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Foundry United Rev. |
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Sermon Series: The Economics of Jesus “Bookkeeping in Heaven” Sunday, January 10,
2010 |
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Rev. |
I want to
share with you some very good news. I got a letter this week from Dr.
Clarence Carter who is the Director of the Department of Human Services here
in the District. You know that one of our goals here at Foundry is to end
chronic homelessness in Washington by 2014.
Dr. Carter wrote
to express his appreciation for our role in advocating for federal funding
for permanent supportive housing in DC.
In the letter
he says that we are on target to create enough permanent supportive housing
that we will achieve a 49% reduction in chronic homelessness by the end of
next year, 2011.
I think this
is just amazing. I want to say a word of thanks to our DC Department of Human
Services, Dr. Carter, Laura Zeilinger, who heads up
the permanent supportive housing initiative and whom we have honored here,
Jack Evans, our Council member, our Foundry WIN team and Walk-in Mission
volunteers, Sandwich 1000+, everybody who is part of homeless ministries,
and, of course, Jana Meyer. This is just amazing.
Breakthroughs
happen. This is what I want us to remember, when the Spirit moves, and people
open to the Spirit move with the Spirit, breakthroughs happen.
We are
beginning a new series on the Economics of Jesus. We have just a few minutes
to start to get into it today.
Jesus lived in
a money economy. Maybe more people lived off of the economic grid than today,
but money was pretty much a part of everybody’s life even then. It is my
guess that the Christ could not have come until there was a money economy,
but don’t quote me on that. According to
the Gospels, Jesus and his disciples had a treasury. They had a treasurer
(John 12:16). They had donors, mostly women, who supported them (Luke 2:3).
They lived and
participated in a money economy.
Jesus seems to
have owned no real estate. When Jesus is quoted in Matthew and Luke as
saying, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son
of Man has nowhere to lay his head," this is interpreted as meaning that
Jesus had no home (Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58). But at least some of his disciples
did own homes. Mark 1:29 says that Simon Peter and Andrew owned a home.
Jesus did own
what may have been an expensive robe. It was valuable enough that the
soldiers gambled to see who would get it after he was executed (John
19:23-4).
And Jesus did
like parties. He was not an ascetic. The Gospels tell about him attending a
lot of parties and some people called him “a glutton and a drunkard” (Matt.
11:19; Luke 7:34).
Jesus told
parables that were pretty sophisticated economically. They sometimes sound
pretty capitalistic. You remember the parable of the talents? Three servants
were given money to manage by their master. Two of them are rewarded for
investing in the stock market while a third was punished for putting the
money in a no-interest account (Matt. 25:13-23). Jesus tells some amazing economic parables.
Listen to this one: There’s a manager who is
about to be fired by the owner of the business. So the manager settles the
loans people owe the owner for pennies on the dollar, so that he will have
people who owe him when he is unemployed. The owner praises the manager for
his shrewdness and the point of the parable seems to be that we ought to use
our financial resources in this life so that we will make friends who will
vouch for us when the decision is made as to whether we get into heaven or
not (Luke 16:3-13).
Jesus talked
about money and economics a lot, but reading the Gospels and understanding
the way Jesus thought about money is no simple task. I hope you will wrestle
with the Gospels on the topic of money with me between now and Lent.
One of my
favorite teachings of Jesus about money is Matthew 6:19-21. Do not store
up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where
thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and
steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Wherever you
invest yourself, your affections will follow. “Where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also.” What you spend your resources and money on, is what
you will come to care about.
I heard Al
Gore get this wrong in a presidential debate once. He said, “My faith
tradition teaches, wherever your heart is, there your treasure will be also.”
That’s the way
you’d think it would be. We spend our money on what we care about, but Jesus
says the exact opposite. He says we come to care about what we spend our
money on.
You want to
own a home? I lived in parsonages for many years and really wanted to own a
home and now I do. How many know that it is possible for the home you wanted
to own to come to own you?
You want
savings. Savings, it seems to me, are a good thing. John Wesley thought so.
But our desire to have more and more savings can come to own us.
So Jesus says,
“Do not accumulate houses and stock and bonds on earth where everything
eventually perishes but in heaven where things are eternal.” The standard
interpretation of this is that we should use our money to do good deeds so
that we will get points in heaven. This is part of the meaning, I suppose.
But when Jesus
talked about heaven, he wasn’t just talking about where we go when we die. He
was talking about the quality of life on earth God wants us to have. Heaven
is wherever and whenever we are living the way God wants us to live.
I think what
Jesus was really suggesting is that we should invest ourselves in those
things that we can not buy: Work we love to do. People. Beauty. Music. Art.
Caring. Justice.
All these
things are eternal. They never die.
I don’t think
it is so much about money exactly. Some people can do the work they love and
earn lots of money. Having lots of money has its own problems, however. More
of us think we’d like to be rich than would enjoy it if it happened to us.
What I think
Jesus is talking about is investing ourselves into intangibles that are
eternal. If we invest ourselves into the work we love for its own sake, into
people, friends, children, music, beauty, art, compassion, justice, joy,
whatever it is that fulfills us and that we love, they will shape our hearts…
and we will come to love things that are eternal more than things that are
perishable.
People,
friends, children, music, beauty, art, compassion, justice, joy—these are
things that will still be there when the bubble busts. You can’t buy
love. This is one of the truths of baptism. You not only don’t need to buy
God’s love or anybody else’s; you can’t do it.
We invite you
to remember your baptism this morning and be thankful.
www.foundryumc.org |
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