God doesn't care too much for money...

 Proper 13C 

"Say you don't need no diamond rings
And I'll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of things
That money just can't buy
I don't care too much for money
Money can't buy me love
Can't buy me love, 
Love, oh…"

You guys, it’s not just the Beatles Art Camp that made me do that. I saw the movie Yesterday this week.  Yup, I called my sister on Wednesday and said, “Nell, I’m calling Today to ask you if you want to see Yesterday. Tomorrow.” Anyway, Yesterday, the movie, is named after the Beatles song—and it’s a lot of fun. It’s about a struggling musician called Jack Malik who’s talented to a point, but not really getting anywhere. He’s just about to give it all up. Through a certain blip in the space-time continuum, he wakes up in a world where nobody has heard of the Beatles. They just never existed. And Jack just happens to know all the Beatles songs. So, he starts singing them. And people go nuts. I mean, of course they do! And they assume he wrote them all, and because he’s loving the attention--he lets them think that. Before long, he’s the biggest phenomenon to hit the music world in decades. He’s about to get the fame and attention he’s always wanted. And he’s about to get really, really rich. 

But--he’s not really happy. It’s partly that he doesn’t feel right getting rich on songs that aren’t his. But Jack realizes, too that with the astonishing amount of money he’ll come into, he will have to give up a lot—including someone he loves. And there’s this scene where he’s starting to go rogue. He’s starting to walk away from this opportunity. And his manager -- who will make a TON of money in the bargain, is chasing after him, trying to stop him. She yells: “For the love of money!!! Stop!!”  

That’s it. For the love of money, or for the love of God? That’s the crux of our lesson today.  

In one way, we all know it. We’ve sung that Beatles song. We know money isn’t everything. Money can’t buy love or homegrown tomatoes. It’s hard to preach on a platitude. Furthermore, I’ve noticed that people in church really don’t like it when the preacher talks about money. Maybe it sounds uncomfortably like the preacher is ASKING for money. Yet money problems are a principal reason why people get divorced. And fully one-third of Jesus’ parables are about money. So we might ask ourselves: why DON’T we talk about money more?  

Luke certainly has a lot to say about the right use of wealth in his Gospel. And in the parable of the rich fool in our reading today, he portrays wealth as neither an absolute good or an absolute bad. Instead we are judged by what we do with what God gives us. It’s not the having of wealth, but the role that it plays in our lives, that determines our relationship with God and our happiness. Jesus wants our decisions about money to be based in spiritual values, not the values of the world. To remember that all good comes from God. To remember the poor. Quite simply, as it says on our currency: In GOD we trust. Not in money.  

Our Ecclesiastes reading reminds us that the pursuit of money can be fruitless; a vain pursuit. It is vanity to obsess over what we have acquired and to puff ourselves up over our wealth, especially since we won’t enjoy it for long. Likewise Paul, in the letter to the Colossians, emphasizes that greed—the never having enough of something—can make money an idol which we serve. Instead, we are to set our mind on things above—on God’s values. If you spend all your time striving for wealth, you are focusing only on the future, fretting about what you don’t have. Meanwhile, a life of real meaning will pass you by.

I mean, that’s it. That’s the sermon. Pretty easy, right?  

It’s not, though, is it?  I just got done with a garage sale, and quite frankly, I couldn’t believe how much stuff I got rid of. And still have. I like stuff. I used to make a bunch of money and I got a lot of nice stuff along the way. Now I make--well, not a lot of money--and I still. Like. The Nice. Stuff. 

And while monks may literally give away all their earthly possessions, the rest of us live in the “real world,” don’t we? We need money to buy stuff—like food, clothing, and shelter. We need to provide for others—our children, or family members. We have community obligations which unless we move off the grid, we can’t and shouldn’t ignore. Then there is the beautiful world given us to live in, full of things to enjoy and discover.  It takes gas money to go to the coast. It takes resources to get a college degree, to go to museums or concerts, or plays. It takes equipment, and lessons, or tickets, to enjoy sports. Heck, even a pet costs money. 

Our Gospel starts with a question from a man who’s a younger brother, meaning, in the Jewish tradition, that he will NOT get his father’s inheritance—that will go to his older brother. Doesn’t Jesus agree that he should get some of that inheritance?, he asks. Jesus doesn’t answer him directly. Instead, he tells him, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” He’s saying, what if you DID get your brother’s inheritance? Do you really think that would make you happy? And he tells the parable of the rich fool. 

The rich fool is pretty pleased with how successful he is. He’s so successful, in fact, that he can’t figure out what to do with his treasure. Pay attention to how Jesus portrays him here, with some humor. Notice how many times the rich fool says I, and my:  “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops…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; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

Quite the self pep-talk. Quite the rationalization. But this is not a bad man. He is not the rich crook, after all. He is the rich fool, because he is living only for himself. And that, my friends, is his folly.

Where the man is putting himself and his possessions at the center, Jesus wants us to put God in the center of our whole conversation about money and what we do with it. He wants us to use our resources toward a life rich toward God. And so we are not to be greedy for the stuff of this world. We are supposed to be greedy for the stuff God cares about.  

Now, we can hear this as a message of judgment. I’m pretty sure the man who asked the question may have. I think our individual consciences might tell us whether we need to feel a prick of discomfort about our relationship with our possessions. I know I do. But really it’s a message of hope. For God loves us, and wants what’s best for us. God wants us to have bigger hearts, not bigger barns.   

I remember when my nephew was about four, he was really enjoying some Doritos, which his mother, deciding he had had enough, had taken away. So he is whining, “I want Doritos. I want Doritos.” His mother said, “Charlie, I’m not going to give you any more Doritos. I won’t always give you what you want. I will always give you what you need, but not always what you want.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. Then he said, “I need Doritos. I need Doritos.” Jesus cautions that what we want may not be what we truly need. He uses the word “greed,” but this is also translated as covetousness, or, as I prefer, craving. Charlie craved Doritos. Having money can make us crave money. Having nice things can make us crave nice things. And when we realize that what we truly crave is something rooted in money, we’re on a slippery slope. 

Money Can't Buy Love...or Homegrown Tomatoes
Painting by Mark Satchwill

So I say, let’s start talking about money. St Augustine once said, “God gave us people to love and things to use, and sin, in short, is in confusing the two.” Let’s start talking about the good use and also the abuse of material life in our homes and in our community. Let’s wonder together how our faith community and our tradition can help us live an abundant life that material wealth can support, but cannot produce. 

Let’s start naming our blessings—those aspects of abundant life that Jesus describes throughout the gospels—things like relationship, community, love, and purpose. These are the things that are, literally, priceless. When we heighten our focus on them, we learn what it means to be rich toward God. 

Finally, let’s be counter-culture. Let’s support each other in resisting messages that highlight inadequacies in order to sell us solutions. Let’s start re-using, sharing, and giving away more. Let’s remember to highlight the gifts we see in each other and are to each other—gifts that come from our very being: our hearts, and our God-given talents--not from a store. Let’s invest in relationships and laughter, and companionship, and consider how the wealth we do have can make more of that, for the love of God, and for the sake of the world. 

John Lennon once said: “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the most important thing in life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.” 

Jesus said:  “I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” That kind of abundance cannot be bought with money. It can only be received, gratefully, and it grows only when it is given away. 

God never cared too much for money anyway.

Preached August 11, 2019, St Gabriel Episcopal Church, Portland, OR

Lectionary: Ecclesiasties 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-11; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21