Rogue Reverend

Too Much or Too Little?

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

It’s been an eventful week in the news. Revolution in Iran. The Metro crash in DC. A North Korean ship with a warhead in the Pacific Ocean, headed toward Hawaii. South Carolina’s Governor Sanford having an affair and running off to Argentina. Ed McMahon dead. Farrah Faucett dead. Michael Jackson dead.

As I mentioned, I’m a social media freak. I like facebook, twitter, I blog, read blogs, it’s really hard to get me away from my computer. And the news this week has been dominated by big issues, but the news has been dominated even more about the way people are talking about the things going on. From Sanford’s email love letters being released and read on the evening news, to everyone on Twitter changing their profile pictures to a green tint to support revolution in Iran, to the video of Neda, the young woman killed in a protest (even though she wasn’t protesting) by a single gunshot, a gruesome video that won’t leave my memory. Then the pounding that television and news outlets got after Michael Jackson’s death that left all of them scrambling for verification of untrue rumors. Rumors of other celebrity deaths.

And then the death of the King of Pop. You know, for a couple of hours, they were saying that Michael Jackson’s death might have killed the internet. Servers all over the world were running slow because of people searching for information on his death, and on his life, too, I suppose. The news outlets made hours of programming about it, it dominated the airways.

A friend of mine tweeted (that, for those of you who don’t twitter, is a 140-character (or less) statement about what you’re thinking) with a poll, “Michael Jackson: freak or child molester?” I don’t know about all that, but I do know that Michael Jackson was a product of his environment. He was a product of consumerism. And that’s just it…he was a product. The expectations of our culture made him who he was. And even in his death, we are still both overjoyed and shocked at what we made.

Our culture is driven by this consumerism. Even people fighting for the basic right to live in safety is dulled by our consumeristic drive. Michael Jackson trumps Iran.

You know the Bible says a lot about consumption, don’t you? If we took out everything that the Bible says about economics and the treatment of the poor (especially the widows and the orphans) we’d have very little Bible left. And while we spend hours, days, months, and years arguing the rightness and wrongness of other Bible verses (should we dance? should we allow people who love one another to continue loving one another? should we drink alcohol?) there’s no doubt that we spend very little time on economics and the treatment of the poor.

And our passage today is really about consumption, more than anything else. Let me give you a little background from on our passage:

1. It’s a letter written to the church in Corinth, who Paul has a very close relationship to. In fact, he’s sort of the father of their faith.
2. The church in Corinth is a socially and ethnically diverse congregation, and is pretty unified.
3. Paul is taking a collection from the Church in Corinth for the “saints in Jerusalem,” or the “poor in Jerusalem.”
4. The final sentence in the passage, “As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little,” is a direct quote from Exodus, when the Hebrew people were complaining about not having enough food, and God began providing manna for them.
5. This passage is centered around the term “grace,” or charis, even though our translation doesn’t make that clear. Verse 7 and 9. Charis is understood to be given by God to people, in the midst of affliction and poverty. It’s given abundantly. God’s grace is powerful and moves the recipients to a reflection of God’s abundance so that they respond profusely by doing good works toward others.

Let’s look at the passage again.

For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has–not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.”

I spent a little time this week thinking about my own consumption. I watched as I spent more and more money. I thought about how to not buy branded stuff (do you realize that you can’t do that? Even buying local is branded these days, by Farm Bureau, with their big signs on the highways.

I thought about giving away my stuff. Keeping it moving. But, honestly, I couldn’t see why anyone would want the stuff I have to give away!

I’m going to make an assumption. American is still the richest country in the world.

So here’s a question: Are the richest people in the world be inclined to be giving?

And is Paul talking just about money?

Paul says, “the gift is acceptable according to what one has.”

What do we have? We have freedom. We have wealth. We have water. We have food. We have security. We have the rule of law. We have the right to self-rule.

But doesn’t it also mean that those who live in poverty, in fear, in insecurity, in hunger, in thirst, that they should share what they have? They have culture, and religion, and God, in some way, and persecution, and injustice, and sickness. Should not they also share so that we would not have too little?

You know, I look back on the life of Michael Jackson, and what I see is someone who had great expectations put upon him for his music. But also very low expectations for his behavior. He had a ton of money, but very little responsibility. He was treated like a child, and he remained a child for his fifty years.

We have been given grace from God. Remember, charis is understood to be given by God to people, in the midst of affliction and poverty. It’s given abundantly. God’s grace is powerful and moves the recipients to a reflection of God’s abundance so that they respond profusely by doing good works toward others.

So the task that I’ll leave you with this week is to think, think hard about your relationship to money. Does having more make you want more? Or does having more leave you open-handed, giving so that those who have little will not have too little? Think about your relationship to other things that you have in excess: your time, freedom, health, security. Can you spend time giving so that others can have a little more time?

Gandhi said, “As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it.  If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you.  Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you, or when it seems to interfere with that which is more greatly desired.”

A young man came to the ashram where Gandhi was and said, “I want to join the ashram, but I can’t give up my books.” Gandhi said, “Then don’t give up your books. When something comes along that’s better than books, then you’ll give them up.”

It is, in other words, find something that you love, more than money, more than freedom, more than time, more than security. Isn’t that they point?