Saturday, October 13, 2012

Enough

I learned a new word this week.  Actually it wasn’t a new word, just a new formation, or a new usage.  It was a word I knew that got a make-over, you might say.  I was listening to the radio and there was an expert on Middle Eastern politics and he was being asked about Iran and the situation there.  And he said that “Iran’s influence is tentacular.” 

Tentacular?  OK, I know tentacle, so I guess that is a real word.  It just sounded odd there on the radio.  I was driving so I kept saying it all afternoon.  And now I can’t get it out of my head.  Tentacular.  Kinda worms its way in there, in the crevices of your brain, you know, down the corridors, in the darkened corners, kinda like ... well ...

Maybe it stuck with me because of the passage I’ve been mulling over for this weekend.  I’ve been reading Paul, he kinda gets in your head too, come to think of it.  But he’s talking about stuff that gets in your head, that takes over before you even realize that it does.  Take a look and see if you agree.

1 Timothy 6:6-10   Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment;  7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it;  8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.  9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

This is the summation part of the letter.  Paul has been writing to Timothy, mentoring him really.  Timothy is a new leader, a new pastor it seems, and Paul is passing on a lot of wisdom about how to do that job.  But in these verses he concentrates on one issue, the tentacular effect of greed.

We launch our Stewardship Campaign this weekend.  We are using as a guide to the process a book by Adam Hamilton. Pastor of the Church of the Resurrection outside of Kansas City, one of the largest United Methodist Church in the denomination.  The book is titled Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity.

This first week Hamilton helps us think about “when dreams become nightmares.”  He refers to the American Dream, which for many if not most, is about getting and having, about owning.   And the problem, Hamilton argues, is that enough is never enough.  Or that we lose sight of enough.  Just when we think we have enough, someone else has more, or there is a new model of something we already have and haven’t yet learned how to use all of the old model’s capabilities.  But something says we need to keep up.  That what was enough yesterday is not enough today. 

What is important to stress is that Paul isn’t against being rich.  The problem is wanting to be rich.  He isn’t against money, the problem is loving money.  I know, it seems like a semantic game.  It seems like a way of avoiding the issue.  It seems like a way of rationalizing our wealth.  We can have as much money and stuff as we can imagine, but we just can’t want it.  That doesn’t even really make sense.  If we didn’t want it, we wouldn’t have it, so just by having it we reveal our wanting.  Don’t we?  It all makes my head hurt to be honest.  Like we are in the grip of something bigger than ourselves.  It all seems so ... tentacular.

I think the truth is in there, in the struggle I mean.  When we get comfortable with our wealth, with being able to have whatever we want, whatever we can imagine without too much struggle, then we have lost something.  Maybe we’ve lost our recognition of a need for a savior, the need for someone to come and give us what we simply can’t get for ourselves, something we would be lost without. 

Or maybe it is something smaller.  Maybe it is we’ve lost the ability to dream big enough to change the world.  Maybe we are too satisfied with feeling better about ourselves.  With filling our space with pretty or useful things. 

Maybe what it does is make us forget that we already have everything we really need.  Maybe what is being stolen is our ability to be satisfied.  To know contentment in a real and lasting sense.  Maybe what we’ve lost is a sense of enough. 

And the curious thing about it all is that we don’t even realize what we’ve lost.  We are so caught up in the culture that tells us getting is good and having is better, and buying is a way to save the country from its economic woes.  It is unpatriotic, it seems these days, to say we’ve got enough.

Now, it seems to me that I’ve raised more questions than I can answer in this space.  Or in a sermon on Sunday morning.  Or ever come to think of it.  And maybe that is just what we need to do as we launch a stewardship series, ask questions.  I suspect that we will get to some answers, or hints anyway, along the way.  But for now, I guess I’ll leave you with a question.  How much is enough for you? 

Enough to have, enough to give, enough to claim, enough to live in joy.  How much is enough?  And how do we get free from the tentacular desires of this acquisitive culture we live in to find our way to enough?

OK, more than one questions.  I’d ask some more, but I suspect you’d say ... enough.

Shalom,
Derek

No comments: