{"id":670,"date":"2010-09-08T18:08:48","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T18:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=670"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:29","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:29","slug":"wealth-and-power-and-the-kingdom-of-god-marilyn-zehr-aug-8-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=670","title":{"rendered":"Wealth and Power and the Kingdom of God – Marilyn Zehr – Aug. 8, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
View Archived Sermons <\/a><\/div>\n
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Luke 12:32-34<\/font><\/font><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n
Our Summer theme as many of you are aware has been Holy Headlines:\u00a0 News and Good news.
I wondered as we approached this theme whether the news as we hear it or read it and the Good news of scripture might be mutually exclusive.\u00a0 If you are an avid \u201cnews junky\u201d you will realize that this is not always the case.\u00a0 A couple of weeks ago I preached a sermon entitled,\u00a0 \u201cwho is my Neighbour?\u201d\u00a0 The Toronto star had a series in it recently exploring interesting neighbour relationships in the GTA some of them not just interesting but inspiring.
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This week I was pleasantly surprised again to find something in the news that seemed to directly illustrate the Good news of the gospel Lectionary text for this week which was read for us by \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..
In our text this week we hear \u201cSell whatever you own and give the money to poorer people, Make purses for yourselves that don\u2019t wear out- treasures that won\u2019t fail you.
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Well, on Wednesday of this week 40 Billionaires pledged to give away half their money.
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Spearheaded by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, The Giving Pledge project aims to recruit the richest of the rich. It\u2019s not a charity itself. Participants simply promise to give at least 50 per cent of their cash to projects of their choosing, during their lifetime or after their deaths.
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I was intrigued and so I went to their website, thegivingpledge.org to see what all of this was about.\u00a0 On that site you will find the pledge letters of those who have chosen to participate.\u00a0 These letters vary significantly in the reasons these wealthy individuals cite for giving away half of their wealth.\u00a0 Apparently Warren Buffet is planning to give away 99 percent of his wealth without compromising the needs or wants of himself or his family.\u00a0 He talks openly about his material wealth and what he thinks of possessions.
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Quote from Warren Buffet, he says,
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Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden. Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.<\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He also admits that his wealth is the result of as he and his family call it \u201cwinning the ovarian lottery\u201d \u2013 the time and place of his birth simply being what they were and he says,<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate’s distribution of long straws is wildly capricious. <\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ultimately he wants to give his wealth to organizations that benefit those who drew shorter straws.<\/font><\/font>
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Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor (who became rich through investing well) \u2013 also on this giving pledge page \u2013 name Saint Francis as their inspiration \u2013 In their letter they remind us that [Saint Francis] stripped himself of his worldly goods (including clothes), identified with animals, and kissed the sores of lepers.\u00a0 Tom and Kat go on to say, \u2028<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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Because what he did came to define him, St. Francis is our epitome of a \u201cto do\u201d kind of guy.\u00a0 While we might struggle to emulate his example in many ways (while keeping our clothes on), we can see that an active life like his \u2013 he spent it famously consoling, understanding, loving, giving, and pardoning — promises the greatest satisfaction. <\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though they are not about to take a similar vow of poverty, they understand there is little point to having more money or possessions than they could ever want or need and wish to leave their kids a different kind of inheritance \u2013 the desire to lead a worthwhile life –\u00a0 a life of doing good things with their resources in fun and constructive ways.
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As\u00a0 I read through several of the pledge letters I was struck by one commonality \u2013 even though many of them acknowledge that their wealth came to them in surprising and unexpected or lucky ways \u2013 right time, right place, right kind of market economy that benefits a few in billions of dollars,
all of them view the resources they have gathered as their own resources to do with as they wish
This is part of their power.\u00a0 They are not only wealthy they are very powerful with a lot of say over vast resources and their use.\u00a0 Power and wealth seem to go hand in hand.\u00a0 I will get back to this issue of wealth and power later in my sermon.
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I read this article online and so I was also able to enjoy reading the comments beneath the article.\u00a0 A few comments lauded the article as good news, but many expressed unconcealed anger at the wealth and power of these individuals, whose companies and investments generated inconceivable amounts of personal wealth through exploitation.\u00a0 One particular comment reads:
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wait a second<\/strong><\/font><\/font>
In the process of doing business you moved work overseas and exploited the workers. You bought businesses up and bankrupted others to gain dominance, you forced people into unemployment countless times\u2026\u2026<\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n


and it goes on.<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

There are also critics who wonder, thoughtfully, who actually will be benefited by this move?\u00a0 Only time will tell.<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

And so this morning, my question is, what do we make of this \u201cnews\u201d in light of the gospel injunction in today\u2019s passage \u201cto sell our possessions and give our money to the poor.\u00a0 Make purses for ourselves that don\u2019t wear out\u2026 where thieves cannot steal and moths cannot destroy. For wherever our treasure is that is where our heart will be also.\u201d <\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

First, I\u2019ll say more about wealth and power.\u00a0 Billionaires are not the only ones with wealth and power.\u00a0 I know that I have wealth and power. Most of us in this room, by virtue of the fact that we live in North America and have a roof over our heads, a job or prospects for a job, enough to eat, friends and family and a social safety n
\net that works at least some of the time and live in a country where war and the ravages of war seem far away, are probably in the top 2 percent of the most wealthy in the world. And like these billionaires, in our society and economy, we have a say in what we plan to do with the resources that we have been given.<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

\u00a0Given.\u00a0<\/strong> The resources we have been given.\u00a0\u00a0 Herein lies the key to everything. <\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

If we read today\u2019s Luke text carefully, we hear, \u201cFear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Abba or father to give <\/strong>you the kingdom.\u00a0 And then it goes on to say sell what you own and give the money to the poor \u2026. But first we have been given<\/strong> the Kingdom. <\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A bit of background to this text: It\u2019s hard to tell in this part of the book of Luke whether we are hearing Jesus\u2019 words to the disciples and crowds or Luke\u2019s words to the community reading his text initially, but either way, if we go back a little bit farther in this chapter, the hearers of this text are being exhorted to beware of greed and anxiety about worldly possessions.\u00a0 Luke records the story of the wealthy farmer who built bigger barns to manage his surplus of produce and then died without being able to take advantage of his wealth.\u00a0 This is how it works with people who accumulate riches for themselves, but are not rich in God,\u201d the text says. Then we hear\u00a0 \u201cdon\u2019t worry about your life \u2013 what you will eat or what you will wear.\u00a0 Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?….\u00a0\u00a0 God knows that you need these things \u2026set your heart and eyes on the Kingdom of God and all these other things will be given to you as well.\u00a0 Fear not little flock, for it has pleased your father to give you the kingdom. (as I wrote this sermon I worried a little about what I should eat for lunch and what I should wear to go out in the evening and I checked my bank account to make sure my bills were paid and and and \u2013 have you ever paid attention to how often we think about the things that in this text we are exhorted not to worry about?)<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But back to the text: First, it has pleased God, I imagine it delighted God, to give us the kingdom. And the Kingdom \u2013 God\u2019s politic and God\u2019s economy\u00a0 – is full of abundance. \u2013 It is, in fact, everything we need. Do we know how counter-cultural these words are?\u00a0 We have been given <\/strong>everything we need.\u00a0 As children of God formed in the mists of time as part of God\u2019s good creation \u2013<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

our life is gift,
the resources of the earth are gift,
our resources of time and love and mercy and grace are all gift.
And our very human failing is to view these gifts as possessions \u2013 to do with as we will\/wish\/want.
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[Indigenous people] understood a cardinal property of gift:\u00a0 whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept. The essential is this: the gift must always move.. \u201cOne man\u2019s gift,\u201d they say, \u201cmust not be another man\u2019s capital.[i]<\/strong>
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In our market economy where one of the foundational principals is to create scarcity or fear of scarcity so that prices will rise, our tendency is to hoard what we have been given.\u00a0 We may call it saving for a rainy day. I have a symbolic example of this tendency in my basement.\u00a0 I have several examples of this in my basement, but I\u2019ll tell you about one of them. There was a time in my life when my children were small, that I had time to piece quilts.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t had time for that since I began studying for my first Masters Degree about 13 years ago.\u00a0 Way back then, I folded up my fabrics, my unfinished pieces, my extra cotton batting and I put them in two dressers that I purchased second hand.\u00a0 Those dressers and fabrics have followed me through three moves and still sit in my basement untouched. I told my mother this summer that soon I would be giving the fabric away.\u00a0 She said, \u201coh no\u201d you\u2019ll get back to it someday.\u00a0 Well, she may be right.\u00a0 My mother is wise, but there is something stronger building in me, a deep need within to stop the holding\/hoarding of things in my basement.\u00a0 Even my eldest son said to me recently, \u201cwhen you look around this basement, it\u2019s as if we have a house in order to store stuff.\u201d\u00a0 My son is also wise.\u00a0 I ask myself, what happens if the fabric and the time I spent making quilts can be viewed as a gift instead of a possession.\u00a0 If it is a gift it has become a gift that has stopped moving?\u00a0 What would it take to get it moving again?\u00a0 I could either use it or give it away.\u00a0 If I give it away, maybe it will come back as a gift another day and maybe it won\u2019t.\u00a0 If it doesn\u2019t, maybe I won\u2019t need it.
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Even though everything is gift, another very human tendency is to claim the power and the right and the autonomy to be the one who decides, me alone, what I\u2019m going to do with \u201cmy\u201d resources.\u00a0 My brother lives in Texas and when he first moved to Texas about 7 years ago,
he converted quickly to support for Republicans and the Bush administration.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t talk about politics in my family of origin any longer.\u00a0 And then my brother chose for ethical reasons to leave the well-paying job that he had and found himself for the first time living without work in the United States with a wife and two young sons and no health insurance. A shift began in his thinking.\u00a0 Shortly after this shift in his thinking, he raised the question of support for Obama\u2019s health care plan in his, Grapevine, Texas, Sunday school class.\u00a0 He was almost \u201cridden out of town,\u201d he told me.\u00a0 \u201cIf you tell the people in my Sunday school class that someone has a need, you can pass the hat and raise more than two thousand dollars in a matter of five minutes, but raise the idea that a 1 percent raise in taxes for everyone could provide millions of people with health care and they think you have two heads.\u201d
What this story raises is the role and responsibility of community in how and where we use our resources.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that in some ways we are much different than the good folks in Grapevine, Texas.\u00a0 We sometimes chaff under our burden of taxes, partly because of our own desire for autonomous generosity and partly because we don\u2019t always approve of where our tax dollars are spent.\u00a0 Even so, it requires a significant shift in thinking if we acknowledge that all of our resources are gifts from God \u2013 our life, and the circumstances that have allowed us to be wealthy.\u00a0 If this is truly so, then maybe the community of God\u2019s people may have some legitimate say in how these gifts move.
We, the members of a North American, Mennonite church are wealthy and powerful people.\u00a0 The Billionaires who are pledging to give away half or more of their wealth are not the only ones.\u00a0 Whatever their motives and fundamental assumptions about their vast wealth, I think their generosity is important to notice.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know where their treasure is, but their hearts are being moved in some way. God has already given us the Kingdom and has delighted to do so \u2013 We have everything we need.
\u00a0What I have hoped to do with my sermon this morning is to open up the question of our resources, how we view them and what implications this has for how they move within and among us.\u00a0 I hope this conversation can and will continue among us.\u00a0 I know that the Adult Education planners are considering something for this theme in the fall.\u00a0 A couple of resources I would like to rec
\nommend for your summer reading if you are interested are Mary Jo Leddy\u2019s Radical Gratitude \u2013 where she discusses our economy\u2019s propensity for creating a culture of perpetual dissatisfaction \u2013 and then moves on in her book to concrete ideas about how we move beyond this enculturation.\u00a0 I have also found helpful Ched Myers writings:\u00a0 in particular The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics and Sabbath Economics:\u00a0 Household Practices.
Let us thank God for knowing what we need and for the delight God takes in Giving <\/strong>us the Kingdom.\u00a0 May this Treasure consume our hearts.
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[i] <\/strong>A quote by Lewis Hyde in: \u201cthe Gift:\u00a0 Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property\u201d quoted in The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics, p.4 by Ched Myers, December 2008.<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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View Archived Sermons \u00a0 Luke 12:32-34 Our Summer theme as many of you are aware has been Holy Headlines:\u00a0 News and Good news.I wondered as we approached this theme whether the news as we hear it or read it and the Good news of scripture might be mutually exclusive.\u00a0 If you are an avid \u201cnews junky\u201d you will realize that this is not always the case.\u00a0 A couple of weeks ago I preached a sermon entitled,\u00a0 \u201cwho is my Neighbour?\u201d\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3998,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/3998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}