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Are you on the Fortune 500 list of Eternity?

The Reverend Elizabeth C. Knowlton
Canon for Prayer and Mission
Proper 20
September 23, 2007
9:00 and 4:00 pm Evensong
Luke 16: 1-13

“You cannot serve God and wealth”

I’d love to admit that money doesn’t or never has held sway over me.  But, the reality is that ever since I started walking a neighborhood dog at age 10, money has been a tangible way to seek independence and freedom. 

I’ll never forget that first Christmas that I had been earning my own money.  I set off on foot (you could do that in Bethesda, MD), my pockets bulging and a spring in my step.  I can still tell you exactly what I bought for my family that year.  My sister got a Snoopy Electric Hairbrush and my parents were the recipients of some rather inexpensive champagne glasses.

I loved the thrill of making my own decisions and sneaking the evidence back to the house.  I loved the freedom of purchasing something that no one else needed to approve.  I felt differently about those gifts when they were opened.  They were really from me.  I felt adult, empowered, and free.  It was a solitary experience and I was on a high.

Now, on one level this doesn’t sound too terrible.  I was encouraged to be an independent and financially responsible person.  My dad even encouraged me to save by matching dollar for dollar any of my earnings that went into the bank.  When I went off to college, I went with a credit card that had a limit of $300.00 so that I could practice using credit, without too much risk of spending myself into a hole.

These were all good experiences for me, and they were very formative. I realized that stewarding my resources was important and I learned how to survive in our market driven economy.  My parent’s values were reinforced when I was encouraged to be generous in sharing the resources I had at my disposal. 

The reality is even though we know money can be problematic, we all realize its necessity in obtaining the resources we need.  It is literally and figuratively the currency of our daily lives.

The power of money is unquestioned.  Which may be why it comes up so often in the scripture.  But what scripture mainly deals with is our relationship with money.  It is not treated as something inherently evil, but it is treated as something inherently powerful.

The steward in the parable is happy to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure his own financial future.  He hopes by cutting his clients a deal, that they might help him out when he is out of a job.  Even the victim in the story, the owner, acknowledges that the steward has been shrewd in a crisis.  So what are we to take from that example?  Is this meant as an endorsement of corporate misbehavior?  Was Enron really ok?

Only the most literal translation would yield that interpretation.  The key is in the verse that reminds us that we cannot serve both God and wealth.  What is being asked here is what is our primary relationship? What constitutes the identity that we want to be most remembered for?  For the number of platinum cards in our wallet or the kindness we were able to show during our life?

This is actually more difficult than it might first appear.  Particularly if you really notice how central money and power is in our culture.  But underneath its power is something more existential for us.  You see, we all have moments when we feel empty.  But the culture and our faith gives us two very different answers to that same feeling.

St. Augustine says we are restless and empty until we realize that only God can fill that whole.  The culture tells us the emptiness that can only be filled if we purchase a new car, a larger house, or the newest fashion items.  We have probably all experienced the temporary elation that can come from what we even term “retail” therapy.  Even at age ten I recognized the rush that came from purchasing those Christmas gifts.  Unfortunately, there is not a whole commercial enterprise to remind us of how much better we might feel if we pray regularly.

The tension between these two approaches can become insidious.  It is particularly difficult the more affluent we become.  We can lose all perspective.  We quickly confuse wants with needs, and it consumes a tremendous amount of our energy and attention.  It is this distraction that is just as dangerous as our purchasing----because, it can get in the way of our journey with God.

If I am always trying to get ahead, do I really have adequate time to let God’s abundance seem like a reality?  The consumer culture operates on an assumption of scarce resources. The more scarce it is, the more expensive it becomes.  And the more scarce and expensive it is, the more valuable it is.  While this may be the premise of how a free market economy works,  this has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.

Our faith position is that God’s love is inexhaustible and free.  By our culture’s reckoning that means it should be worthless.  How can you simultaneously serve two masters with such radically different operating systems? 

And the reality is that we get reinforcement in a real and tangible way from the consumer driven side, much more readily than we do from the side of God’s abundance.  And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.  We become bewitched by the consumerism that is ubiquitous and stop questioning how it might be altering our relationship with God.

Because the best way to find God, is to slow down and do things that probably don’t cost you a single penny.  The joy of a walk out in the natural world can remind us of abundance in a way that racing through a florescent lit mall will never be able to accomplish.  With one we leave breathing more deeply, the other is likely to result in a nasty sense of regret when the bills come in a few weeks later.

We are more likely to find God in the smiles of the people we love than by spending money on teeth whitening products.  And do you really care what shade of whiteness is there when you greet a friend you haven’t seen in long time?

So how do we disengage from the culture of scarcity and move towards God’s world of abundance?  I think it has to have a lot of intentionality to support it.  I need to daily remind myselves that what I have is really God’s anyway.  I am required to be generous because that is a way I can model God’s generosity in the here and now.

But most importantly I can’t go it alone.  I need a community of like minded people who have decided to make their relationship with God primary. I need to replace the noise of the culture with the proclaimed faith of the Christian community.  We need the reminder that the things of the present are not meant to be our primary focus, but rather the call of the eternal God.  If we find our sustenance there, we will then be able to conduct our transactions in the world, without being controlled by them. 

Amen

Comments? Contact Beth Knowlton at: BKnowlton@stphilipscathedral.org

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