Jesus’ story, I believe that you all have been and are being transformed by someone who rose from the dead, by Jesus’ resurrection, but also by his life, example and the loving sacrifice of his death.

Anyway, what we are asking you to support with your pledges, is not a story of ruin and destruction, but a story of growth and renewal. We want you to continue to “invest” in a bright future for this church and for the community this church serves. Just three years ago, it was uncertain whether this church would survive. What helped us come out of a period of conflict and division much stronger than before, were qualities similar to those that Timothy is called to pursue. Faith, love, endurance, and gentleness, coupled with remorse, a willingness to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive, as well as generous giving – of money, and of your time, your energy and your talents. 

We have many things that we will continue to do: worship, formation, fellowship, and outreach. We have some things we need to finish doing: the renovation and renewal of this building. And over the next few weeks we will develop new ideas together about how we can better fulfil our mission as a Christian community within Wiesbaden and beyond. These are – in Abba’s words – “All the things I could do, if I had a little money.”

As Paul tells Timothy, we set our hopes not on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. It is fascinating and also horrifying to see how little society has changed. Amos’, Paul’s and Jesus’ criticisms could be – and are – as much an indictment of modern culture as of 8^th century BC or 1^st century AD societies.

Yet, while the love of money may well be the root of all kinds of evil, its proper use, to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, and to share, can be a form of Christian service. In fact, if in our use of money, in our giving, we allow ourselves to be guided on the one hand by gratitude for the one who provides us with everything, and on the other by love and compassion for all our fellow human beings, money can even offer us spiritual opportunities. Despite its lures, we can take hold of and live by the life that really is life: eternal life that begins now and not in some far distant future.

Amen.

---

[1] Interview in 1932

God have mercy

A Sermon preached on Pentecost XVII, 11th September 2016 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Exodus 32:7-14, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10

Today is the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Some 2,996 people were killed when terrorists flew hijacked planes into New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington and when a fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as passengers tried to regain control. Today we remember those who suffered and died on and after 11^th September 2001, and in all the conflicts that were a direct or indirect result of that fateful day: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now the terrorist war with the so-called Islamic State. Later in the service, during the prayers, we will have a time of silence as an act of remembrance.  

 

The readings we heard this morning all had mercy and forgiveness as their theme, which is perhaps difficult to think about on an anniversary like today. Immediately following the 2001 attacks one US senator said: “God have mercy on the souls of the men who did this, because we won’t.” Although that was certainly not that senator’s intention, his statement actually has a lot to do with our readings this morning, which are all about the difference between our understanding of mercy and forgiveness, and God’s.

We often try to project our understanding of right and wrong, and our sense of right behavior, our ideas of justice on to God. We try to remake God in our image, rather than what we should be doing – becoming more like the God in whose image we are made. This is what is happening in the first lesson, from Exodus. I don't believe that God needed God’s mind changing so as not to destroy the people God had rescued from slavery in Egypt, and to whom God had promised a new, better future. But it was impossible for the authors of Exodus to imagine that God would simply forgive the most heinous of all sins: worshipping other gods and so only Moses’ persuasion can have got God to “change his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”(Exodus 32:14) In fact the mind being changed was Moses’. He was beginning to see God as a merciful God more than as a wrathful God. God had not changed, God’s nature – love – is changeless. It was Moses’ perception of who God is that was changed in this encounter. 

In the second lesson, from the 1^st Letter to Timothy, we heard about another change of perception and perspective after an encounter with God. St. Paul confesses his past life as a man of righteous violence. His confession comes in the context of giving thanks for a changed life. The God he met in Jesus Christ is a God of mercy, a God whose grace overflowed for him - formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. (1 Tim. 1:13) This came as a complete surprise to St. Paul who had after all thought he was doing God’s will in persecuting Christian Jews for that great sin of worshipping other gods. Paul asks to be used as an example for other Christians: not for what he did, but for what was done for him and for us all by God. After all, the argument goes, if God can save and transform me, Paul, the foremost sinner, then there can be no one outside of the reach of God’s patient mercy and no one incapable of being transformed. 

Finally, in Luke’s Gospel we run into a group of people with very fixed perceptions of who God is and what God will allow, and for whom there are plenty of people outside of the reach of God’s patient mercy. The tax collectors and sinners for example. For the scribes and Pharisees the fact that Jesus was welcoming sinners and eating with them was beyond the pale. In his two parables, Jesus proceeds to turn their expectations upside down. It is completely counter-intuitive to leave 99 sheep to their fate just to look for one lost one. Unless a real shepherd had an assistant to look after the flock, he would write that one lost sheep off. But God doesn’t, Jesus says, God is more concerned for the lost sheep and will rejoice more when it is found, than for the other 99. The only value of the sheep is that it was lost. It was not better or bigger (or more righteous) than the others, it was just lost and needing to be found. We have the same situation with the coins. We can relate a little more to this story – I’ve often lost something valuable like a coin or necklace, but never a sheep. But the point is that the one lost coin not more valuable than the others, it is just lost and needs to be found. 

All three readings are therefore about who God is, and intended to change our minds and our perspective. God forgives even the greatest of sins and sinners. God gives no one up. We need to know that the true God has always been a merciful God. It is we human beings who sometimes make God out to be a punishing, or wrathful God. Just look at how God responded to our violence in Jesus Christ, to the torture and murder of God’s innocent Son. Not with revenge, but with forgiveness. The God we come to know in Jesus Christ is a God of mercy and love.

What does this tell us about how we should react to terrorist attacks like 9/11 or the many more recent atrocities? As I have said on other occasions, I am not a pacifist. Some of the military responses were and are necessary. Going into Afghanistan, not to punish, not for revenge, but to prevent further attacks and to prevent it being a base for Al Qaida was necessary.  Unfortunately, we did not stop there. The ideology behind the 9/11 attacks was not Islam, but hate and fear. Neither is unique to Moslems, we find many self-declared Christians driven by hate and fear: the Westboro Baptist Church is an extreme example. In our reactions as societies, as countries, we must ensure we are not driven by the same emotions as those who strive to do us harm, nor must we give up those standards of tolerance and freedom that are under attack. If we target a group just because of their race, faith, or even their clothing, then we are being driven by hate, fear, and prejudice.  

As individuals and Christians on the other hand we are called to follow Jesus Christ and his way. And according to our Gospel, it is through Jesus Christ that we most truly get to see who God is. The God we know in Jesus Christ is a God of mercy and love. We can act to protect ourselves. We can and should bring terrorists to justice – which for me can never mean any form of judicial killing. But if we want to become who God intends us to be, if we want to be fully human, then we cannot just leave mercy and forgiveness up to God. We must be ready to forgive – not forget - even the greatest of sins and sinners, we must be willing to give no one up, we must assume that anyone can repent, and we must always to be ready to show mercy. It is God’s will for us, also for our own  gogood, because anything else will just lead to an ongoing spiral of death and destruction. Jesus says: “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7) That is very good news indeed, especially as we may be the one, and not the 99.

Amen.