When Dreams Become Nightmares
I’d like to open this sermon series on ENOUGH by telling you that these thoughts and ideas come from Reverend Adam Hamilton. He created a Stewardship series called “Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity.” That is the resource I’m leaning on for this month. I must also qualify this sermon series by telling you that I have no authority on the issue of Enough. The Boegli’s struggle with savings, credit, debt and all those things that we’ll be addressing in this series, so I want you to know that I am preaching to myself as much as I am preaching to all of you.
The founders of our country had one idea for the American Dream. It was about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That didn’t necessarily mean what it means today. We think about other dreams, lofty dreams and we can remember what is inscribed in the statue of liberty, or the Gettysburg address or the dreams of Martin Luther King on the steps of the capital. But that’s not the American dream for most of us. For most of us the American Dream is the opportunity to pursue more, to gain more than we have, to meet success and success is measured by the stuff we possess.
For many of you, when you were growing up, your family’s American Dream may have been to own your own home. And that may have been a 1300 square foot house with a one-car garage. That was a big deal. But 30 years after the 1950’s we progressed to the American Dream being a 2,000 square foot house with a two-car garage. Today the average home is 2400 square feet with a three car garage. And that’s not even enough. Even though our homes are twice as big as they were in the 1950’s we still don’t have enough room for our stuff. So one of the growth areas in the United States are storage units. We now have 1.9 billion square feet of storage units to keep all the stuff we can’t fit in our 2400 foot house and three car garage. This is now what the American Dream looks like.
So the American Dream has been fueled by two different diseases and two kinds of social spiritual illnesses. The first is:
Affluenza – ever hear of that?
Affluenza is the constant need for more and bigger and better stuff. It is the desire to acquire, and most of us have been infected by this virus to some degree.
The second illness that’s related to this is called:
Credit-itis
Credit-itis is an illness that is brought on by the opportunity to buy now and pay later, and it feeds on our desire for instant gratification.
Now when I was a kid, I remember my mom taking me to the store to buy school clothes and coats for the next year. We’d try everything on in the early summer, but we didn’t take them home that day. My mother put them on what was called “lay away.” And then months later when school was underway and fall was getting cooler and cooler, my mom would make the last payment for those coats and clothes and bring them home, fully paid for. Do you think our kids and grandkids know what lay-away is? What an odd idea, to save up over time, and pay for something in full before you took it home.
Now we have credit cards. And you know there’s some things that money can’t buy, but for everything else, there’s……MASTERCARD.
- Average credit card debt in America in 1990 was around $3,000. Today it’s over $9,000. Now that takes into consideration all the people who pay off their debt right away, so really more people really struggle with 20, 30, 40 thousand dollars in credit card debt. Some even more than that.
- Credit-itis is not limited to purchases made with credit cards; it extends to car loans, mortgages, and other loans. The life of the average car loan and home mortgage continues to increase. For example, the way we could afford our new car with 90,000 miles on it was to take out a 7-year loan on it. Our last Suburu is 13 years old and still in great condition so we gave it to Magen. We are assuming our current Subaru will last at least that long. Bottom line is that our mortgages and car loans continue to increase while the average American’s savings rate continues to decline. Ken and I are no exception.
I’m almost done with all this happy news. Let’s touch on savings. In 1983, when I graduated from high school the average American spent 89.5 % of their income. That left 10.5% for savings.
Last year, the average American spent over 1 % of their income leaving them a negative 1% for savings. Nothing left for savings. What about our home equity loans? No took those out already. What about our activity in the stock market? Nope, none of that. What about our 401 K? Not for us, Ken and I cashed some of that out too.
Now I’m sure some of you are thinking, ‘you know Susan, that’s not me. Our mortgage is paid, we have a 0 balance on our cards, our retirement money keeps us living the life we imagined.’ I’m so glad. What blessed freedom. But you know, at the end of the year, when you’re doing your taxes and you see all your income for the year, do you ever ask, “Where did all this money go?”
There Is a Spiritual Issue Beneath the Surface of Affluenza and Credit-itis.
Our souls were created in the image of God, but they have been distorted. We were meant to desire God, but we have turned that desire toward possessions. We were meant to find our security in God, but we find it in amassing wealth. We were meant to love people, but instead we compete with them. We were meant to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, but we busy ourselves with pursuing money and things. We were meant to be generous and to share with those in need, but we selfishly hoard our resources for ourselves. There is a sinful or what I prefer to call a broken nature within us.
What Hamilton refers to as the Devil, I refer to as some kind of evil force whose name is “temptation.”
Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). What’s the thief who will destroy us? Could it be the pursuit of the American Dream—to keep up with the Joneses, borrow against our futures, enjoy more than we can afford, and indulge ourselves. By doing that, we will be robbed of joy, we will be made slaves, and we will be kept from doing God’s will.
Do you remember Jesus’ parable about the sower of the seed, and that’s God scattering seed, scattering the good news of how to live a happy joyous and free life. Some of the seeds fell on hard soil and the birds came and got it. Some of the seed fell on fertile but shallow soil and the seeds couldn’t take root and the sun dried the growth and it wilted and died. The faith wasn’t deep enough for the seed to take root. And then some of the seeds fell on good rich soil but was surrounded by weeds and thorns. And this is what Jesus says about this: “As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear God’s Word, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.”
God has a plan for our lives and it is to be fruitful. That we have the chance to do God’s Kingdom work and that we all live into His will for our life. But our spiritual life remains immature and unfruitful so long as we’re pursuing this American Dream as our culture tells us to.
Now, although we receive a changed heart when we accept Christ, in a sense we need a heart change every morning. Each morning we should get down on our knees and say, “Lord, help me to be the person you want me to be today. Take away the desires that shouldn’t be there, and help me be single-minded in my focus and my pursuit of you.” As we do this, God comes and cleanses us from the inside out, purifying our hearts.
In closing , Christ works in us as we seek first his kingdom and strive to do his will. As this happens, we begin to sense a higher calling—a calling to simplicity and faithfulness and generosity. We begin to look at ways we can make a difference with our time and talents and resources. By pursuing good financial practices, we free ourselves from debt so that we are able to be in mission to the world. A key part of finding financial and spiritual freedom is found in simplicity and in exercising restraint. Adam Hamilton lists these ways to be happy, joyous and free:
- With the help of God we simplify our lives and silence the voices constantly telling us we need more
- With the help of God we live counter-culturally by living below, not above, our means
- With the help of God we build into our budgets the money to buy with cash instead of credit
- With the help of God we build into our budgets what we need to be able to live generously and faithfully
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to seriously ponder these ideas from Pastor Adam and reflect on how we Boegli’s can free ourselves from the evils of the American Dream as it’s understood today.
Will you pray with me? Just sit with your hands on your lap, open palms, eyes closed and quietly, under your breath, repeat this prayer:
Change my heart o God,
Clean me out inside
Make me new
Heal my desires
Help me to hold my possessions loosely
Help me to love you
Teach me simplicity
Teach me generosity
And help me have joy.
I offer my life to you
In Jesus’ Name.
Amen.