In New England, there is the grave of an old Yankee skinflint. While he was alive, he offered his future heirs their legacy in advance if they would give him 12 ½% interest on it. When he died, they put this epitapth on his tombstone:
Here lies old 12 percent
The more he saved, the less he spent
The less he spent, the more he saved
Oh Lord, can Ichabod be saved?
Now that’s a good question, and we could preach a sermon on that. You remember Jesus said on one occasion that it was as difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as it was for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. That’s a pretty tough saying, isn’t it?
But don’t begin to squirm too quickly. I’m not preaching on that text today. I would say parenthetically that Ichabod can be saved, because all people can be saved. But it’s hard —— hard for any of us who are in favored positions in life, as most of us are, as it relates to material wealth. In fact, no matter how little money you - have this morning - you who are gathered here you’re rich by the world’s standards. But I’m not talking to rich people today, because most of us don’t see ourselves as rich. I’m talking to all of us, because all of us have a problem with money.
However we look at it, money is a problem. It’s a problem when we don’t have enough of it; it’s a problem when we have too much of it; it’s a problem when we have enough but don’t think we have enough. Money is a problem.
But it’s also offers great potential and great blessing. And that’s the reason I want to talk about it in the context of these sermons on coping. I believe that one of the most crucial areas in life where we need to learn to cope, but more than to cope, to have a saving perspective, is in the area of our material possessions.
So, you see the title of the sermon today: “When you have everything you need except what you need to make what you have worthwhile” or the subtitle: “Managing Money, Or Not Allowing Money to Manage us.”
Let’s begin where we should begin – with the scripture. If you’ve ever doubted that Jesus was concerned about money, read the 12th chapter of Luke. The truth is Jesus talked as much about money as he did any other subject in life. I wish we had time to read the entire 12th chapter of Luke; I hope you’ll read it sometime today or during this coming week. The pivotal issue of the chapter was illustrated with a parable Jesus told. We didn’t read that parable, but I want to tell you the story. You’ll find it in verses 15-21 of the 12th chapter. It’s a picture of a man with money. many of you now that story. A fellow had done very well. He had prospered. His land “brought forth plentifully”. In the midst of his prosperity, the fellow began to have problems - “What shall I do?” he asked, “I have nowhere to store my crops.” Note the decision that he made, and see how it fits the pattern of so many lives.
“I will do this,” he said. “I will pull down my barns, and build bigger barns, and there I will store my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.”
Now that’s the picture that Jesus painted of one way approaching prosperity.
I want you to note two things about that man, because I think those two things speak to us. He never saw beyond himself and he never saw beyond this world. Keep that picture in mind now – as we come to the heart of our sermon today.
First of all he never saw beyond himself. That always gets us into trouble. The man never saw beyond himself. There is a Roman proverb that says that money is like sea-water - the more a man drinks the thirstier he becomes. And isn’t that the way it is with material possessions?
Think about it in your own life — at whatever level of economic prosperity you may be. The more we drink, the thirstier we become. The more we have; the more we think we need. That’s the damnable thing about money and material prosperity. It works subtly and gets a grip upon us. That’s just not a problem with the super wealthy. It really is a problem of all of us. The more we get, the more we think we need; the more we have, seemingly the more we want. So, take note in the picture that Jesus painted, the man never looked beyond himself.
Note another thing about this man: He never saw beyond this world. Listen to him: “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods; and I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry”.
Now it’s very easy for us to think that has no relevance to us. It’s a story of extreme selfishness and you could never think that way. But wait! How many of us act and think as though we were going to live forever?
A way of meaning with or without money. It’s interesting how we think about and use money.
Have you heard of the wealthy world traveler to impress his mother on her 80th birthday. He paid for a highly trained parrot that could speak in four languages and sing many songs. It was one of the rarest, most accomplished parrots in the world. To further impress her, he had it shipped by air.
A few days later, he called long distance and asked, “Well, Mother, how did you like the bird I sent you?”
“He had a delicious flavor!’’she said, “although I must admit, he was a little bit tough.”
It is interesting how we think about and use money.
In our scripture lesson, Jesus was talking not just to the wealthy, but all of us. He closed his parable of the “rich fool” by applying the truth of it to everyone. After the scorching judgment to one: “Fool! This night, your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” He speaks to us: “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
He moves from that specific situation to address his disciples and us in a more general way and this is where we began our scripture reading earlier. Let me read again verses 22 and 23: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, nor about your body, what you shall put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” Jesus is talking about a way of meaning with or without money. He was giving an answer to persons who have ever need except what they need to make what they have worthwhile.
I see two things here - directions for a way to meaning with or without money.
One, we must have a sense of belonging. I don’t know a more tender loving word than Jesus addressed to us in our scripture lesson, verse 32, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” Doesn’t that lift our heart? What heartening hope. Whether we have money, or don’t have money, we need to hear that, don’t we? – “Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” You see, what the Father has to offer cannot be purchased. It is a gift.
A century ago, when Phillips Brooks was probably the most popular preacher in Boston and also one of its best-known citizens, he was often seen on the Harvard campus. One day a Harvard student asked Brooks if he felt it was necessary for a Christian to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Brooks was a kindly man, but also a direct one. “My young man,” he answered, “that is what Christianity is all about.”
Friends, if we don’t begin here, there’s no place to go with our relationship with God in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter how much treasure we lay up for ourselves Jesus said. If we’re not rich toward God, we’ll never have meaning. So, meaning begins with a sense of belonging, a sense of belonging to God.
Now a second thing. It is not enough to know that we belong, we must realize we are called to care. I doubt if there’s anything that gives more meaning to our lives than caring for someone and making a difference in their lives. I’m certain that there is no greater joy than the feeling that you have when you have been used by God. It’s interesting that Jesus talks about laying up treasures in Heaven. When Ken Kinghorn was with us in our Mini-Conference last weekend, he told about a fellow named John. John is an ordinary sort of man in terms of education and wealth. Yet, such a committed man and so perceptive in things of the spirit that he was invited to serve on the board of one of the outstanding Christian colleges of our land. On one occasion, the Finance Committee of the board on which, for some reason, he had been put, was meeting. And of course, as is he case, the conversation got around to investments. Everybody was talking about their investments and finally, somehow, the conversation focused on John, and the question was, what were John’s investments.
Without guile, but with simplicity, John said, “Oh yes, we’ve made some great investments that have really paid off. We brought a young girl over from Africa. She lived with us for awhile, and then we sent her to college and paid for her education. Then she got some advance training in Christian education. She’s back in Africa now making a tremendous contribution to the church, as well as to her country. That was one of our good investments. Then there was Tim. He became involved in drugs, in fact became the victim of drugs. No on seemed to be able to do anything about him; no one seemed care about him. We took him into our home knowing it was a risk. We didn’t have any notion that we would be able to do much for him. We felt called to him, to love him, and to give him a chance if he wanted it. Well, Tim is off drugs now. He’s living a very creative and fruitful life. He married a few months ago, married a lovely Christian girl. He has a job, and he’s able to support this wife; and we look forward to his having a happy family. Tim was one of our better investments. You get the point, don’t you? It is not enough to know that we belong, we must realize that we are called to care.
There are two common mistakes we make in seeking meaning. The first mistake is that satisfaction comes from living from our physical senses, and that we can overcome our boredom, our unhappiness, by satisfying those natural, physical, sensual needs of our lives. Someone has referred to the melancholy gaiety of the sensualist.” And I see them all around — occasionally I find myself falling into that trap. We need to remember what the poet said:
For those who seek the answer
In houses, lands and rings,
Will someday find that empty lives
and are just as empty filled with things
You see satisfying our physical senses, filling our lives with things, never brings ultimate happiness.
(The poem quoted above was quoted by Hoover Rupert in a sermon, “How Deal With the Drama of a Dull Life’!, January 21, 1971, First United Methodist Church, Kalamazoo, Michigan)
The second mistake we make in seeking meaning is that we find that meaning apart from others.
That’s what the rich fool thought, so he lived his life thinking only of himself and thinking only of this world. One of America’s richest men said, “There isn’t enough wealth in the whole world to keep a selfish person happy for more than 20 minutes.” There is no such thing as being able to be self— centered in happiness. That happiness runs out - goes dry, becomes stale.
Meaning comes when we realize that we are called to care, and when we discover that “Love is the medicine for the sickness of the world.”
One of the distressing phenomena’s of our time is the number of miserable people who appear to have everything. A part of their problem is that they scramble to the top, they use, abuse, and misuse people to get to the pinnacle of success. But there at the pinnacle, they’re friendless, lonely, and filled with guilt.
I wish you could have been in our Council on Ministries meeting last Monday night, and hear Fred Mills talk about our Jubilee Ministry. I wish you could have heard him talking about Frankie, an old black woman, whose house we’ve made more livable and secure — and how the radiant, gentle simple Christian spirit of Frankie has been so attractive to those who have gone down there to serve.
I wish you could have heard him talk about the young black fellow who was taught how to put up a suspended roof, and after it was all over, standing back and surveying the works of his hands and exclaiming, “My Lord, I wish Momma could see me now; wouldn’t she be proud of me!”
I wish you could have heard Fred say with all the power of his commitment and the depth of experience that he’s had during this three months that our Jubilee Ministry has been going on that those who are ministered to most deeply and most effectively are not those whom we seek to serve down there, who need a roof over -their head, and clothes on their body, and food in their stomachs - they are served and the Lord calls us to serve them —— but Fred is talking about the ministry that deeply matters to this congregation - the meaning that can come to our lives when we express our discipleship in caring for others.
I don’t know anything that would bring your life out of dullness, give meaning to your boredom, add an extra dimension of meaning to what is so routine and regular, and sometimes weighs us down, than to invest ourselves in caring for others.
That says Jesus will give meaning to those with or without money. And if there was one central call that Jesus made to us, it was the call to love one another, to be willing to give ourselves away.
III
That brings me to the last movement in our sermon today. Listen now: the point is not whether you have money but whether money has you. Did you get that? The point is not whether you have money but whether money has you.
The bottom line in Jesus’ picture of the rich man was that he tried to possess his soul by the possession of things outside it.
I want us to get into perspective now. We need to rise above what some have revered to as reverse greed. There are those who abhor possessions, as if they were evil in themselves. They want to be pure and they think that possessions will somehow taint them. Jesus did not teach that, he did warn of wealth – the temptations to make our money a god. You remember the warning about it being difficult for a rich man to get into heaven as it was for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. But, being aware of those temptations, we also need to know what we can do with money and how money can become our servant.
Some of you may remember Gert Behanna, an evangelist of the late 50’s and 60’s. She was one of the most unique persons I’ve ever met. She was the author of a book entitled, The Late Liz. She was a very wealthy woman and was converted late in life after a lot of pain and suffering by her misuse of money and her family’s misuse of after her conversion, she felt led to give away her sizeable fortune. She later regretted that decision. I heard her talk about how she would have enjoyed having the money that she had earlier, before her conversion, to use for the people and causes that she cared about in her maturing Christian life. Of course, God took care of her, and she made a great witness I n terms of that total surrender of her wealth to the Lord. But she did miss the joy and fun of being a steward of wealth.
So Jesus did not say wealth is evil’ he called us to keep our possessions in perspective.
His big point is not whether you have money, but whether money has you. Jesus knew that wealth can be an uncontrollable obsession, an almost inescapable addiction. Money can get a hold of a person and its grip will grow and grow until that person is under the total influence of affluence.
We need to concentrate on this for a moment. The influence of affluence.
Before we know it, the thirst for more grows in us until it is almost invisible. We begin to want more for ourselves and our family. We begin to measure our wealth by those who have more than we, and to feel pride that you have more than others.
Look at your checkbook. Do you spend more on entertainment, for instance, than you give to Christ and his church? O, no, you say – but wait…
How much did you spend on your last vacation, your last overseas trip, your last cruise? Add that to your club bills and your other entertainment. In a year’s time, how does that figure compare to your giving to the church?
What about your health and life insurance? Now I’m not against insurance. I spend a lot of money on it. But is it right, friends, to spend more money for insuring our earthly life than insuring eternal life? That’s what Jesus was talking about - keeping a perspective on earthly and eternal treasure.
I could go on and on, mentioning things like expenditures for dancing lessons, health clubs, second homes - and I’m not against any of these. Nobody wants a condominium on the Gulf in Destin more than I do! I’m almost covetous!
But listen. We need to be careful, If these added accoutrements, whatever they are, are preventing us from being the responsible financial stewards God has called us to be, we are in danger of losing our souls. That’s not my word, Jesus said that. And that’s an eternal issue: “Thou Fool, this night your soul will be required of you.”
That’s one of the reasons we’re called to tithe - to give 10% of our income to Christ and His Church. Tithing gives us the perspective we need. It keeps us to asses whether we have money, or whether money has us.
I hope you’ll remember all this when you make your pledge to the church for the coming year. I close now by reviewing.
The problem with the rich fool was that he thought only of himself and this world. Jesus gave us a way of meaning with or without money. That way includes a sense of belonging and a call to care. And Jesus’ big point was: not whether you have money but whether money has you.
When you come to the place where you have everything you need except what you need to make what you have worth while, remember what Jesus said.
“Fear not little flock, for it is your Father good pleasure to give you the Kingdom… provide your selves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heaven that does not fail, where no thief approaches, and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12: 33-3k RSV)