Sermon: "Escaping the Trap of Wealth"

Sixth in the "The Authentic Life" series.
Delivered November 13, 2005 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

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Thank you again for that beautiful anthem that ties in so well to our scripture text today. It is found in Matthew, Chapter 6, Verses 19 to 34 and we are going to read it in a moment. I just want to introduce it a little bit. Today, we didn't plan this, but today happens to be in most Presbyterian churches stewardship dedication Sunday, and one thing that I have always thought was remarkable about Central Presbyterian Church is that we have never really made a big deal about pledge drives or stewardship campaigns or anything; not that that's not a good idea, but it's just part of our culture that it is not really practiced and in spite of that fact, generosity abounds. And so we are grateful to God for the way that you express the love of God through your giving.

I really wrestled with this whether I should really start this way, you know every pastor I guess struggles with how much they should share of their own personal journey. Even in sermon preparation they asked you, " Well what's your world like preacher?" What are you dealing with as a way about thinking about how to present a sermon, and I thought I would try to share with you what has been in all honesty the number one struggle in my spiritual life over the last 14 months or so. And it has been trying to resolve the tension between experiencing the blessing of God and the acquisition of a very, very nice home and Christian stewardship principles. I wrestle with that. I journal about it. I struggle with it.

I believe that the circumstances that allowed us to discover and to purchase the house that we now "own" definitely point to God's providence and to God's goodness. There is no way if you heard the story you would say, yeah I am pretty sure God was in that. Yet ever since moving in about a year ago it has felt a lot like a test and in some ways I think that's the way wealth is. No matter whether it is typified through a home or through a bank account or whatever, wealth is a test. There are days when I go out on my back porch and look into the woods; we are right up against the woods and I say what a great spot this is. This is just such a blessing and really what a great investment if nothing else. And then there are other days when I think I should get this off of our backs and sell it and be done with it and there will be less dissidence in my life.

Well, this past week I went on retreat with some of my colleagues and to make matters worse, we started talking about theological views and the issue or ordination standards. We belong to a denomination that has very much of a spectrum as far as the circle of who should be ordained or not, and one rather liberal colleague was making the point that we all as pastors; they were all pastors there, we all fall short of our ordination standards and I said, "Well how so?" And he said, "Well just look at stewardship for instance." I said, "What do you mean by that?" He goes, "Well just look at the cars we drive. Just look at the homes we live in." And he didn't know what home I lived in, but I am sitting there thinking okay, yeah maybe, maybe you're right. Now, is he stretching the point or is there some truth in what he says? So I have come to a place where I said, "Lord everything we possess is a gift. Everything we have is a trust." We sing that in the hymn to be used for your purposes and the blessing of others and when you ask me do you love me more than these by your Holy Spirit, I would say, " Yes Lord, you know that I do." So, in my journal I wrote, Lord if you tell us to go we will go. If you tell us to stay we will stay, just make it clear and we will do whatever.

But my biggest concern is that people will misinterpret our heart motives and be led away from healthy stewardship practices in their own lives. You see people today are more cynical than ever before. And I don't want to feed any kind of appearance of inconsistency. But if the truth be told, most of us here struggle with materialism. Money is the number one obsession of Americans generally speaking. Someone had said that we have reached a new plain of consciousness called transcendental acquisition. Did you know that the average credit card debt hovers somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000; that's the average credit card debt in America. People have confessed to me some major stuff in my ministry. They have confessed adultery. They have confessed addictions. I have never had anyone come to my study, hands around their face saying, "Pastor, I am greedy." I have never had anybody confess that and I wonder if the culture we live in, we just lose site of how wealth can grab us and it's almost subliminal like we don't even think about the limits of it in some ways. We have a propensity to rationalize about our wealth and it is with this in mind that I think Jesus speaks in today's gospel passage. In his admonition is not about wealth per say, it is about greed. It is about materialism and we are going to look at that in just a moment, but let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your Word, and we thank you for the scriptures that have been given for our encouragement so that we might have hope. We pray that these scriptures and what they teach would point our hearts toward you and help us so that we will be rich in soul, instead of rich in things. For we ask it in your name, Amen.

The text, Matthew 6:19 and following:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

We are in an Authentic Life series what is really an authentic life in God and from this text and the Sermon on the Mount we discover it's not about what we own. It's about what owns us. It's about our heart focus. It is about what we seek in our innermost being.

I have come across three basic theologies in my travels when it comes to wealth and money. They are kind of broad strokes. One is a poverty theology, which you know some legitimately do take vows of poverty, but it's interesting if you have studied monasteries across times, especially in the Middle Ages, an amazing thing takes place. People who takes vows of poverty and they start these monasteries because they raise sheep and they start to sell wool and they have land they have become really wealthy and so many stories there are in history of how what was originally about poverty turns out to be a trap. It doesn't matter how much you make about; it's always a test, it's always there and so poverty theology is this; I think it's an imbalance view that teaches that we should have a disdain for possessions. It's wrong to have an excess of money or things. That's poverty theology.

Then there is prosperity theology. This is what some refer to as the health and wealth gospel. If I confess it, it will come. I confess positive words and thoughts and prosperity is my reward. If God is happy with me, I will be blessed financially. Wealth is a sign of God's blessing. Are you not doing well, maybe you need to align something or you need to have more faith. That's prosperity theology. And so we should almost demonstrate the possessions in our life and the way we appear, and all that because that points to God's giving it to us. Two pulls.

And then I think a proper theology somewhere in the middle is possessions are a trust from God, that we are responsible to manage whether we are blessed with much or little. John Calvin put it this way, "Christians must not long for or hope for or think of any kind of prosperity apart from the blessing of God. On God's blessing they must cast themselves for safety and confidently recline." So the sense is, is that of God's blessing we rest and out of God's blessing we give. The witness in scripture is clear. God created all things good and created them for our enjoyment and the creation narrowly shows that even though we became wayward and sinful and we went against what God told us, God still provided even in our sinfulness and that most clearly in the cross of Jesus.

But we are to take God's provision and share it liberally and bless others in ministries of justice. Remember we serve a Lord who changed water into wine and not the other way around. Jesus didn't change wine into water. His whole life was spent really if you think about it in the gospel; remember, he said John the Baptist came fasting, but the Son of Man came eating and drinking and you call him a gluten and all; he spent his time in lies, in dinners and in conversation and in peoples home and enjoying, but he was always pointing to where that enjoyment sprang from. This is why Paul says to his wealthier friends in emphasis, he actually says it through Timothy,

"Timothy, command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they make take hold of the life that is truly life."

We are about to go into this gospel where Jesus says, "Lay up treasures in heaven." Well, how do you do that? Paul gives the answer in his explanation. "Be generous. Be rich in good works. Be ready to share. Give and bless in ministries of the church and in ministries of justice." You see the life that's truly life indeed has nothing to do with material prosperity. Jesse said it today when we started. It cannot gain you happiness. Paul amplifies what Jesus teaches in Matthew's gospel, laying up treasures in heaven comes through our generosity. That's the first way we escape the trap of wealth by asking what investments will last the longest? What investments will yield the most return? According to Jesus in this text, obviously that's in heaven. Jesus teaches that earthy treasures hoarded don't last long at all and, in fact, they get consumed, but heavenly treasures can never be stolen or destroyed.

John Wesley preached a famous sermon in 1744 entitled "The Use of Money." Now that was not the snappiest title, but it was a very powerful sermon and the reason that he gave for even preaching it in the first place, and I am not picking on Methodist; he was a Methodist pastor, but he said the Methodist grow more self-indulgent because they grow rich. And so he preached a sermon called "The Use of Money." And I bet if you have never heard the sermon, you would probably heard the three-point outline of the sermon. Gain all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can. And before I kind of delve into this, I didn't know what he was talking about. I thought I had an idea, but listen to what he is talking about in each of these points and I will share them with you.

Under his first point, under gain or make all you can, he qualified it by saying gain all you can, but without sin or damage of health to the body or to the mind. And don't price gouge. If you have the kind of employment where you have some leverage in what you can charge, by all means don't gain all you can then, be fair, don't harm your neighbor, but he said the principle of hard work would encourage and keep us away from silly diversion and so he was saying make all you can, use all your strength and do it in a way that blesses other people and honors God.

And then secondly he says, save all you can. Well, I thought okay, well that means we can just build some big accounts that way, but that's not what he meant at all. He did not mean hoarding or anything, he meant avoid waste. Money was not to be spent on gluttony or drunkenness to be sure, but he added another item in this and now this is where you have to pull in your toes. All you who live in North America, watch out, here it comes, he said even avoid a regular and reputable kind of sensuality; an elegant epicurism. That is the excessive enjoyment of the finer things of life. This is downright Un-American. You mean to tell me to curtail my visit to a restaurant might be faithfulness and stewardship? Maybe.

I think he was talking about an excessive pattern. We all love special occasions and we all want to enjoy special occasions. I think he is talking about an excessiveness in the whole thing. That's what he meant by save all you can.

He said, "Despise delicacy and variety and be content with plain nature requires." He continued, "Money should not be wasted of superfluous or expensive apparel or needless ornaments or on the house, buying expensive furniture, pictures or decorations. No expense should be committed to vanity that is trying to buy the honor and praise of others."

If there was ever a preacher who went to meddling instead of preaching, that's it. Make all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can. It's a Christian's determination of his expenditure to act therein with a single eye as the steward of all God's goods. A single eye; single is the word in this text. If your eye is single your whole body will be full of life. We translate it as good, healthy, sound and a Christian should have a single eye, a sound eye, to the stewardship of his goods.

One way we escape the trap of wealth is by seriously asking, what investments last longest and have the best return? Investing in the kingdom, in the church, in the ministries that invite people in to eternity is one of the surest investments you can make. Then the second questions asked in escaping the trap of wealth besides what investments last the longest, the second question and the rest of this whole text is, who is my master? Who do I follow? Everything else in this passage revolves around this. No one can serve two masters. You cannot play on two opposing teams at the same time. You can't serve in two armies at the same time or you will be a trader. When Jesus says they will hate the one and love the other; he is not talking about emotions, he's talking about a decision in favor of one over the other. Point blank, you cannot serve God and money. You just can't do it. And mammon is really the word translated that has to do with prosperity in general. And what Jesus is bringing to issue is, what do we rely on? You say, well, how do you know if you are serving God or you are serving mammon, how do you even know?

A good test question is to ask which of the two occupies more of my time, my thoughts, my devotion and my effort? When Jesus speaks of a healthy eye enlightening our whole being it has to do with admitting the light of God with seeing. It's not about your eye showing what's inside, it's about your eye being healthy so that it can receive the light and the grace and the wisdom of God. And if we no longer look to God for light, and for our dependency and our reliance, we develop financial cataracts that block out that light and soon we are wandering in the shadows of self-interest.

I don't know how many of you have heard of rapper 50 Cent, I don't listen to rap music much, but I read this in an article. Rapper 50 Cent, they call him 50 (Fiddy), he just made a movie called "Get Rich or Die Trying" and that title just says a whole lot. Some theaters in Pittsburgh just pulled the movie because of a riot and places have taken billboards down in Philadelphia because he's got a microphone in one hand and he's got a gun in the other hand and 50 Cent has gone from street thug to rapper, to being worth $16 million dollars and the fear is that people are going to emulate this, but he said this. This was his quote,

"If a person says that money doesn't change you, it's because they haven't made enough."

Jesus says what changes a person is what or who they call master. The rest of this passage deals with worry about life and all its necessities. It reminds us that if we seek God's rule and righteousness through Jesus, everything else we need will be given to us as well. Four times in these verses he says don't worry. I bet some of you came in worrying today. That's my guess. You are worried about finances. You are worried about health. You are worried about relationships. Jesus says four times, "Do not worry. Worry is trying to control something that's uncontrollable." It gives us something to do, like being in a rocking chair. Just doing something, but it never gets us anywhere. Trust God with your whole heart he says because God has created and redeemed you in Jesus Christ and he will sustain you. A good parent takes care of his kids or her kids. God is the best parent that anyone could ever have. He will provide. Don't let that fear keep you from being generous.

I am going to wrap it up here. One of the things we have done with our new home is we have transformed the basement area into a preschool because Ellen's gift, my wife Ellen, her gift is in teaching little children, four-year-olds. That is where she is happiest. We thought well, let's take the resources we have and let's use it and build it in to the lives of little children. And we are hoping to connect with their parents because some of the parents are not churched, and we hope to move them toward Christ in the months ahead. But at the end of every day Ellen asks her students the same question. "So, what was the best thing about your day today? What did you enjoy the most?" And one little girl always has the same answer. "The best thing about my day Mrs. A is you." And Ellen says, "Well, thank you. I know, but look at all the things we did today, art center, writing center, we played outside, we did this and that; tell me what was the best thing about your day? She goes, "Okay, art and you."

When the best thing about our day is looking skyward to God saying, "Lord you are the best thing about my day. You are the greatest thing about my life." If you can say that from your heart, you will be free from the need to hoard, and you will be free from the need to worry. And you will be grabbing hold of that which is truly life indeed.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your grace and love in our lives. We thank you for all the poured out blessings. Help us to turn again to see how generous you are, most of all in Jesus Christ, you poured out your whole life so that we might exchange our life for yours. Grant to us that grace this day to repent and turn again, to be single-mindedly devoted to the things of God, and to be on guard against possessions because our life does not consist therein. Lord,we thank you for this grace that you give us. Help us to shine forth with the power of your Holy Spirit. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2005, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org