Luke 3:7-18
Satisfied with Enough
The
Post-Vietnam era in the United States has seen the strongest decline in the
mainline Church in history. Church
attendance has gone down significantly.
But in replacement of this mainline thread has come a new cadre of books
and theology, from people like Chuck Norris to football players and
celebrities, all caught up in a form of theology created and now headlined as
the “Prosperity Gospel.” It’s
spokesperson, Joel Osteen, is one of the most popular (and rich) pastors in the
United States, leading a 7,500 person congregation in Houston, having a Sunday
morning TV show that now is available in 38 states, and the author of one of
the most “important” books of the 21st century Let your life
Speak. But Osteen has a
problem. His theology deals with
absolutes and certainties not just that God loves you, but that if you pray and
live the Christian life, God WILL bless you with riches, promotions, and
everything your life can handle.
In essence, if you are more Christian, more devout, you will be more
able to be wealthy.
And
in a time life Christmas, it’s time to dispel some thoughts about this. From one Christian to another, Joel
Osteen, you’ve got the message incorrect.
Now I’m not going to tell you all that I don’t think Joel is a
Christian. In fact, I believe he
really is a strong Christian. But
his theology is missing some of the finer details. He missed some of the passages like the one we heard today,
the one about giving one of your shirts to another, about sharing. He missed that point. Joel doesn’t
speak about charity and giving of oneself. Joel talks about self-indulgence…And that ladies and
gentlemen, is one of the characteristics of original sin.
Now
on a Sunday of JOY I won’t spend a lot of time on Original Sin, but it is
important to recognize that for many people Jesus comes to cleanse us of sin,
sin that begins with Adam and Eve…it’s the original sin in literal terms of
their disobeying of God. But in
more modern terms, and in some scholars minds, original sin is simply the human
tendency to be bad, or to at least be self-serving in almost every
situation. We take care of #1, and
if that’s all we have in us for the day, well then we just keep it to
ourselves. Even in our relationships
we can be self-serving. So the
Biblical writers and God are reminding us in this passage that if there is
original sin (meaning a tendency toward self-indulgence and self-serving) then
God’s kingdom is well…not like that.
Back
to our story. Joel’s a good
guy. He probably prays everyday,
he probably reads his Bible just like he is supposed to. But Joel is missing something that is
vital to the core of Christianity.
It’s Mercy and Justice. For
any of you in a CD group, it’s the part of the covenant where you have to do
something for others and where you need to be aware of situations. Everyone now adays is talking about
personal relationship with God, but what about our relationship with nature,
with each other, with the world in general. If all we do is have a relationship with God and that
doesn’t push us to help others, then I think we’re missing a huge point of the
gospel.
Why
am I talking about all this.
Because the prosperity gospel has gotten us into a fair amount of
trouble and conversation over the past few years. The liberals have gone on a tangent political maneuver to
say that anything but giving up all your wealth will send you to eternal
damnation…so conversatives or even the fairly well off are becoming
offended. In the meantime, the
prosperity gospel folks have decided that since God wants me to be rich, it doesn’t
matter how much I rape and pillage the people around me, as long as I look out
for number 1. Well, since it’s
Christmas time, and since I know you all are trying to figure out what you are
getting for Christmas as the biggest gift of all, I thought we should talk
about JOY and whether we as a culture and as individuals can ever have ENOUGH.
You’ve
been blessed with a lot. You’re in
college. Sure you are poor, but
you’re pretty blessed. And you
know, you have a place to live, and many of you will make a pretty good sum of
money in your life. And almost all
of you will get something for Christmas that is at least 100.00 in value. If we pulled out our computers,
laptops, phones, ipads, iphones, ipods, etc we would see how rich we are…But we
don’t feel like it. We are
constantly feeling as if we want something else. Maybe it’s a car, a new bike, skis, a TV, or that latest
video game system. We all WANT
something. And you know what, I’m
not here to tell you that you don’t deserve it. I’m here to tell you that God doesn’t just bless you with it
for you to keep it for yourself.
Sure
you are going to buy things. I sit with two vehicles I own that are not more
than five years old…We’re all going to probably turn out ok, having a house and
a fair amount of stuff…But we don’t have to get crazy with thinking that it’s
the point of our lives. Instead,
we can remember that we are but dust who will turn back to dust and that
ultimately, whether there is a heaven or not, we can’t take any of this stuff with
us. But more than that, we can
remember that in God’s kingdom, Enough is Enough and there is a need for others
to have Enough as well.
I
guess that’s the definition we need to work out…Enough…in webster’s it means as
much or as many as required….and that is certainly a vague enough definition
that its certainly up for examination.
So let’s think about what enough means. When we say, I’ve had enough…or I don’t have enough….or when
a homeless persons needs enough money to get somewhere…We’ll never be able to
define it, but what we can try to define for ourselves is the tug on our heart
we know exists when we are meant to care about others.
I
guess the question comes down to that of economic justice. the disparity between the haves and the
have nots. In Joel Osteen’s world,
the haves are the people who pray hard enough. And in America, and throughout
the world, there will always people who have. But why do there have to be people who do not have. Let’s consider this. If the average medium salary in the
United States in 50,000, meaning that half of households make this much and
half make less, then we might hope that everyone is within some sort of bell
curve of this…Perhaps that would be fair.
And the doctors would make 6-7 times more than us and we would think
that is fair. But how about 50
times more than most people. How
about the people at the bottom rung of society who make less than 20,000 for a
household. Is that enough…well,
despite what the poverty line would say, if we added up our thoughts on what is
“enough” then we might realize that it is certainly not “enough” to
thrive….maybe they could survive.
See,
having enough as a society isn’t about just making it. In Europe, people have much more equal
footing. Sure there are some with
more, there always will be, but the distribution isn’t always that far
separated. In Jesus’ world, John
the Baptist is pretty clear that this wide breath of disparity can not
continue. With every shirt, with
every sharing of food, the disparity is decreasing. With each movement by those that have “enough” and thus
share with another comes the statement from those who are less well off that
they are getting closer to having “enough.” The rich care for the poor, and we learn that we each
care for each other. Perhaps the
poor in wealth is a strong in spirit.
This
Christmas, you have to ask yourself, do you have enough. Do other’s have enough. Could you imagine your life as a
representation of “enough.” Could
you imagine that you are still going to have wealth and probably success but
what God is really calling for is for the sharing and caring of enough. Can you be satisfied with enough. And can you make enough because a
satisfiable amount for others. Can
we truly come to the reality that we will always have more, but that enough is
enough. Because this Christmas, when you open those presents, when you buy that
thing for someone else, perhaps it’s time to ask what is enough and who still
needs to have enough to live and to thrive.
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