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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
23 September 2007Luke 16“Amazon Problem”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Today's Second Lesson might seem like a text that preachers would consider, "made in Heaven."
How can we lose with this one? Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and wealth." The vast majority of Christians are not wealthy. So most preachers, addressing their congregations, can quote this text without worrying that their listeners will take offense.
In fact, we preachers, as members of the middle or working classes may ourselves resent the conspicuous consumption that the rich display; so we may take a special pleasure in passing on Christ's warning about the danger of wealth.
Even relatively affluent Christians can find people much wealthier than they are to resent. They can denounce the super-rich who buy those enormous private jets that waste fuel and pollute the atmosphere. They can criticize the people who buy oceanfront property and try to keep the public from enjoying their beach.
But preachers might, in fact, be on less secure ground than they think. First of all, most American preachers address congregations who by global standards are wealthy. Their members may not be super-rich, but compared with most of the world's population, their parishioners are blessed with nice homes to live in, clean clothes, and bank accounts that people in other countries would consider, "rich."
The other night, some of us were reminded of the prosperity Americans take for granted when we heard a first-hand account of the Carpenter's Kids program. This is a program that the Episcopal Diocese of New York has just started; it helps children in Tanzania whose parents have died of AIDS.
We heard a lecture by a man from our Cathedral who had just returned from a visit to the Diocese of Central Tangyanika. This diocese includes one of the poorest regions of Tanzania; many families the man visited live in tiny two room huts without electricity or running water. The speaker remarked that children wadded up pieces of rubbish in order to make soccer balls to play with. (Happily, the delegation from our diocese brought two soccer balls to every parish they visited.)
So just because we aren't in the top tax brackets doesn't mean that we are let off the hook; we have Christian responsibilities to those who have much less than we have.
We should note, however, that the most important word in Christ's saying is not "wealth" but "serve."
What do you serve? What have you decided to follow as your highest goal in life? As Jesus remarks, a slave can't serve two masters. One master will inevitably contradict the other; one will ask the slave to go to get food while the other master asks the slave to clean his house: sooner or later the slave will have to choose between the two.
The spiritual question, then, is not how much wealth you may have; the problem is letting wealth become your master. Anyone possessing anything can become attached to what she has.
Occasionally, for example, there are news reports of some homeless person who kills another homeless person in a fight over the sad collection of cast-offs one of them has accumulated in his shopping cart.
Those of us who are not homeless may shake our heads in disbelief at such stories. They provide sad proof that having anything can be a problem.
If wealth is our master, then we are in danger of being mastered by our wealth. There are all kinds of ways in which this can happen.
The most obvious case is the persons who define themselves by what they have. Take the man who has a large paycheck and never lets you forget it! He talks about money all the time; he describes his latest purchase at great length; he wears obviously expensive clothes; in general he does all he can to flaunt his wealth. If any proof were needed of the danger of wealth, this man provides it.
Now such people are easy to mock. They are obviously caught up in what the Bible calls, "things that are passing away." They don't realize how insubstantial are the material things in which they have put their trust.
But we, too, should be wary of serving wealth. As Christ suggested, this master can be stern and persistent.
We can get anxious about how much money we make. We can worry about how much we earn compared to our friends or our relatives — the perpetual concern about "keeping up with the Joneses" is a venerable American tradition and not one that makes people happy.
In recent years, many of us have also discovered that the Internet provides a new way to come under the influence of material things. You may have heard friend say, for example, that she has "an Amazon problem."
The Internet site called, "Amazon.com" was originally a place you could buy books. An amazing assortment of books — not just current bestsellers but obscure academic books and works that have long been out of print. Today this web site has expanded its offerings; Amazon.com now offers CD's, electronics and all kinds of other consumer goods.
Someone with an "Amazon problem" then is a person who has trouble resisting the temptation to log onto the site and buy something. I myself have to limit the number of times I buy books on Amazon. I only go on the site when I already have a list of books I need. I then restrict myself to buying just the books on the list. I studiously ignore the other tempting works that Amazon automatically suggests to me might go well with the books I have already selected!
This particular ethical issue would have been unknown to our Christian ancestors. But they would have recognized the "Amazon problem" as simply another way that human beings can be seduced into serving wealth. Granted buying too many books on the Internet isn't the worst of such seductions — it doesn't compare with gambling away your children's grocery money!
But the principle is the same: we wind up serving a master we don't want to serve. We haven't paid attention to what we're doing and we find ourselves buying books we don't have time to read, and recordings we don't have time to listen to, and all sorts of other things that waste our money and distract us from what's important.
Of course, preachers love to denounce the "consumerism" of our society. But just because this is a cliché doesn't mean it shouldn't be repeated: clichés may be obvious but they are also, by definition, true.
So consumerism is a waste of our money when we buy things we don't need and it's a waste of our time and energy when we get distracted and driven by acquiring things.
What, then, do we do? The answer is in one sense quite simple: as Jesus advises, we look for another master. We follow divine principles instead of our own. We find pleasure in sharing what we have instead of flaunting it. And we save shopping sprees for those special occasions when they can remind us of the goodness of God and the joys of his creation.
So, too, on this day when we in this congregation officially come "back to church" after the summer holidays, we can give thanks for the friends we find at Incarnation, and for the sustenance of our common worship and our common life, and for the chances we are given to serve God in this place.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.