Scripture: Luke 12:13-21
It was 1990, a Saturday. I was 17 years old and a little too old to enjoy the Saturday morning cartoon fare (back when there was such a thing.) I was waiting eagerly for the music video show that would follow the cartoons. That was back when MTV still showed music videos but if you didn’t have cable (which we didn’t) you still had a few choices to catch the latest groups with their latest videos. The show began with the new song by George Michael, back when he was big. I didn’t particularly care for his music, but I watched anyway. The song that played next has haunted me for the nearly 23 years since.
The song was called Praying for Time. It was such a contrast to everything else that was going on in those times. We had won the Cold War. The Berlin Wall had come down. The Soviet Union was finished. It was a time of hope and joy and jubilation, but here was a song that was dark, despairing, full of anxiety about the state of things. It was as if Mr. Michael had realized something the rest of us had missed; that despite the historical events happening around us, what really mattered hadn’t changed. Human beings had been on a dangerous road and we still were.
His words and thoughts have proven prophetic. Let me read a few lyrics to you and ask yourself, “Were these written for America 20 years ago or today?”
These are the days of the empty hand
Oh you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year
This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here
So you scream from behind your door
Say "what's mine is mine and not yours"
I may have too much but i'll take my chances
Because god's stopped keeping score
And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That he can't come back
Because he has no children to come back for
It's hard to love there's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it's much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time
Money, possessions, stuff, greed. These didn’t go away when our nation bested its political enemies. If anything, they’ve spent the past two decades festering in the soul of America, an infection that has spread far and wide. Look at the results. Take the Wal-Mart heirs for instance. These six individuals have more wealth than the bottom 200 MILLION Americans and they’re not even the richest people in the country. That’s...obscene and yet it’s applauded. It’s what many of us aspire towards. We want to be them, have what they have. After all, that’s the American dream...or so we’ve come to believe.
But maybe we see ourself as among the few who don’t care for such things. We hold onto some righteous indignation over this vast divide between the haves and have-nots. But I’d wager that we too are infected by this virus of greed and avarice and I’ll even prove it. Picture in your mind a poor person and then ask yourself...
....is this person lazy?
....is this person on drugs?
....is this person mooching on welfare?
....is this person a criminal?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are among the guilty. Wealth has become a mechanism to judge a person’s moral character. The rich are good, pure, honest, hard-working, virtuous. But the poor are thieves, lazy, good-for-nothing, mooching off society. This is the twisted side of our obsession with greed. We damn the have-nots for not having. We try to legislate punishment for their moral failings: abolish food stamps, require drug tests for government services, limit unemployment insurance, and a whole host of other things that have come into vogue. Let’s starve the poor into becoming rich. Yeah, that’ll work. Societies that have gone down that road in past history have frequently found themselves on the business end of riots, insurrection, and outright revolt. Ask the French...or the Russians. Didn't work out so well for them.
Greed nearly destroyed them and it could do the same to us.
We’ve been warned, if not from the words of a 20 year old song then certainly from the words of Jesus himself. “Be on guard against all kinds of greed. Life does not consist of an abundance of possessions.” How poorly we’ve listened. We keep building bigger and bigger barns. And the rich keep filling them up, while the rest of us bank that the bill of good we’ve been sold by society, that hard work and tenacity matter and will be enough to fill at least one barn. But it’s all futile. He who dies with the most toys is still dead. And what sort of damage are we doing to ourselves and to others in this mad quest?
We’ve lost sight of what has value in this world. People have value. Love has value. Compassion has value. Money does not have value, not really. It is a tool, a means to an end, not an end to itself. Money could be used so many better ways than what we use it for. We could provide food for those who hunger. We could put a roof over the heads of those who sleep on the streets. We could create jobs for those without to work. We could have all these things and so much more if we weren’t trying to hoard what we have.
“But...but...but....” I can hear the objections already. I can hear them in myself. What if I don’t have enough? What if I run out and suddenly I’m the one starving on the streets? That’s where faith comes in.
God created you, breathed life into you. He sent his Son into this world to live, die, and then rise again to grant you life eternal. Every day, he showers you with blessings and guards your life from danger. We can go forth in faith and use our resources for betterment of others freely because God will not abandon us. Remember what I said last week. There is NOTHING that we can do to make God stop loving us. And if that is true of us when we are at our worst, how then can it not be true also when we are at our best?
Greed lies to us. Tells us that if only we had more we would safe and happy. But safety and happiness only come through God and his promises. We have those promises. We do! When we start trusting in those promises and when we start living in that trust, then we will see a new world born. A world where none will lack and the lies of greed will be exposed for what they are. That’s what could be. We can pray for that world and we can create it, so long as we put our trust where it belongs: in the one that loves us so much to die on a cross for us. Money didn't do that. Wealth didn't do that. God did. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment