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Dr. Rodney
Plunket |
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"So Much
Money/So Much Hurt"
a topical sermon
I want to begin this morning by reading a few
verses from the New Testament. The
first set of verses is from the Book of First Timothy.
The second set of verses is from the Book of Hebrews.
Of course, there is
great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought
nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if
we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are
trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into
ruin and destruction. For
the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their
eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and
pierced themselves with many pains.
1 Timothy
6:6-10 (NRSV)
Keep
your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you
have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
So we can say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I
will not be afraid. What
can anyone do to me?”
Hebrews 13:5-6 (NRSV)
Now that you have heard these verses from the New
Testament, think back to the songs we have just sung.
We have declared through song that we love Jesus “More Than Anything” and that we need Him more “than words can say.” We need the Lord “more than the air [we] breathe, more than
the song [we] sing, more than the next heartbeat, more than
anything.” We have also
told the Lord that we are giving our bodies to Him as living
sacrifices, that we thirst for the Lord, and that we want the Lord to
draw us deeper into the Lord. It
should not be difficult to discern that the purpose of our worship
assembly this morning is to call us away from the love of money and to
call us to love our God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Jesse H. O’Neill is the granddaughter of
Charles Erwin Wilson. Wilson
amassed a fortune “during a long and illustrious career at General
Motors,” serving as that company’s president.
He also served as America’s secretary of defense during the
administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Jesse O’Neill’s father added to their already considerable
family fortune through his ownership of a Cadillac dealership.
Jesse was her parents’ only child and was financially
“privileged” from birth. But in her 1997 book, The
Golden Ghetto, Jesse H. O’Neill makes very clear that the privilege
of money was more than outweighed by its damaging effects on her and
her parents. Jesse says this of her parents:
In an era when martinis and Valium were a
way of life among the affluent, they became hopelessly lost in a hazy
world of booze, prescription drugs, and an aftermath of despair. Tragically, neither of them ever found their way to wellness.
Jesse’s life growing up in this
“dysfunctional”
family was full of pain. When
she was sixteen years old, she became pregnant and had an illegal
abortion arranged by her parents.
Not long after the abortion, the boyfriend, with whom she
became pregnant, broke up with her “with the words, ‘I hate fat,
rich girls.’” Jesse
says this of her abortion:
My abortion was buried so quickly
and absolutely, with all the power and finesse money can buy, that
twenty-five years passed before I was able to grieve the loss of the
baby I never had.
Soon after graduation from high school she
started drinking and before very long became an alcoholic just like
her parents. Her
“mother died of a heart attack at age fifty-four.” Listen
to Jesse’s description of her reaction to that event:
I was twenty-eight when my mother died.
I had recently separated from my first husband, was ensnared by
my own alcoholism, and was bitterly angry at my parents for my
unhappiness. My response
to my mother’s death was to increase my drinking and add cocaine to
my arsenal of painkillers.
Fortunately, the story does not end there.
Jesse’s road to recovery began with Alcoholics Anonymous and
led to a master’s degree in psychology and counseling.
She is currently “a psychotherapist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
where [she] specialize[s] in the treatment of adolescents and adults
with wealth-related problems, codependency and addictions.”
Because of her own experience along with hearing
the stories of many others also harmed by affluence, her book contains
powerful insights into the disastrous effects of the love of money. On page one of her book she writes, “Money is the single
most transformational substance in our society.
It is seductive, alluring, fascinating, and perceived as
greatly desirable. It is
the American dream.” In
the very next paragraph she writes about the negative consequences
when that American dream is realized and a person joins the ranks of
the affluent. Please hear
her words:
I contend that it is a rare and exceedingly
well-balanced individual who can possess great material wealth and
survive emotionally. It
can be an intimidating and demanding task to create a stable,
satisfying, happy life amidst the chaos of endless possibilities and
choices.
As I read that statement my mind was taken back
to the words of Jesus in the Gospels: “It
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark
10:25; paralleled in Matthew 19:24 & Luke 18:25).
A line from our Scripture reading might also be remembered as
we hear the painful story that O’Neill tells.
Paul, in 1 Timothy 6:10, writes, “in their eagerness
to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced
themselves with many pains.”
O’Neill and many others have felt the piercing pain that
comes from the love of money.
Riches are almost always a spiritual encumbrance.
The lure of wealth/the lure of affluence seduces people into
treating money and the stuff it buys as more important than other
people, more important than love, more important than service and
humility. O’Neill
rightly proclaims that money “distract[s] us from other, more
important aspects of life.”
From God’s perspective, the most damning effect of the lure
of wealth is that it draws our attention away from the Kingdom of God,
from our relationship with God; and it draws our attention away from
our love for one another.
I recently watched a VeggeTales video.
The lead-in to the actual story is a short segment that has Bob
the Tomato trying to introduce the show.
But he cannot complete his intro because Larry the Cucumber
keeps racing around in a very loud and very fast little SUV/Dune Buggy
type vehicle. Finally Bob
gets Larry to pull up alongside of him.
Bob admires Larry’s bright and shiny vehicle and says that he
knows that Larry is happy because he has gotten such a great toy.
But Larry says, “Not really,” because he wants the camper
that goes with it. Bob
asks, “So if you had the camper would you be happy?”
Larry is not sure and lists all the other items that could be
added to his car. Bob asks, “Well how much stuff would you have to have to be
happy?” Larry says,
“I don’t know. How
much stuff is there?” What
a great point. There is
always more––more money to make, more stuff to buy.
And once the love of money and the love of stuff take over, a
person always wants more.
Please listen to these words from the Christian
writer, Mark Buchanan, in the magazine Christianity
Today:
I belong to the Cult of the Next
Thing. It’s dangerously
easy to get enlisted. It
happens by default––not by choosing the cult, but by failing to
resist it.
The Cult of the Next Thing is
consumerism cast in religious terms.
It has its own litany of sacred terms:
more, you deserve it,
new, faster, cleaner, brighter.
It has its own preachers, evangelists, prophets, and apostles:
ad men, pitchmen, celebrity sponsors.
It has, of course, its own shrines, chapels, temples, meccas:
malls, superstores, club warehouses.
It has its own sacraments:
credit and debit cards. It
has its own ecstatic experiences:
the spending spree.
The Cult of the Next Thing’s
central message proclaims, “Crave and spend, for the Kingdom of
Stuff is here.”
God calls us to freedom from the Cult of the
Next Thing. God calls us
to freedom from all of the powers that distort and warp our world.
God calls us to forsake the American dream of more money and
more stuff. God calls us
to abundant life in Jesus, an abundant life focused upon the spiritual
not the material.
Let’s resist the mantra of our day:
“more money, more stuff; more money, more stuff; more money,
more stuff.” Let’s
take up instead a Christian mantra:
“more faith, more hope, more love.”
And, since most of us already have lots of money and lots of
stuff, let’s show our faith, our hope, and our love by the generous
and compassionate uses to which we put our money and our stuff.
Next weekend is a “more money and more stuff”
kind of weekend in our nation. People
do Christmas shopping with a zeal that Christians should reserve for
their devotion to God. Please
do not spoil the power of Christmas to focus us upon the birth of
Jesus. Please make Jesus
the Lord of your shopping, the Lord of your family’s holiday
celebration.
Let’s Pray.
Lord God, please give us deliverance from the American focus
upon more money and more stuff. Please
cause us to focus instead on faith, hope, and love.
Please cause us to love You
with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Please cause us to love others as Jesus loves us.
Please cause us to resist the distractions of all the glittery
goods that are constantly paraded before us.
May we really love Jesus more than anything. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
If you are here this morning, are not a
Christian, and are trying to come to know God, then you could not have
come on a better Sunday. Through
our lesson this morning, you have heard of the focus that God desires
for our lives. You have
heard a message of freedom from what is likely the most common
addiction in our nation.
God frees from addiction by the power of the Holy
Spirit. God gives that
Holy Spirit freely to all who come to God’s Son Jesus Christ in
faith.
It is easy to come to Jesus. Just repent of your sins, confess your faith in Jesus, and be
baptized into the saving death and resurrection of our Lord.
Please come. Please come now, as we stand and sing.
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