It was May, 2007. John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group of mutual funds, was addressing the MBA graduates of the McDonough School of Business of Georgetown University. He had been at a party, he told the graduates, given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. As he was chatting with the other guests, the late author Kurt Vonnegut took it upon himself to inform his friend, the author Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its entire history. Heller responded, “Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . Enough.” Bogle was stunned, so stunned that he proceeded to write a book with the title Enough, that indicted the greedy practices of the entire hedge fund industry of which the host was a part.
Enough. How much is enough? How much food, and of what kind, do we need? How much clothing? Designer or bargain basement? How big a house do we need? Modest ranch or McMansion? How big a car? How much money in the bank? When do we have enough so that we can begin to share? With whom should we share? And how? Are there more effective and less effective ways to share our resources with others? How can we be intentional about our use of all of God’s gifts to us? What is God calling us to do? In our Scripture readings for today, we are asked again to consider our relationship to wealth. We are asked to ponder how much we truly need, and, as disciples of the risen Christ, to discern what our obligations might be to our neighbors.
Enough. What is enough for an ordained person in the early second century? What is enough for a lay person? Our reading from the end of the first letter to Timothy gives us some clues to the answers to these questions. You remember that this letter was probably not written by Paul himself, but rather by a protégé or disciple. Much of this letter deals with the contrast between false and legitimate leadership. Scholars have suggested that this latter part, which deals especially with the qualifications and responsibilities of ordained ministers, could have been part of an ordination service or sermon. The emphasis here, as also in our own ordination services in the Book of Common Prayer, is on living a life patterned on the Gospel and focused on nurturing and building up God’s people. Especially for those ordained, a life patterned on the Gospel is a simple life of contentment with the basic necessities. When church leaders live in this way, they avoid the distractions caused by the pursuit of wealth. They can truly put God at the center of their lives, and they can cultivate the virtues of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Perhaps all Christians, ordained and lay, are called to live simpler lives, lives focused on God. However, the author also realizes that for those who are not ordained, at least, wealth is not itself sinful, so long as we do not regard it as an end in itself. Rather, wealth is a gift from God, with which we are to do God’s work. When we remember that “all things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee,” then we can use our wealth to be “rich in good works.” What is important is that we recognize that God is the source of our wealth and that we have a responsibility to use our wealth wisely, so that ultimately we can “take hold of the life that really is life.”
Enough. How much wealth, how much conspicuous consumption is too much? How can wealthy people use their wealth responsibly to serve the poor in their midst? Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel reading illustrates the reversal of rich and poor that we have heard throughout Luke’s Gospel. Remember the reversals in the Song of Mary in chapter 1: “he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” Remember the reversals of the Beatitudes in chapter 6: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” There are warnings here, no question about it. Even so, this parable is not about heaven and hell, not about the fate of the rich and the poor in the afterlife. Rather, the intention of this parable is to remind its hearers, especially the Pharisees who saw wealth as mark of God’s favor, but also the wealthy people who had joined the Christian community to whom Luke was writing, of their responsibility to use their wealth in this life for the good of others. In this parable we hear Jesus’ charge to be at work with God to alleviate poverty while we can , in this life. Rather than flaunting our purple and linen, the most expensive color and fabric in the ancient world, rather than dining sumptuously every day, we are to actually see the needy neighbor at our gate, the one that even the despised dogs lick, and we are to care for this neighbor now, while we still have the chance. Life is short and fragile, we are warned, and we are to be intentional about using God’s gifts to us to benefit those immediately around us. We are to ask ourselves, intentionally ask ourselves, “Do I have enough now? Do I need to latest gadget, the fanciest clothes, the priciest food, the largest house, the newest car? Can I justify using God’s gifts for my own benefit, even as I step over the person who is dressed in rags, who runs out of food before the end of the month, lacks adequate heating in the winter, and drives a beater to work, if they have a job and car at all? Do I have enough? Does my neighbor have enough? If the answer to the first question is “Yes,” and the answer to the second question is “No,” then we need to look honestly at our lives and see where we can be more intentional about sharing what we have.
How might we do that in Gallipolis in 2010? No, I’m not suggesting that we sell all we have, give everything to the poor, and join a convent or monastery. Nor am I suggesting necessarily that we buy all our clothes at the Salvation Army and our food at the Dollar store. What I am suggesting is that we assess our lives in light of our relationship with God and honestly and intentionally ponder our use of our resources. Look at your own checkbook – or Quicken program. What does it tell you? On what are you really spending God’s gifts to you? What proportion of your income have you returned to God? What proportion have you given to benefit your neighbor in some way? After you’ve considered your use of your own resources, here are some other concrete things you can do. Intentionally engage in a ministry that feeds or clothes people, or that provides shelter or help with the needs of shelter. Join a ministry that distributes the necessities of life to those who lack them, the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry and diaper distribution, for example. Enable others to access needed services and government programs designed to alleviate poverty. Become an Ohio Benefit Bank counselor, for example, and help us expand our ministry of connecting people to such basic services as Medicaid, food stamps, supplemental food for women, infants, and children (WIC), heating assistance, and financial aid for post-secondary education. Beyond providing direct assistance, consider the political realities underlying poverty. Where can we make systemic changes, so that working people are more likely to have enough to live on, more likely to have access to adequate healthcare, less likely to need handouts. Would you like to partner with God to ensure that the hungry are “filled with good things?” Not just on the third Tuesday of the month, but all the time? Consider following the prompts of HungerNetOhio or Bread for the World to persuade our elected officials to address issues of hunger legislatively. At election time, ask your elected officials what they are doing to address hunger, or housing, or health care.
And finally, pray. Ask God to guide you in your assessments and choices. For ultimately, our own souls are at stake. These readings remind us that our time here is short, our chances to serve others are limited, and our economic choices really do shape our identities and our eternal destinies. We serve others not out of a sense of guilt, or ascetic renunciation, or because we are communists, or because the poor are more virtuous than we are. Rather, in serving the poor we care for our own souls by imitating our generous, gracious, and giving God. My brothers and sisters, the good news is that when we pray for God’s guidance in the use of God’s gifts to us, when we ask God to show us when we have enough and when others don’t, God will grant us the fullness of God’s grace. God will lead into a more generous life, a life that partakes of God’s own life.
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