A Long Sermon on 1 Timothy 6:6-19

I been thinking about how to talk about greed
I been thinking about how to talk about greed.
I been wondering if I could sing about greed.
Tryin' to find a way to talk about greed.

So begins a song, well, actually the singer of the song calls it a sermonette, by an African American women's a capella group called Sweet Honey in the Rock. And this became the soundtrack to my study of 1st Timothy this week. Greed is a tricky thing to talk about, or sing about, surely to preach about. Why? Well, because it's so all pervasive. Sweet Honey says this about it:
Greed is a poison rising in this land
The soul of the people twisted in it's command.

It moves like a virus seeking out everyone
Greed never stops, its work is never ever done

A creeping killing choking invading everywhere
There is really no escaping greed's tricky snare

Nothing seems to stop it once it enters your soul
It has you buying anything, spinning out of control

And later It rides within the culture, touching us all
Greed really isn't picky, it'll make anybody fall.

How many times in a week do we hear from our televisions, or magazines, or radios, or computer screens that we NEED something we don't have? How often are we left wistfully wishing for bigger, better, more? How many of us learned to be this way by taking a permanent marker to a thick Christmas wish book, circling, circling, circling? How many of us have full refrigerators and cupboards and yet have whined that there's "nothing to eat!"? How many of us have full closets and boxes or bins of clothes stored away and yet have complained we've "nothing to wear!"?

I do not stand in this pulpit pointing a finger, or if I do, I'm pointing four at myself. I have felt the creeping poison of greed rising in me, most recently, with the release of the iPhone this summer. It is an expensive item that I do not need, but when we visited friends who were among the first to own them I felt a yearning that should never be attached to a material object. And when I waited in the AT&T store for the salesperson to find the right car charger for my more than adequate current phone, I stared at the advertisements and drooled, becoming convinced by the minute of the deficiencies of my current phone, and nearly becoming convinced of the rightness of this "upgrade". And then a week later I was in the Apple Store with K as he was dropping off his computer for repairs, and I picked up one of the new iPods and, oh dear, the longing was overpowering.

I have a functional iPod. I have a functional phone. I have a functional computer. And though I can make the case for why all of those are needs; they're not. Surely I could live without them. And yet... what I have does not seem to be enough; I want different, better, more. Perhaps for you it's clothing, perhaps shoes in particular, or vehicles, or toys... what's your hook? Where does greed grab you and threaten to undo you?

Sweet Honey later sings:
Greed is a strain of the American dream
Having more than you need is the essential theme.

Everybody wanting more than they need to survive
Is a perfect indication greed has settled inside.

Maybe you don't know exactly what I mean
You don't really want to know about your and my greed

You may wonder whether you're infected by greed
If you have to ask, then this song you really need

Greed is sneaky, hard to detect in myself
I see it so clearly in everybody else

It's hard to talk about something that is so all pervasive, so all consuming, so much so that it just seems normal. It's like trying to describe the air you breathe.

But then we open our Bibles and we hear a message that is so different than the messages we hear 99% of the time. And it rings strange in our ears. And it does a fascinating thing, by sharp contrast it brings the greedy air we breathe into stark relief. "Of course there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing we will be content with these." Do we tend to think that the formula for gain is godliness plus contentment? And have any of us ever felt wholly content with food and clothing only? Your first objection to this passage might be in the repeated use of the word "godliness". What does that word mean anyway? It seems to mean in the first letter to Timothy, devotion and constant loyalty to God, fear of God, service of God. So this passage seems to be suggesting that true gain in life and beyond life comes from combining such devotion to God with contentment with what one has. Is this how we normally seek gain? Aren't we more likely to seek gain by buying low, selling high? Aren't we more likely to seek gain by charging, charging, charging? Aren't we more likely to seek gain by investing wisely and well? Wouldn't we most often be inclined to see those who are content with what they've got as unambitious or even lazy? Don't we put a high value on striving and climbing? Is there any place for contentment in our world and day?

But this message of contentment is the message God offers to us today. And it's not like this is an obscure theme found only in a little letter to Timothy. Remember how Jesus points our attentions to the lilies of the field and tells us not to worry about what we will eat or drink or wear. Remember the teachings of John the Baptist urging those with two coats to share with those with none. Remember Paul saying that he has learned to become content with whatever he has. And in the exhortation to the Hebrews the reader is charged to be kept free of the love of money and be content with what you have. The consistent message of the Bible, Old Testament and New, is that God provides, and that God provides enough, enough for everyone, more than enough in fact. If we trust in the abundant provision of God, we can be content. We don't need to strive to set ourselves up in the world, we don't need to hoard, we don't need to accumulate, because we know that we will be taken care of.

I know that there are those in our fellowship who have struggled with profound poverty, who have lacked even basic necessities, food to eat, clothing to wear. There are certainly those in our community who live with these realities all the time- the traffic at the food pantry is going up every month, the needs coming to our church office are overwhelming. And if we look to the wider world scene, we see crushing poverty, worse than anything we can even begin to imagine. I want to be quite clear that I do not believe the Bible commends contentment to those who are impoverished. Again and again, the Bible calls God's people to special care and concern for those who are poor, and even in this passage, basic needs are met before contentment is expected.

Most of us, however, are not impoverished. Nonetheless, we live with a constant sense that we are lacking, that we don't have enough, that there isn't enough. And this sense of scarcity drives us to consume, accumulate, hoard. And many of us can testify to being pierced with great pains in the pursuit of riches, perhaps some of us can even testify to the ruin and destruction that comes in this pursuit.

We know how our closest relationships are strained when we work ridiculous hours in our efforts at climbing and striving. We know the strife that comes with wrangling over inheritance. We know how gambling breeds more lying and shame than big wins. We know how living day in and day out with a gnawing sense of lack eats us alive. We may not think about these things most of the time because we don't see any viable alternatives, but we know these damaging effects of greed in our bones.

And if we are at all aware of the poverty in our community and in the world, we see the damaging effects of greed writ large. When some have way more than they need, while others lack basic needs, we know something isn't right.

Now because most of us have more than we need, way more if we're honest, we can get pretty defensive when we hear scriptural messages like this. We start justifying our abundance and other's lack. Or we become overcome with guilt, a crippling, oppressive guilt that some of us might be inclined to treat with some retail therapy.

But defensiveness and guilt are not the primary emotional experiences invited by God through the Bible. Contentment and hope and trust... these are the emotional experiences these passages intend to evoke. The message you hopefully receive in church, at least one hour a week, is a very different message than that which the world gives. You hear here that God provides, that there is enough, that we can be joyfully generous because of the generosity of our creator, savior, and sustainer. These are not guilt inducing messages; these are joy inducing messages. They are messages that give us permission to let go of our tight grip on our possessions, and to be freed from that gnawing sense of lack. These are messages that open us up to a lighter, more alive way of living- that life that really is life.

Our passage today doesn't condemn the rich, even though warnings are given about the dangers of pursuing riches. Our passage today commends a certain way of relating to wealth- those who have more than they need, which is most of us- are commended to first of all NOT put our trust in our stuff, our money or our possessions, but rather to remember that all that we are and all that we have comes from God, and realizing this then to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.

It is suggested that we live this way every day, that we seek to be content, doing good, generous, ready to share very day, but the truth is that this is a hard way to be in our world. It doesn't come especially naturally to many of us. Here's one the great things about church, not only do we hear different and life-giving messages here. We're given the opportunity to practice different and life-giving ways of living here. So, why not start with church? Why not practice this different way of being through church? Why not try it out through your commitments to the financial support of the ministries you value or the capital improvements that you have deemed necessary? Why not try it out through monthly support of [our mission dinners], a ministry that is nothing if not a practice in trusting in abundance? Why not practice believing and acting as if there is enough here? Before you know it, perhaps, you will find yourselves growing in godliness and contentment and find the life that really is life in abundance in your daily living.



The song used in this sermon is Greed, composed by Bernice Johnson Reagan and performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock on their album 25.