It was supposed to have been fun. No one was supposed to have gotten hurt. Little children haven't become greedy yet have they? A minor league baseball team in Michigan held a promotion after a game, dropping $1,000 in cash from a helicopter over the outfield. Then they let the children run after it. The air should have been filled with giggles as the children plucked dollar bills from the air and scooped them off the ground. No one expected cries of pain. No one expected the older, bigger children to trample over the smaller children just to snatch up a few extra greenbacks. No one expected a seven-year-old girl with a bloody lip, or a seven-year-old boy riding in an ambulance after being trampled by the other children.1
Greed can seep into the souls even of children. Larger children ran right over smaller ones, and didn't stop to help if they even noticed that the younger children were in trouble. We would assume that the older children would not have hurt the younger children under ordinary circumstances. Greed hurts people. Greed changes us into something we don't want to be.
Jesus had a lot to say about money, more than we usually think. How we handle our money is an important indicator of our faith and trust in God. What Jesus says here about money is as strong as anything he had to say. Jesus uses the language of slavery. Jesus' words suggest that we do not have a choice about being slaves. We are slaves one way or another. Our only choice is which master we will serve. The option we would most likely choose is the one Jesus is careful to eliminate. We cannot choose to have both God and money as our masters. We cannot truly serve God if we allow money to rule over us.
Jesus illustrates his point by talking not about money itself, but about two things money helps us attain: food and clothes. Both of these commodities are good in themselves. We need both of them, but our sinfulness, our pride, and our lack of self-control have corrupted our use of them.
I know I am inching out onto a limb to talk about food in a sermon. I risk offending people. I risk the charge of hypocrisy. I risk every eye following me at the next potluck supper! As a pastor, I have the responsibility of interpreting scripture, and of speaking the truth. The truth is that most of us do not have a good relationship with food, even if we think we do. I know that some of us would say that we get along just great with food. Some of us seem to have a great love affair with pizza. Still, it is a well-documented fact that we in this country do not handle food responsibly. Seven out of ten Americans are overweight. A growing number of children are overweight. I must preach about food because the statistics are dangerous. We have turned food, which should be nourishing and good for us, into a danger.
Now that I am at the end of that limb, I'm going to saw it off! We are not much better about food in the church. Seventy-six percent of clergy are overweight, a higher percentage than the general population. In one United Methodist Annual Conference, the bishop challenged the clergy to lose weight during Lent. She promised to donate $2 to the conference mission project for every pound the pastors lost. Four months later she wrote a check for $1,000. Sometimes we in the church enable one another in unhealthy eating, don't we? One pastor found help in his congregation. His physician ordered him to lose weight to bring down his blood pressure. He preached about his situation in a sermon. At the next church supper, four of the women in the church stood between him and the dessert table, arms folded. Now that's tough love!2
I have no wish to be judgmental. I hope that what I am saying comes across as preaching for you, not at you. I know that losing weight is more difficult for some than for others. I know some people have a real problem with weight, enduring much teasing. Nevertheless, our relationship with food affects our health and our self-image. Jesus raises the spiritual questions about food. Jesus tells us not to worry about food. Worrying about food affects our concentration on God. To be concerned about food means we are less concerned about God. If we always indulge ourselves, we forget about those who do not have enough food.
One Christian discipline that speaks to our relationship to food is fasting, denying ourselves food. Amy Johnson Frykholm has written about the spiritual rewards of fasting. She says, "Fasting as a spiritual practice is not about improving your health. It is not about becoming thinner, stronger, or more supple."3 Her experience has led her to discover that fasting enables her to pay attention to her place in the larger world and to build compassion for people who have genuine problems with food. Her most important insight was that fasting freed her from compulsions about food. Fasting created room "where grace might flow." She begins to help us see what Jesus meant by slavery.4
If food can enslave us, Jesus tells us that our concern for clothing can enslave us as well. As with food, we have taken a necessity and turned it into a burden. Clothes are supposed to protect us from the elements. Clothes also protect our emotional vulnerability. As Adam and Even in the garden, we are ashamed if we don't wear them. Clothes are a necessity, but look at how they end up controlling us. Not only do we crave the latest fashions, but we even wear clothes that are uncomfortable just to be popular. We wear shoes that pinch or limit our mobility if that's what's in style. Men complain about having to wear neckties. Ties add color and beauty to a man's ensemble, but have you even noticed how much a tie looks like a leash?
More seriously, we judge people by the clothes they wear. We do this even in church. People often refuse to go back to a church if they feel their clothes do not fit in with the unofficial dress code of a congregation. Older members often complain about the way youth dress. No scripture verse tells us we must dress up for church. This passage points us away from worrying about how to dress for church.
Our youth may feel the burden of dress most acutely. Clothes are so serious for young people that we even hear of children having been shot for their athletic shoes. Our teenage girls feel the pressure to dress like pop stars, where the rule seems to be that the lower the jeans go the better. One youth minister holds retreats where the girls wear sweatshirts and sweatpants. Here's what she says about the retreats, "The girls breathe more easily, the burden of being cool and sexy having been lifted from their shoulders."5 Did you hear how she talked about clothes: a burden lifted from their shoulders? I do not intend for this sermon to become a harangue about current teen fashion. Yet, is it not true that having to wear the right thing can make us feel trapped?
The youth group at a church in Virginia found a way to break the chains that clothes put on them. If any event in youth can become a burden, it is prom night. Every year the bar seems to be raised: the right dress, the right tux, the right limo. Everything becomes a contest. The youth at this church gathered up clothes, purses, shoes, and all of the other necessities for prom night. They shipped all of the gear to a community in Mississippi ravaged by the hurricanes. Prom became a joy rather than a burden.
Those youth understood the spirit of what Jesus teaches us in this passage. Jesus is not scolding; Jesus is offering us freedom. Jesus calls us to throw off the chains forged by money, clothes, and food. The youth in Virginia broke free by giving away instead of reaching for more. Jesus may have startled us by using the language of slavery, but he was right. Clothes, food, and money can trap us. Maybe we should say that our insecurity about these things trap us. Our trust in God enables us to break free.
A math professor in northern Virginia, Richard Semmler, has broken free from the hold money might have had on his life. Every year he gives away over half of his income. He makes decisions about where to live and what car to drive based on his commitment to give. His goal is to donate one million dollars before he retires. At 59, he has already given away almost $800,000. Not only does he give money, he gives his time, working on houses for Habitat for Humanity. He's a bachelor, and he makes a six-figure salary, so maybe he has an easier time than those with family obligations. Nevertheless, he shows us how to break free. His money doesn't control him. His friends and colleagues say he is always smiling. He has turned a burden back into a joy.6
Jesus tells us to seek first the dominion of God. The values of God's dominion include generosity, self-discipline, and love for others. In pursuing those values we find freedom from the things that enslave us. As an affirmation of the goodness of life, of stewardship for our bodies and as an expression of love to others, let us break free from our slavery to food, clothes, and money. Let us serve God. Amen.
1. "Two Kids Hurt in Money Drop at Minor League Game," AOL Sports News, April 16, 2006.
2. Both illustrations in this paragraph come from the article, "Clergy Choose Path to Fitness," by Bill Fentum in The United Methodist Reporter, July 14, 2006, pp. 1B-2B.
3. Amy Johnson Frykholm, "Soul Food: Why Fasting Makes Sense," Christian Century 122.5, March 8, 2005, p. 24.
4. Ibid, p. 25.
5. Chanon Ross, "Jesus Isn't Cool: Challenging Youth Ministry," Christian Century 122.18, September 6, 2005, p. 24.
6. Jacqueline L. Salmon, "Professor Finds Fulfillment in Emptying His Pockets," Washington Post, June 11, 2005, p. A1.