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    Oct 08, 2017

    Financial Foolery

    Passage: Luke 12:13-21

    Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor

    Series: Enough

    Category: Stewardship

    Somewhere along the line, family finances somehow got mixed up. My parents’ generation were pretty good savers, and they didn’t buy something unless they had the money to buy it. My mother handled our finances at home, and she managed to put some extra money on the mortgage every month so that she and dad paid off their house far sooner than the mortgage said they had to. And I don’t remember ever feeling like we didn’t have enough.

    Things are definitely different today. Our perspective has chang

    ed. Our daughter is a VSC. Do you know what that is? She’s a Very Smart Cookie.

    She teaches advanced placement math – you know, like Calculus and advanced algebra. Her students got the highest scores on the standardized Algebra 2 test in the county last year, and her AP kids get great marks on their advanced placement exams.

    She makes sure that her students make practical application of the higher math she teaches – every day application, including things like how math plays into baseball and what it really costs to buy a home through mortgaging. I’m not telling you this to brag about her but to make a significant point.

    Yet, when our daughter went to buy her first house, she very nearly made a terrible mistake. She wanted to handle her first really big adult purchase on her own. She found a realtor, and he seemed like a really great guy. But it was 2007 or 2008 – anyone hearing alarm bells ringing?? When she found the house she was pretty sure she was going to buy, I asked her if she wanted some help negotiating or just understanding all of the process, and she said she really wanted to handle it, so I said something like, “I know you can do this. There’s just one thing I think you need to know…” And I told her about interest-only mortgages which were all the rage at the time.

    Remember those? A loan that, essentially, you didn’t pay back – at least for a very long time. Realtors thought they were the best thing to come along ever! Erin asked why I was nervous about them. My VSC daughter had no idea that the principal would not be paid back on a regular basis because of the way the deal had been presented to her – thus adding to the lifetime cost and length of time before she actually owned her home.

    In his book, Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity, Adam Hamilton says that Americans have slid into thinking that “the American Dream has to do with a subconscious desire for achieving success and satisfying the desire for material possessions.” We have fallen into pursuing “more than what we have” and “[measuring] our success by the stuff that we possess.”

    We all know now that the kind of financial foolery Erin ran into was just one symptom of an economy run amuck. But sometimes I wonder if we have really examined our personal financial practices to see how we see the use of money and credit from a faith perspective. Affluenza is a word now in the dictionary, coined by PBS for a show of the same name. It is defined this way:

    Affluenza, n. 1. The bloated, sluggish, and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste, and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.

    We are surrounded by it. We are immersed in it. And it is a problem that is deep within us – it’s a problem of our human nature that reflects our temptation to sin.

    Did you ever stop to think that 3 of what the Bible calls the seven deadly sins are related to overconsumption? Envy, greed and gluttony. We want more – some of us to the point of buying just to have. Why buy 1 when we can buy 100? There is a huge industry that has grown up because of our desire for more. Self-storage, all the tv shows on hoarding, horrified relatives finding that Aunt Matilda hasn’t invited them in for the last few years because the house is so full there is no room for guests – she can hardly walk through the dining room herself.

    Consumption is not all wrong – or even inherently wrong. It becomes wrong and problematic when that is what controls us – when we surrender to the temptation.

    The thing is that when we are being controlled by our baser desires to consume, when our debt gets out of control, when we dread those calls from bill collectors, we are not focused on the things of God – the call of God – the abundant life that Jesus came to bring us. Jesus said,

    What do you profit if you gain the whole world and forfeit your soul? (Mark 8:36)

    And Paul wrote to Timothy saying,

    Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:10b)

    So, what does this mean for us? Should we walk around feeling guilty and ashamed? Give up? Surrender to the baggage?

    We need a change of heart. And I would guess that most of us need a change of heart to one degree or another when it comes to consumption. My personal struggle has always been with a bigger house – big enough to entertain big groups of people. And of course now I am beginning to think about how to reduce the time and effort required to keep it all spiffed up and ready for company! Still praying on the change my heart needs as I contemplate giving up our long-hoped-for-garage! Adam Hamilton says that before we can “change our habits, get out of debt, get a handle on our money and possessions, live more simply, and give more generously…we must acknowledge that the starting point is a healing transformation in our hearts.”

    Living life as a disciple of Jesus requires frequent examinations of the heart. Human nature often intrudes on our intentions to live God’s way. We have to be willing to even begin that kind of introspection, open to the breath of God to move us in a more faithful direction, humbly ready to hear what the Spirit whispers.

    In the last week or so I’ve begun to see pumpkin memes and stories on Facebook, but I have to tell you that the pumpkin story that has caught my attention the most was in Hamilton’s book:

    One day in a chapel service, some members of my church staff offered a wonderful and compelling illustration of how God works within us. They noted that in some ways human beings are like a pumpkin that is to become a jack-o-lantern. If you’ve ever picked pumpkins from the field, you know that no pumpkin is perfect. The task is to incorporate your pumpkin’s imperfections into the design you carve into it. You look at the pumpkin and begin to imagine what it can be. Next, you draw on it a face of some sort.

    Then you come to the first step in the actual transformation of the pumpkin, which also is the messiest. You open it up, and you begin to scoop out all the nasty, slimy. Smelly stuff inside. Then you carve the face of design, which is no doubt a bit painful for the pumpkin. And, ultimately, you replace all of the muck with a light that shines from within.

    Isn’t that the way it works? We don’t really want to do the introspection – mostly because it can be very painful. We don’t want to admit our failings or that we have allowed sin to creep in and alter our behavior. Yet when we allow God to replace the muck with light, that sometimes-elusive abundant life emerges – bright and fresh.

    The key is to remember that life abundant is life free from any form of addiction or oppression or fear. It doesn’t mean that we should never make a fun purchase or go on vacation or treat ourselves from time to time. It means exercising wisdom and restraint as necessary – so we can “live generously and faithfully,” discovering the joy and gifts of simplicity, knowing that we are held by God who loves us and wants the best for us.

     Quotations in this sermon are from Adam Hamilton, Enough:  Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity