2. Do Not Throw Precious Talent Into the Sea

Sermon Week 1

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism spoke often and at great length about money. In his sermon on the topic he outlined three guiding principles:

1. We ought to gain all we can but this it is certain—we ought not to do; we ought not to gain money at the expense of life, nor at the expense of our health.

2. Do not throw precious talent into the sea.

3. Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly saved all you can, then “give all you can.”

John Wesley lived this sermon out by limiting his expenses to what it took to keep his basic needs met while teaching at OxfordUniversity. He was given a salary of thirty pounds a year, which provided a comfortable living for a single man. When first taking the position he enjoyed the money, a huge difference from the poverty he had grown up with. Something happened to change this: Wesley had just finished paying for some pictures for his room when one of the chambermaids came to his door. It was a cold winter day, and he noticed that she had nothing to protect her except a thin lien gown. He reached into his pocket to give her some money to buy a coat but found he had too little left. Immediately the thought struck him that the Lord was not please with the way he had spent his money. He asked himself, “Will thy master say, ‘Well done, good and faithful steward?’ Thou has adorned they walls with the money which might have screened this poor creature from the cold! O justice! O mercy! Are not these pictures the blood of this poor maid?” For the rest of his life, Wesley endeavored to live on his original salary so that the more he made, the more he could give away. Even when his earnings for a 1400 pounds, he lived on the thirty pounds and gave away all the rest. Wesley believed that what should rise is not the Christian’s standard of living, but the standard of giving.

In my grandfather’s dying days we did all that we could to honor his wishes that he not go to the hospital. My father and his brother, along with the nine grandchildren took turns staying with him through the days and nights. We tried to keep up his habits for him. His coffee pot was set up to his specifications...the Borden’s sweetened condensed milk can with it’s specially made lid right where it belonged; his TV shows switched on at the right times and the drapes opened and closed at the appointed hours. My grandfather had some very definite routines. On one of the last nights we were able to keep him at home my brother and I were settling things for the night. We asked him if he needed anything else. My grandfather looked around and everything and ended on our faces and said: “No, I have everything I need.” We knew he was not speaking of any of his things, but of his family.

I offer those two thoughts as we begin our sermon series based on Adam Hamilton’s book, “Enough, Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity.” If you haven’t been able to get the book, there are still copies for $5.00 and they will be available after worship this morning. We will be looking at this book through October 11th and then have a series of small group discussions during the week of the 11th. In the coming weeks you will have an opportunity to sign up for one of the group discussions. First, let me say upfront, I do not believe that we can live as Wesley did. He had no family to support, no children to put through college and economic realities did not change as quickly as they do today. The inflation rate from 1700 to 1800 hundred in England averaged half a percent! ( Our realities are quite different from those in Wesley’s time, but the fundamental thinking he proposed does give us a way to keep perspective on what we tend to accumulate: “what should rise is not the Christian’s standard of living, but the standard of giving.”

Stuff complicates our lives. In the book, Enough, Hamilton talks of the American Dream turning into the American Nightmare. The concept of the American Dream was first proposed by James Truslow Adams in 1931. The American Dream he said is: "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." ( Today the American Dream for many has become the American Nightmare as more and more the dream is interpreted as a dream of accumulating more and more stuff in a culture that screams you can buy your way to happiness. Three observations: One--An August 16th article in the New York Times reported on believers getting rich. “Onstage and before thousands of believers weighed down by dept and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of ‘prosperity gospel’ preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God. Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds. ‘God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,’ preached Mrs. Copland. ( Two—just down the street from us there is a store that advertises to our “stuff addiction.” Fittingly it is called The Shoe Addict and its slogan is—all the stuff you just gotta have. Third—as we attended the 9/11 observances at Ground Zero I couldn’t help but notice the latest Kenneth Cole ads that urged people to buy more stuff, by saying to do so was patriotic for to buy would stimulate our economy. His ads say: “American needs you to buy,” and on his designer bags: “I pledge allegiance to the bag.”

“For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” That is the question that Jesus poses in the 16th chapter of Matthew. It is a reminder that contrary to the message of the Copeland’s and other prosperity preachers, we can not accumulate enough stuff to save our souls. The more we try to unthinkingly accumulate, the more we get ourselves living beyond our means, the more we are convinced we have to have the latest and greatest…the further we will get from living in Christ and pursuing God’s will. For all of these things will weigh us down and keep us from being open to God’s word and desires for us. The stuff in and of itself is not bad or wrong…it is when it gets in the way of God that it becomes detrimental to our souls. As I have been reading and living with the concepts in Hamilton’s book over the past couple of months I have found myself being more thoughtful about finances and what I purchase. In the back of the book is a key tag similar to the ones many of us have for grocery stores and the like. That key tag has joined the Foodtown, and Wegeman’s and gym and book store tag on my key chain. This tag is labeled Contentment and I have come to pray its prayer through the day: “Lord, help me to be grateful for what I have, to remember that I don’t need most of what I want, and that joy is found in simplicity and generosity.” If you have read the first chapter of the book you will know the story of Hamilton’s attempt to buy the latest Apple iPhone. That incident has changed the way I am currently making a purchase. Ever since borrowing the Foster’s TomTom last September I really want, and can convince myself that I need a GPS device. After all I do travel around a lot and such a device would come in handy in finding my way to new destinations. And how much fun is it to get the systems to tell you that you are going the wrong way—there is something about hearing “re-calculating,” or when it really feels you have made a gross directional error “turn around at the first opportunity.” I didn’t do anything about purchasing a GPS and have made do with mapquest and old fashioned directions. But, then we went to Kentucky in July and there was the TomTom again. I really, really thought it is time. Enter the story of Hamilton’s attempt to buy an iPhone. It changed how I am going about buying the system. Instead of going right out and purchasing a GPS, I’ve been saving for one. Each day when I have a dollar or two left in my pocket I’ve been putting it aside. In the meantime, old fashioned directions will do. In the month plus that I’ve been doing this I have accumulated $153. I’m getting there… Yes, it is a simple thing and I probably could have just outright purchased a GPS. But this process has made me more thoughtful about possessions and how they can get in the way of God.

At the end of each chapter in Enough there are exercises to go through. I encourage you to spend some time doing them as part of your daily devotions. Let them be a kind of spiritual check up for you…helping you find the places you where you are doing well, and celebrating those places, but also helping you find the places where you need to do some work. Remember John Wesley’s encounter with the chambermaid and how he shamefully realized he could not help her? Through your days ask: Where is God calling me to a simpler life so that I have the resources and freedom to be generous when the chambermaids of the world come my way?

The words of a hymn remind us: “Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free, ‘tis the gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gain’d, to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed, to turn, turn will be our delight, till by turning, turning we come out right.”

Sermon Week 2

Psalm 19:7-14

7The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple;

8the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes;

9the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

10More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb.

11Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

12But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.

13Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.

14Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Luke 15:11-16

11Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

Some of us grew up on Aesop’s Fables, a vast collection of short tales reportedly written by a Greek slave in the 620 and 560 BCE. In reading the second chapter of Enough I am reminded by this tale: “In a field one summer’s day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the next. ‘Why not come and chat with me,’ said the Grasshopper, ‘instead of toiling and moiling in that way?’ ‘I am helping to lay up food for the winter,’ said the Ant, ‘and recommend you do the same’ ‘Why bother about winter?’ said the Grasshopper, ‘we have got plenty of food at present.’ But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food, and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.”

In Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory we meet Veruca Salt. She has grown up getting everything she wants, as soon as she wants it. She gets her golden ticket to visit the chocolate factory because her father shuts down production in one of his factories so his workers can open Wonka bars until they find a golden ticket. In the chocolate factory her spoiled greed catches up with her—as, depending on which version you are watching or reading, Veruca demands to have the golden egg laying geese or a pet squirrel from the nut room...and after being told she can’t have one, her temper tantrum sends her down the garbage shoot.

“Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.”

In the parable of the prodigal son, we find both the Grasshopper and Veruca Salt—live only for the moment and I want it and I want it now! We live in a society that fosters the idea that we are here to consume and to consume as much as we can, a society that seems to support the grasshoppers and Veruca’s...we have to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. Our culture tells us in effect that our life purpose is acquisition and the more the better...and in many ways we have allowed culture to dictate our habits in this area. We have become a prodigal people.

The second chapter of our study book Enough calls us to think about this issue from the perspective of who we are as God’s people, what our calling as God’s people is about, how we live as the people who have accepted the call to follow Jesus. From the very beginning we are told what our purpose is. As the story of creation is recorded in Genesis God gives us the responsibility to care for all that God made. That responsibility needs to filter through how and what we acquire and consume. As a congregation we are seriously committed to this God given responsibility—a commitment that has led the leadership of the church to become the first United Methodist congregation to be accepted into the Green Faith certification process. In the theological statement I wrote for this process we are reminded of our God-created responsibility: In the beginning God spoke and all that is was called into being. Out of the void, out of chaos creation happened. The book of Genesis records this creation in two different stories, one a story about the goodness of all creation, the second a story of brokenness. This brokenness is told through the story of Adam and Eve. God created human beings and gave us power over all creation. This is a power, I believe, that calls us to be keepers of God’s creation in ways that continue the goodness that God saw in creation.

The church is the body of Christ, and as such we are charged with living in ways that show others God’s love and power. A part of this is how we treat the created order. How we care for the environment, the decisions we make about what we will use, what we will consume are statements on how well we live out the mandate found in the first story of creation.

As a part of our task we acknowledge our failures, finding our story in the brokenness of Adam and Eve’s experiences. We admit to participating in the destruction of our environment, overusing resources, and not caring for things as well as we should.

The United Methodist Church of Red Bank has pledged to become a Green Faith congregation. We will strive to take seriously God’s charge to humanity that was begun in creation. We will acknowledge the ways we have participated in the bringing about the current state of our environment. With God’s help we will work towards reversing such destructive habits and patterns not only at an individual level, but also on systemic levels.