Luke 12:13-34

We live in interesting times of credit crunch and economic recession. Money and the economy and business and unemployment issues are on our news daily and we are not quite sure where everything is going at the moment. One thing seems to be sure and that is that we could not go on growing and spending and accumulating at the levels we were doing it – it was unsustainable and so we had a crash. The question is what will be a sustainable level of growth? No-one it seems to me has been attempting to ask this question never mind answer it.  I think the bible has something to say here as it does to most of the important issues in life, but before we get there let us look a little bit at this culture of accumulation in which we live today.

In this series we have tried to look at some areas which our culture emphasises and so we have looked at the post-modern mindset, at the relativity of truth, at the growing secular and atheistic mindset, at music and how it pervades so much of life, at the internet and its power over people, at sport, at our need for community where communal life is breaking down in a more individualistic society. We have come to this series asking two questions – how does our culture think on these issues and how can we understand the culture and then engage with the culture in a Christian way. We have said we should not necessarily flee from the culture, nor should we be assimilated into the culture and smothered by it, rather we need to engage critically and even create a counter culture as christians.

Some people have struggled with this series perhaps because they have not seen its relevance – maybe that is because they do not listen to music, or do not go on the internet or play or watch sport or buy the latest fashions, or even engage with non-christians much and have chats about worldviews, but I think we should if we are serious about being evangelists. If we are to be missionaries in our culture we need to understand it. But in this last topic in the series I think we should all see its relevance to our lives. If we are living in western society at all we cannot fail to be touched by the pervasive values of accumulation, consumerism, materialism which surround us every day. If we do not notice it perhaps we have become anaesthetised or have swallowed it wholesale for it is all around us. Our culture is a culture that says you need more things because things make you happier and the more things and the better things you have the happier you will be.  That is the philosophy that is preached at us from when we get up in the morning to when we go to bed at night.

We are faced with advertising everywhere we go – on the radio and TV, on the internet, in our newspapers and magazines, on billboards as we walk down the street. The aim of advertisers is to make discontented with what we have and get us to desire their product on the understanding that we will be happier, more satisfied, more fulfilled as people by having these items. The factories are getting more efficient at producing goods, the cost of production is coming down and they are producing more so they need to sell more. People are buying the goods but instead of using them until they run done or stop working we are increasingly upgrading and buying newer models even though our current model is working fine. In real terms our spending ability has increased over the years, we can buy more with our disposable incomes than we could forty years ago. So we have become a nation of consumers, of accumulators, we buy more stuff either because we covet our neighbours latest gadget or we have been unsettled by the advertisers or we simply have too much money and we need to spend it on something, or of course give it away which is usually the last resort.  A classic example of this is the mobile phone – one of the iconic possessions of our age. Most people it seems to me do not use a mobile phone until it wears out. You are urged to upgrade after a year to the latest model which can do so many things that you don’t actually want to do. Maybe you do want to take photos or listen to music on your phone but actually a camera takes better photos and a CD player will play the music much better. All you want to do is speak and text really. You pay for so much technology that you do not actually need. But the main point is that you upgrade and change even though you do not need to. There are millions of unused mobiles in the world. We could apply the same rule to cars, clothes, shoes – you name it we accumulate it and upgrade not because we need to but because we have been tempted into a state of discontentment with what we have. Also now it costs nearly as much to repair an electrical item as to buy a new one, so we do not get it repaired, we just buy a new one and dump the old one or we store it. We are accumulating so much stuff that we are finding that there is nowhere to put it: self storage facilities have been growing by 30% per year and there are now 300 such depots in Britain alone.  

Kay bought me a book recently called “Affluenza” by Oliver James. It describes the virus which is very prevalent in the western world which began in America and is quickly spreading to all the English speaking world but is spreading to other countries as well. It is based on selfish capitalism which is the religion of the 20th and 21st centuries. Work harder to earn more so that you can buy more to be more happy is the philosophy. The problem with it is that it is fundamentally wrong. All the studies and all the statistics show that the greater the inequality of income distribution within a nation the higher the rate of emotional distress. So a country like America which has some very, very rich people and some very poor people shows high levels of distress. Not only this but statistics from the world health organisation show that the richer the developed nation the more distressed its people are. America is the most distressed nation, it is the most unequal in terms of wealth distribution and the most rich. It has been observed that the more a nation becomes like America and infected with consumerism the more emotionally distressed and dissatisfied the people become.  

In an in-depth study of rich New York stockbrokers almost two thirds were found to be depressed, they had extremely high levels of anxiety and took longer to get to sleep at night, and they showed high levels of de-personalisation – feeling detached from their surroundings. People who are very rich are more susceptible to depression and even suicide. Men and women have basically four needs – the need for security, the need to be loved, the need for significance and the need for autonomy and independence. A certain amount of money can help with security and autonomy but too much money and you start to worry about keeping it safe and you lose some security. A certain amount of money can give you a feeling of significance but a lot of our significance comes from doing a job well or having some form of work which contributes to society or to the family; too much money and you may not need to work and actually you can lose this sense of being significant and contributing to society. Too much money and you actually find that you lose friends rather than gain friends, you lose contact with people that you worked with or grew up with as you move to some mansion which is isolated form others.

A lot of it is to do with balance isn’t it. I wonder do you know the balance and the wisdom of the bible here as we have it in Proverbs 30:8? “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say who is the Lord, or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God”.  Good advice, good balance.

As human beings we have a fundamental choice in our world today – to see ultimate happiness in one of two routes - Having or Being. The western culture promotes the Having route; an inescapable tendency to link who we are with what we have. Our culture preaches that the more we have, the more fulfilled and satisfied and happy we will be. This is the mantra of modern western life. What you have and what you look like is the supreme value for significance. Listen to a journalist who writes this -  “Consumerism was the triumphant winner of the ideological wars of the 20th century, beating out both religion and politics as the path millions of Americans follow to find purpose, meaning, order and transcendent exaltation in their lives. Liberty in this market democracy has, for many, come to mean freedom to buy as much as you can of whatever you wish…”

Our media constantly spew out the lie, and that is what it is, the lie that what we have is more important than what we are. That is the mantra of a consumerist culture. But what Jesus says goes totally in the opposite direction and could not be more clear – in Luke 12:15 he says “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Now who are we going to believe? This is the choice today. We live in a culture that believes and promotes one thing and we say we follow a Lord who says directly the opposite.

Some reckon that when you put Jesus’ sayings together about 15% were directly on money and possessions. That is a high proportion. If I was to follow that model that is a bit like saying that out of the 52 Sundays in a year I should preach 7 Sundays on money and possessions. You see Jesus knew the hold that money and possessions can have on the human heart. As part of the Fall we seem to have a disposition towards accumulation, complexity and distraction. The longer I go on in the Christian life the more I see the need to simplify life and to seek God first and foremost and all the other things will sort themselves out. The Bible says one thing is necessary or needful and that is the nurturing of our relationship with God because when we do that then the other relationships sort themselves out. Being is more important than having. Not that God does not allow us to have, to possess, but he says make sure and get the priority right. Man is a worshipping creature but make sure that you are worshipping the creator and not the created. One is the road to joy the other is the road to idolatry and destruction.

You have to strive for simplicity in our culture because our culture is determined on making life more complicated – but we should personalise it and take responsibility for it and realise that we make life complicated, it’ s about us and it is within our power and our control to simplify and offload possessions and stuff. Our stuff is killing us not freeing us. Our stuff is blocking a truer and better relationship with God and ultimately as I have said it is a worship issue for “where your treasure is there your heart will be also” Lk.12:34. What do we worship, what do we cherish, to what does our heart incline. What is most important to us – Jesus says in Luke 16:15 “What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.” Jesus again says in Lk.16:13 “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

As Christians we live in a culture that is heavily into materialism and we are constantly tempted to give in and go the route of materialism despite what Jesus says here. This is a war zone here and we usually lose, we usually do not fight it. And yet we must because our spirituality is at stake and so is our witness. How can we sing and say that Jesus is the most important thing to us if our behaviour does not seem to echo that. If I spend more on my hobby such as a golf club membership than I do in my giving to God is someone going to conclude that my golf is more important to me? That would be a reasonable conclusion. Our money follows our heart – where our treasure is there our heart is.

Jesus constantly challenged people to be investors, but it was to invest in the unseen not just the seen, to invest in God’s kingdom and God’s ways and God’s projects. He challenges us to stretch ourselves, to stretch our faith and to take risks and to cast ourselves on God rather than the cushion of insurance and savings. Do we believe Jesus when he says that it is hard for the rich to inherit the kingdom?

Jesus follows the parable of the rich fool with parables teaching that we should not be fearful or worried but rather to trust in our heavenly Father. So perhaps we need to let go and give more of our money away rather than hoarding and accumulating a bit like our world. Here we have an opportunity to challenge the culture and live differently to the culture. Are we giving generously to God and are we giving even realistically to him or is his work struggling and suffering?    

There is so much at stake here, perhaps we need to put our money where our mouth is. We can sing about the Lordship of Christ but he says to us prove it, prove how much you say you love me;  test me in this and see if you are generous to me what can happen. If we are to challenge and change this culture here is a good place to start – in simplifying our lives and in taking Jesus more seriously. I fear for many of us we have not just engaged the culture but have been swallowed by the culture hook, line and sinker. Are we materially rich but spiritually poor, have we lost any concept of investing in the kingdom of God and have become as this worldly as the pagans who live next door to us?  Are we storing up treasures in heaven or upon earth? Eternity will supply the answer to that one.   

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