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August 31, 2003
What Did Jesus Have Against Prosperity?
What Did Jesus Have Against Prosperity?
Psalm 1 / Ecclesiastes 7: 1-14
Luke 6: 25a
August 31st, 2003
We begin the new school year on a topic that seems to fly in the face of the reason we go to school. Face it, our schools and universities don’t exist only to make us “well rounded people.” We go to school to make it in the world. At great research universities the liberal arts courses are “service courses.” They are the seasoning, while the meat and potatoes of the education are the courses that help us earn a living.
A momentum is at work in all of us that leans towards securing our well-being—in a competitive world. Jesus tells us, “Think about this tendency.” We’re not too sure what the outer boundary of this well-being is. When does my “good” become excessive? At what point have I saved more than I need, invested what I should have given away?
In this troubled life it seems hard to have too much when the bottom can drop out of the economy like stepping into a hidden sinkhole. You’re walking along enjoying the fresh air and the scenery, when all of a sudden you fall. There was an unannounced hole in the sidewalk. It was a deep hole. You fell in and hurt yourself badly. It was a total surprise. This is a parable of life in this precarious world. You know it is precarious. You try to protect yourself. But it is in just this precarious world that Jesus tells me “Woe to you who are full now for you will be hungry.” Woe to you who try in this precarious world to protect yourself in every way. You can’t. He commands us, and shows us the way to “love your neighbor as yourself” instead. “Feed your neighbor till she is full.” Concentrate on this rather than your own security.
But, we reply to God, “This is impractical. Besides, my powers are limited. I can’t care for all my neighbors.” You and I see the immense need of our neighbor and say, “But I have only the energy to care for myself. If I look out for myself, I’m not a burden to my neighbor.” That’s good, isn’t it? But isn’t it true that nearly everything about my life seems more important than someone else’s life?
I’m sometimes struck at how inevitable it is that we should think of ourselves first. Our circles of interest gather around ourselves. Me. My immediate family. My friends. My country. My kind of religious people. Even in matters of faith, how self-centered we naturally are. In our church-market economy we look to find the church that gives me the greatest blessing. I will go where I get most. And we churches cater to this by trying to offer the most. We will advertise ourselves, “You can get the most here!” I wonder sometimes, how is it possible to love God and love my neighbor as myself, when even matters of faith lead me to refine my self-centeredness? What do you mean, Jesus, “The one who would find his life must lose it?”
God asks us to join His outlook summarized in John 3: 16: “God so loved the world.” Compel the scope of your interest to widen. Let it take in the world. “Lose your life if you want to find it.” “Think not on your own things, but on the needs of others.” Not “God bless America,” but “God bless the world” –– even Libya and Iraq. This is an outlook we admire in principle, but it is a hard way to follow. It is very hard to follow Jesus.
We run the risk of being the person that Jesus chided, who built bigger barns when his harvest was great—not necessarily because we’re greedy, but because we’re afraid. He stored up more grain than he could ever eat rather than finding better uses for it. Why? Because he said, “You can never be too safe, too secure, too well cared for.” This makes sense, doesn’t it?
But Jesus speaks to us, frightened as we might be: “Woe to you who are full now because you will be hungry.” Jesus tells us, “You’re going to end up getting the opposite of what you want.” It can get confusing.
We’re used to thinking of Jesus as one who saw the hungry multitude and took great care to feed them. He is God made flesh of whom we sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” Is it possible that Jesus began the meal thanking God for the food, led the crowd in thanking God for this blessing, and then afterward looked at the 5,000 people he’d just fed and thought, “Woe to you who are full now because you will be hungry?” This is simply unthinkable. Jesus didn’t begrudge the people He just fed that they were satisfied. In the place where the Gospels tell us of Jesus’ feeding the 5,000, the writers make plain that after the people ate they were satisfied.
This was very good. This is God’s way. In the gracious 104th Psalm we read of God’s generosity. “You cause grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for us to cultivate, that we may bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the body.” How then can Jesus say to us, after giving us what we need, “Woe to you who are full now because you will be hungry?”
These great questions have delicate answers. The answer to this question has to do with the state of your heart and mine. It has to do with our attitude, how we see ourselves with regard to God and other people. Virtually everything God teaches us in Scripture has to do with the state of the heart. Nearly nothing has to do with mere material things. They are good in themselves. Jesus spoke about a kind of appetite that heals the soul and its opposite that destroys the soul.
What did Jesus mean when He said, “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry?” I wish I could report to you that there is a clear dividing line in Jesus’ teaching between a good kind of fullness and a bad kind of fullness. But we’re not given such a black and white picture. Loving God with all our minds leads us to try to figure these things out.
There are two words in the New Testament that describe satisfaction. When Jesus fed the 5,000, afterward they were satisfied. Here the word is the verb from which I believe we get our word Cortisone, cortavzw. Cortisone soothes the inflamed joint. Your shoulder aches. Your doctor prescribes and gives you a series of Cortisone shots to satisfy your need. This word is never used in a negative sense in the New Testament. It always refers to a good satisfaction.
I remember baling hay during the summer with a farmer in my congregation when I was a pastor at Brookston quite a few years ago. I think I could still do this. Maybe not. About 11: 30 AM, after stacking heavy bales in the loft of the barn for almost four hours, I was so hungry and tired that I didn’t know how I could lift one more bale. Then Clarence Davies hollered, “Lunch time!” and wearily I dragged myself down the ladder, washed up at the pump outside, and went to the table with all the other guys. There before us we found the most amazing lunch: ham, fried chicken, and roast beef and mashed potatoes with gravy, and three vegetables, hot rolls and butter, and tall glasses of iced tea. Then came a fat wedge of apple pie, homemade—with all that cinnamon and sugar caked on top. I ate and was satisfied. I can think of few pleasures more satisfying than Mary Davies’ cooking after baling hay all morning.
If Matthew were going to describe what happened for me there he would have used the word cortavzw. This is one wonderful kind of satisfaction.
This is what God does for the birds of the air, the animals of the field and the fish of the sea. Birds, mammals, and fish eat when they are hungry. And when they eat they are satisfied. And this satisfaction is a wonderful thing, a gift from God. We ate and then we got up from the table content, grateful, refreshed-–– along with every other creature God cares for.
But the word that Luke tells us Jesus used in the verse before us this morning is a different word. “Woe to you who are full now for you shall hunger.” This sounds ominous. It’s the word ejmpivplhmi. Elsewhere it usually means the same as the other word for “satisfy,” but Luke means something very different here.
Jesus here refers to a fullness that does not merely satisfy a hunger. It suggests a fullness that goes beyond satisfaction to greed. It is the satisfaction sought by the farmer who builds bigger barns when his crop increases. If we love God wholly and love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we will look at our excess in a different way than if we think of ourselves as the center of importance. If we love God and our neighbor, when we have enough, we are content. And this makes us think about our excess in a different way than if we are not content.
Paul wrote to his young friend, Timothy,
“There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.”
I believe that this is what Jesus was getting at when He said, “Woe to you who are full now for you will be hungry.” He speaks to those whose desire is insatiable, and who are filling themselves continually, never reaching “enough.” They don’t know about contentment.
This yearning to be satisfied is a subtle desire. On the one hand it corresponds to wholesome appetites that are part of our nature. God delights to satisfy these appetites. On the other hand, the desire to be satisfied can breed discontent and dissatisfaction. Fear sets in that maybe we won’t have enough for tomorrow. Or instead of being thankful, we become refined in our desires. Whereas a Chevy used to please us well, now we “need” a BMW. Dissatisfaction can induce a multitude of sins. I proposed to you two weeks ago that when God gives us more than we need, He enables us to play God, to do as God does, to help satisfy the need of others.
Discontent feeds on itself. It is the root of evil. Contentment, by contrast, is the root of all good. What is particularly pernicious about discontent is that discontented people aren’t aware Jesus is speaking about them. They may be proud of their refined sensitivities. Is Jesus speaking to you but you’ve never thought about it this way?
Jesus is addressing what F.W. Robertson referred to as “the principle of the spiritual harvest.” What we sow is what we reap. If we spend our lives trying to fill up with what will pass away, we will harvest a crop of perishable goods. “He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
As I pondered these things Jesus says to us who are trying to find security in a precarious world, another difficult thing Jesus said suddenly seemed to make more sense than it had before. Jesus taught us, “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
What an odd thing for Jesus to say. Didn’t He tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves? Aren’t members of our family our nearest neighbors? Didn’t Jesus chide the Pharisees for devoting their money to God in a legal fiction so they didn’t have to use this money to care for their needy parents? How can He talk about “hating” the ones to whom nature and the Ten Commandments lead us to devote the deepest affection?
I believe Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point. It is the same point He made when He pronounced woe on those who are full. Jesus is drawing us into a bigger view of things than comes naturally to us. Jesus is drawing us into God’s view of the world. And in order to do this, He has to strip away our natural circles of attachment—to myself first, to my family first, to my friends first, to my country first, etc. All of our instincts focus on ourselves and those who are closest to us. In order to join God in His purposes we need a broader vision than comes naturally.
It’s like what Jesus meant when He said, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away.” Of course, God gave us eyes for a good reason. With our eyes we can see a sunset. We read with our eyes. We see where to go. But who can deny that the eye-gate may permit entrance to matters that destroy the soul. At the last meeting of the County Corrections Board I learned of the horrendous problem of internet pornography that is undermining a lot of our young people. Little boys get on the internet, see graphic pornography, don’t understand it, but think it is cool –– and get drawn in to a horrible addiction. Is it an overstatement to say it would be better to be blind than to have your eyes lead you into the horrid world of pornography?
When Jesus said, “Woe to you who are full now for you will be hungry,” He warned us against the danger of a self-centered life. He warned against an outlook which we don’t recognize as evil in its weaker doses. We so naturally see ourselves as the center of all value that we probably won’t recognize it when we’ve been taken over by it. We’ll call it by another name: prudence, or foresight maybe. What’s going on now in the Middle East is an extreme case of self-centeredness. When your worldview reaches the point of self-centeredness that you are willing to kill yourself, out of hatred for a despised neighbor, it has come full-circle. Suicide bombers imagine that in losing their lives they are finding them. But really they are trying to gain their lives and are losing them.
One of the values of the local church is to lure us out of self-centeredness, even out of family-centeredness to care for others. Here we bring our neighbor beside us. Here we hear Jesus respond to those who said His family was looking for Him, “Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother, my sister, and mother.” That’s it. The will of our heavenly Father taking over our will, and close friendship developing with others who have caught on too. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” Here we see the will of God. The will of God leads you and me to reach out from ourselves. The will of God having become my will leads me to fill your plate as I fill my own. Maybe Jesus said it a bit strongly when He told us, “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” But maybe you get his point. There’s more to life than having your plate full with what you want. I pray we may encourage each other to go after this “more,” by providing an example to observe –– in every pew, from end to end.
Let us pray. O Lord, giver of every good thing, we thank you for all you give, and receive it happily. Help us to share your bounty bountifully. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at August 31, 2003 09:30 AM