THE LURE OF BELONGINGS, THE NEED TO BELONG

Sermon preached Robert Shaw

[Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21]

Today’s lessons both offer warnings against materialism. Paul urges his readers to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth,” and to “put to death . . . greed (which is idolatry)” as well as an inclusive list of other earthly passions. In a more focused and detailed way, Christ in the Gospel takes up the theme. After he has declined to act as a Probate Court judge in a man’s inheritance dispute with his brother, he says to his audience: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in abundance of possessions.”

This is a message that only becomes more pertinent as time goes on. In 1899 the sociologist Thorstein Veblen used the phrase “conspicuous consumption” to describe how in America well-off people buy things they don’t need in order to show off to their neighbors. For much of the twentieth century and now this one, our society has glided happily forward in the direction of what Paul calls “idolatry.” I was talking about this phrase of Paul’s recently with one of my oldest friends, my daughter’s godmother. Peggy is a noted scholar of religion and literature and is also one of the most insightful people I know. She said, “Idolatry isn’t listed as one of the seven deadly sins, but all sin is idolatry.” There’s a lot more to think about there than would fit into one sermon, but at the least it might jolt us into some much-needed self-examination. We have been encouraged to think of ourselves as a nation of consumers rather than as a nation of citizens. And we accumulate more than we could ever hope to consume. If we were closer to Christmas, it would be natural to reference the mobs at the mall. Think of all the TV shows that offer hints on house clearing. And if you want to think of something really depressing, consider the countless amounts of household goods and furnishings that sit unvisited in storage units throughout the country. What the Bible calls our “worldly possessions” and what most of us less ceremoniously call our stuff can all too easily get out of hand.

All that I’ve been saying is true, but I have been taking cheap shots. Anyone who got a look at my basement would say that I have no right to be critical. And in fact, I think the way our stuff piles up on most of us is not so much because of greed but simply because of carelessness, absentmindedness, inertia. In any case, the amount of stuff cluttering however many corners of our houses is not the issue.  What today’s readings make clear is that it is not the possessions themselves that are being condemned, but the way their owners think and feel about them.

We see this point made briefly and I would say brutally in the parable Jesus tells. The already-rich man whose land produces a bumper crop doesn’t think of what grain is for—human nourishment—and he doesn’t think about giving some of it away. Weirdly, he doesn’t even think about selling it. No. He thinks of how he can keep it safely for himself well in time. The larger barns he plans to build are like temples for his idols-- “my grain and my goods.” And (this is really shocking) he thinks of the harvest bounty as something that is precious to his soul: “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” And as we’ve heard, God has something to say about that.

It is a matter of values, a matter of priorities—of what we choose to devote ourselves to, of what we decide to put first. Leo Tolstoy probably was thinking of this parable when he wrote one of his most powerful stories. The story tells us of Pahom, a Russian peasant in the mid-nineteenth century, who by a few strokes of luck and a lot of hard work manages to buy some land of his own and is able to work it for himself rather than working on the lands of others. He prospers, and is able to buy additional acres. Each land deal he concludes only whets his appetite for more.

Finally, when there is no more farmland for sale anywhere nearby, he heads east, far out in what Russians call the steppe and we would call prairie land. There he meets with a tribe of Eurasian horse breeders, who, he has heard, have plenty of land to sell. Out in the wide-open spaces the tribesmen don’t do conventional real estate. They turn out to be agreeable when Pahom offers them a tidy sum of money, but they want some entertainment as part of the transaction. They say that Pahom, for his bag of money, can have as much land as he can walk around in one day, from sunrise to sundown. If he doesn’t make it back to his starting point on time, he will receive nothing and forfeit his money.

Pahom agrees, and Tolstoy takes us with him on his trek throughout the day, pounding a stake at each corner where he shifts his course. As the day moves on and as he moves on under the blazing sun, he grows desperate, wanting to add more square footage to his total, but having to worry more and more about completing his walk on time. And he makes it. With his last strength he drags himself to his starting point while the tribesmen cheer him on, just as the sun dips below the horizon. And there he collapses, and there he dies. Pahom’s servant digs his grave on the spot where Pahom won his race against the sun, and buries him in it. The title that Tolstoy gave this story is a question: “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” And the last sentence of the story gives us the answer: “Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.” Pahom’s acreage was his idol; he believed he possessed it, but in fact it possessed him—at the end of the story, literally.

So: is the moral to be drawn from our readings today, and from a literary work like Tolstoy’s, simply: You can’t take it with you? Partially, yes. But there is more, since today we are encouraged to think not only of materialistic idolatry, which is a kind of living death, but of its opposite, which is the life of the Spirit. This is the life that is centered not on possessions but on relationships, not on our belongings but on knowing to Whom we belong. Paul writes to the Colossians, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” It is in communion with God and with our neighbors that we live most fully and most freely. Achieving that state, as Paul makes clear, demands continuous effort, in a world that is, to say the least, not supportive of spiritual questing.

It is only honest to acknowledge that Christian attitudes toward property have varied over time. In regard to worldly possessions, Christ and the Apostles traveled light. They didn’t just talk the talk, they walked the walk. The early Christian communities were differentiated from those surrounding them by their practice of holding all things in common. Some Christian communities—most prominently, ones with an Anabaptist heritage—still practice an updated version of this. Of course, this hasn’t caught on in society at large. In the centuries after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire, communal property and individual vows of poverty retreated into the monasteries, and the rest of society got busy developing capitalism. And this has brought us to the consumerist pressures that continue to weigh upon us. So, we find ourselves in need, as much as, or more than, the Colossians were of Paul’s reminder of what life can be for us when we live according to our baptismal vows—when, as he says, we have “clothed [ourselves] with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” And that new life is one that shares itself with all who open themselves up to it, and to its workings in one another: “In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.” I, and probably a number of us here today are descendants of those whom Paul calls barbarians, and here we have found a home, a life that we share. May we continue to go deeper into that life, led by the Father who made us, the Son who redeems us, and the Spirit who sustains us, in all our days to come.  Amen.