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On Confusing
Affluence With Abundance
by Reverend Rich Smith
October 15, 2006
Mark 10:17-31
If your email is like mine, you get a lot of spam –
most recently a lot f hot stock tips. I happened to catch the headline
on one before I deleted it...
“Return of the Yuppie! Soaring stocks, booming profits, fat cat
bonuses, insider trading... and a champagne shortage in the Square
Mile...The Roaring 80s of the stock market are staging a comeback and
the good times are back for investors! Click here to discover 5 'Bull
Market Beauty Shares' TODAY!”
“Return of the Yuppie” – are they back, or did they ever really go
away? I guess Yuppies -- the word was coined in 1983 and stands for
Young Urban Professionals -- are a hearty breed, and they do not go
away easily – even though they are not so young anymore, or urban,
having moved largely to the suburbs, or even the country. Now, even
though I fit the demographics, I am not a Yuppie, never have been, nor
do I even know anyone who will admit to being a Yuppie. But I know
they're out there.
Do you recall "The Yuppie's Prayer?"
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray my Cuisinart to keep
I pray my stocks are on the rise,
And that my analyst is wise,
That all the wine I sip is white,
And that my hot tub's watertight,
That racquetball won't get too tough,
That all my sushi's fresh enough.
I pray that my cell phone still works,
That my career won't lose it's perks,
My microwave won't radiate,
My condo won't depreciate.
I pray my health club doesn't close
And that my money market grows.
If I go broke before I wake,
I pray my Lexus they won't take.
That's all.....for now.
Maybe that's why I can't find anyone who will admit to being a Yuppie,
or having been one. There does seem to be a rather one-sided obsession
with materialism, and Yuppies are people who grew up in the sixties and
carry with them at least some remnant of social conscience and
anti-materialistic values. But as Rabbi Harold Kushner says, "The only
remaining symbol of their rejection of their parents' comfortable
lifestyles would seem to be a preference for stick shifts in their cars
instead of automatic transmissions."
If none of us in my generation will admit to being Yuppies, there is
surely something in us that secretly desires to be one. Even if only a
few of us actually earn enough money to live the Yuppie lifestyle --
characterized by small-but-fancy foreign cars, designer jeans and
designer fruit (kiwi), electronic gadgetry, condos, status -- we'd all
secretly like to try. Yuppies are really just most affluent slice of
the baby boom generation -- those of us between 44 and 60 -- who would
all like to be enjoy the fruits of the good life.
Let me remind you a little bit about my generation. We are the
generation born immediately after World War II, but if you say "the
war", we think you mean Vietnam, or Iraq, which affects us very
differently than "the war" -- WW II -- affected our parents. When we
were born, TV was already a part of American life, and we can't imagine
what it would be like to be without it, and have spent thousands of
hours prostrate before it, like couch potatoes. It has expanded our
world, and also dulled our creativity. In fact we have grown up
surrounded by all sorts of technologies our parents couldn't even
imagine, and have come to rely on food processors, microwave ovens,
stereos, VCRs, computers, faxes and cell phones. We are the generation
that has grown up in the nuclear age. The possibility of near instant
destruction of ourselves and all life on earth has been with us since
birth; and while it has mitigated recently, the weapons are still
there, and nuclear terrorism remains a distinct threat, which is why
what happens in Iran and North Korea is so significant. We have been
part of the sexual revolution -- from the advent of "the pill" to the
advent of AIDS. We have grown up, most of us, with the idea that women
and men are equal, and that sex-role stereotyping is outdated,
something the next generation seems to take for granted. Those of us
who are fathers have been present in the delivery rooms when our
children were born; though thanks to in-vitro fertilization and
surrogate mothers, we haven't always been present when they have been
conceived.
We are the generation that has been obsessed with retaining our youth,
sometimes refusing to grow up – Mick Jagger us our role model, and we
intend to rock and roll right to our graves! We hope that won’t be for
a long time yet, and have become exceedingly health conscious. We're
giving up smoking, we're eating whole wheat and tofu, drinking less,
and exercising more than ever. We've had to do that as our jobs have
become more and more sedentary and labor saving devices have made
homemaking less strenuous.
We are the generation in which the stigma of divorce has been virtually
erased. We are part of family groupings that include children of
previous marriages, ex in-laws and part time children. For some the
approach has been to have a child, to move in together, and finally, to
get married!
We do not trust institutions. We are not joiners -- unless we join the
health club. We are wary of big government and big business, of
institutions in general, including the church – though we try to send
our kids, and as we age, religion seems more and more like a good idea,
though we usually describe it as spirituality, not religion. We are in
general economically conservative, socially liberal, and
environmentally conscious, and thus neither major political party fits
us particularly well.
But all of these pale alongside the one characteristic that most
describes us: affluence. We have grown up with it. We are saturated
with it. When someone talks about the "great depression" we think it's
something that with proper medication, they'll get over. We'll, we do
seem to recall our grandparents talking about it -- it caused them to
do irrational things like saving money and refusing to purchase things
they could well afford and would enjoy. But we who have always known
affluence believe in instant gratification: if you can't afford to pay
cash, buy it anyway. You can pay for it later. "Scrimp and save" is not
a part of our vocabulary. We cannot remember a time when our basic
needs were not met. But by the same token, neither can we remember a
time when all of our "wants" were met. The more we have, it seems, the
more we want. That’s why most of us, no matter what our income, think
that if we just had 20% more, life would be easy. I’m not so sure. We
bought our first VCR in 1984, and it served us well...for about three
years. I’ve lost count how many we’ve gone through, each one more
sophisticated than the one before, and now they’re all obsolete anyway,
so we have DVD players and TIVO. I don’t yet have a Blackberry, but I
am on my sixth computer – the latest one has a GPS program and receiver
to keep me from getting lost, and can connect to the Internet through
my cell-phone just about anywhere! I couldn’t live without it! (I am
not bragging, mind you, but making a confession!) You see, we've been
brought up to believe that we can have it all, and we can have it all
now.
This may seem a bit ironic, since we were part of such tremendous
upheaval of the sixties, which was supposed to include a rejection of
materialism and narcissistic values. Tune in, turn off, and drop out,
was one way it went. Others joined the Peace Corps, or worked in
anti-poverty programs, or marched for civil rights. But even Jerry
Rubin became a Wall Street stock analyst before he died, and Jane Fonda
made a fortune selling work-out tapes.
Now while much of what I have said about the forces that have shaped my
generation is new, the idolatry of wealth, the lure of greed, the power
of materialism is as old as human history. It is possible that the
first Yuppie was Adam, sitting there in the splendor of the Garden of
Eden when he had it all, but wanted more, and that's what got him into
trouble. He took a bite of the original designer fruit, and it was all
down hill from there. And ever since, materialism has been the enemy of
the human soul. "Affluenza", as Tony Campollo calls it.
Jesus saw this very clearly, and at least one third of the things he
said had to do with wealth. "What does it profit you to gain the whole
world, but lose your soul?" he asked. The poor, he said, were blessed,
for they were not burdened down by those riches that would keep them
from the kingdom of heaven. And in today's lesson, he observed that it
would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for
a rich person to enter God's realm. Graphic hyperbole, to be sure, but
that is so typical of the way Jesus spoke.
That comment was occasioned by Jesus' encounter with what could be
described as a Yuppie of his day. He is often called "the rich young
ruler", a kind of blending of the various Gospel accounts of the story.
It is clear he is a man of great wealth. He comes to Jesus and asks,
"Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus' first response
is to remind him of the law: Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't
steal, don't cheat, don't lie, honor your parents. The young man
replies, "We'll I've observed all that, but I'm still not sure." To
which Jesus responds: "You're right. There's still one thing left to
do: go, sell all you own, give the money to the poor, and then come
follow me." By all accounts, this did not go over with the young man
very well. He became sad, maybe even suffered a "great depression" of
his own, for he was very rich.
"How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"
commented Jesus. "Indeed, 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." Or as Clarence Jordan put it, "It's easier for a pig to go
through a knothole...."
Jesus could see that this man of power and affluence had made money his
god. Yet even everything he had was not enough, or else he would not
have made the effort to seek Jesus out. He had it all, and yet he must
have known deep down that maybe he didn't have anything at all. He had
followed the rules, he had played the game, but somehow he felt
dissatisfied. So when he asked Jesus what more he must do, if he were
really to "have it all", he got an answer he did not expect. He was
told that his money, his affluence, his trappings of wealth -- his
first century equivalents of his 401k, DVDs, his condo, his microwave,
his BMW, his espresso machine and iPod -- would all have to go. They
were keeping him from eternal life, and he couldn’t purchase that with
his American Express Card. And so he went away sad. He didn't want to
give it up. Nor do we!
It reminds me of the story of W.C. Fields on what he thinks may well be
his deathbed. When his doctor comes in to see him, he finds the old
reprobate leafing furiously through a huge Bible. Surprised as such a
sign of piety in so notoriously profane a fellow as Fields, the
physician asks, "What are you looking for?" Replies Fields, "Loopholes!"
On this issue, I'd sure like to find one, because there's a lot that I
don't want to give up. Maybe it's a loophole to assume that Jesus isn’t
talking about me but someone who makes more money that I do. Or to
suggest that Jesus' words are not meant to be taken literally, that he
often said things to shock people, make them think, see new
possibilities for their lives. Maybe it's a loophole to note that in
Jesus' time wealth was seen as a sign of God's favor, and he was trying
to subvert that notion. Maybe it's a loophole to point out that Jesus
had wealthy friends, and women among his disciples who financed his
ministry, and that he didn't tell everyone with wealth to give it all
up. Maybe it's a loophole to recall how much good can be done with
money, as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Bono are showing us, as
well as Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yumus and his Grameen Bank
which has pioneered the idea of “micro-credit.” (This by the way is
what one of our own members, Terry Provance, does with his organization
known as Oikocredit.) After all, the Bible never says that money itself
is evil; rather it's how we get it, and how we use it, and what place
it occupies in our system of values that counts.
In other words, wealth itself is not good or bad, but it can be
dangerous. It can easily become --not something we possess -- but
something that possesses us.
So there may be a loophole, but it's not very big! It's about as big as
the needle's eye that the camel couldn't get through. In the end we
have to face the question: do you possess you possessions, or do they
possess you?
Will Campbell, a Southern preacher and prophet of our own time, once
spoke at a minister's conference where he expounded on the costs and
joys of being a follower of Jesus, of the things like power and
prestige and status that one would be called upon to release if one
were to live the Gospel. And someone like me asked him: how could you
possibly follow Jesus' teachings and still be a successful minister?
Campbell thought for a moment and replied: Well, you know, Jesus didn't
offer his teachings to successful young ministers. He gave them to his
disciples! The question is: do we choose to be disciples?
What we have chosen is a life of affluence, but in return have
forfeited the abundant life. And our very souls are at stake.
What would it mean to make a different choice, to follow Jesus, and
choose the abundant life?
Following Jesus means being committed to something or someone larger
than ourselves. It means turning from the self-serve islands we create
for ourselves and serving the needs of others. As Albert Schweitzer
said, "Everyone must work to live, but the purpose of life is to serve,
to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we
ourselves become human beings."
But that is something that my generation has not learned very well,
that the Yuppies among us have not grasped. As the New Yorker cartoon
shows a very successful man in a very posh club, lifting his glass to
propose a toast: “Here’s to the rich, the very rich, the filthy rich.
Let’s see.... have I left anyone out?”
To follow Jesus and enter upon the abundant life that he promises is to
leave no one out, and to give up being possessed by ones possessions,
to renounce the pursuit of pleasure or money as one's chief goal in
life, to turn from self-serve to other-serve, to make a commitment to
something or someone larger than yourself. Following Jesus means
turning from the false idol of self and towards one another. It means
recovering a "religious sensibility" which does not mean more religion,
or piety or church-going (necessarily), but rather recognizing your
connectedness to all of life and to a transcendent reality, something
beyond this life, and living in a way that witnesses to that.
A few years ago we visited the incredible Vanderbilt estate, just
outside of Asheville, North Carolina, a place of such amazing opulence.
Gazing over the acres and acres of lavishly landscaped grounds, I
thought to myself, "Just what God would have done, if he'd had the
money!"
Of course I later thought better of it. What God would have done, God
did! God raised up a man from our own midst, Jesus, in whose words we
are introduced to ourselves and the questions we ought to ask
ourselves. What have we done with our wealth? What do we suppose is our
true wealth? Is it a life of affluence, or the abundant life we seek?
It may just be that in the answers to those questions is Good News for
the Yuppie that still lurks in all of us!
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
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