The week before last I was in Spokane.
I was helping my mother and sister combine households
and
move in together into a new home.
As is typical with any move,
we
get to notice how much stuff we have acquired over the years.
Where
did this all come from?
Any move give us the opportunity
to
reflect on our relationship with possessions.
We may notice how we tend to cart stuff around with us.
Sometimes the things we have don’t even get unpacked from
the last move,
but
we keep bringing them along with us just the same;
we
wouldn’t think of letting them go.
A prime example might be old photo albums – that’s
personal identity stuff!
even
the old photos of ancestors 3 or 4 generations back now
whom
we never did get grandmother to label with names
before
she herself went to join them at the cemetery.
And then there is all the stuff that might have a need
someday,
probably
the day after we get rid of it,
or
it might come back in style.
All of what we amass and possess is part of our personal
identity.
Our treasures are there in all the stuff,
all
the things loaded with associations, memories or hopes,
we
keep them all. Or
they keep us.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
This last week I participated in a right of passage,
what
inevitably an opera lover must do.
I
attended the 4 opera Ring Cycle of Wagner.
It is the most massive artistic and musical stage
production ever created.
This tetralogy presented a whole new way of being and form
for opera,
It is an original creative work.
This is the origin and source in popular mythology
for
so much that has become part of our culture.
Any fan of Tolkien would recognize where he got the basic
plot line
for
the Lord of the Rings trilogy,
or
where the Klingons came from in Star Trek.
Even Darth Vader is foreshadowed in the sinister character
of Hagen, Alberich’s
son.
It is a goldmine (pun intended) for Freudians and Jungian
analysts.
Meaning of cosmic scope pours out through every measure of
music.
Now, in the story the Rheingold is a treasure that is irresistible.
The dwarf Alberich lusts after it,
and
renounces love in order to possess it.
He forges a ring from it,
a
ring to control and have power and safeguard the hoard.
But Alberich is then tricked and has the treasure stolen
from him,
so
he places a curse of death upon the gold
for
any who would possess it or wield the ring.
The giant brothers, Fasolt and Fafner, then get possession
of the gold,
and
immediately Fafner kills his brother to have the ring for himself.
And then in traditional fashion
Fafner
sits guard over the hoard and turns into a dragon.
The treasure possesses its owner.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
In the Gospel of Luke
Jesus
has a most unconventional and contrasting response to treasure,
to
gold, wealth, possessions that are amassed.
Last week in the Gospel reading
Jesus
told the parable about the rich man
whose
land had produced a bumper crop
and
who responded by hoarding it, building a bigger barn,
so
that he could have this wealth
to
see him through for a long time to come.
Unfortunately for the rich man his time was up.
Today in the Gospel we hear these words from Jesus,
“Sell
your possessions, and give alms.
Make
purses for yourselves that do not wear out,
an
unfailing treasure in heaven…
For
where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Sell your possessions…
Come on now, does Jesus really want everybody to do that?
Can’t we just spiritualize what he said
to
mean something like holding lightly to our possessions,
or
not forgetting to share
or
being appropriately generous?
Nope.
Jesus said a lot of hard things
because this is the way to get across to people really
important truths.
The thing is, the way we think about treasure is in terms
of ownership.
Mine.
We possess things and call them our possessions.
Ownership makes up much of the subject matter of our laws,
I
once heard about 90%.
Consider this, that ownership is tightly linked with
identity.
Our possessions give us identity in the community.
They
designate a standing or class in society
based
on the amount of value of what we possess.
If
we have a high school diploma or a college degree
that
is a possession that defines us.
The
clothes we wear, the cars we drive are possessions
that
present us with specific identity.
Our possessions mark us off as separate and individual
from everyone else.
But ownership is delusional,
and
possessions are no guarantee of security.
We don’t get this.
Our whole economy system is based upon false security and
denial.
If you think about this for awhile, you will see that it
is so.
Jesus says sell all your stuff.
He’s got a different kind of treasure in mind,
a
treasure in heaven which has much greater durability.
And you don’t even have to work for this,
because,
he says,
“It
is your Father’s good pleasure to give
you the kingdom.”
In place of ownership – possession - having
Jesus
would call us into discipleship with him,
to
live as he did – that is, by faith.
Look at Jesus.
No where in the Gospels do we find anything to indicate
that
Jesus owned anything whatsoever save the clothes on his back.
He didn’t even have a home; he was homeless.
Matthew
8:20
“Foxes have their dens,
and birds of the air have nests,
but
the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
To discover real faith one must give up
the ownership thing.
Francis
of Assisi did,
and
they said about him
that
possessing nothing the whole world was his.
It’s dangerous asking a Franciscan to preach on this
Gospel text for today.
As a Third Order Franciscan one of the aims of my Order is
to live simply.
To quote from our Principles:
“The first Christians
surrendered completely to our Lord
and recklessly gave all that
they had,
offering the world a new vision
of a society
in which a fresh attitude was
taken towards material possessions.
This vision was renewed by Saint
Francis
when he chose Lady Poverty as
his bride,
desiring that all barriers set
up by privilege based on wealth
should be overcome by love.
This is the inspiration for the
third aim of the Society, to live simply.”
Well, as you can see by now,
the
kind of sermon I am preaching is a stewardship sermon.
But it’s not the kind where you are encouraged to fill out
a pledge card
and
up your giving from last year.
It is a stewardship sermon about examining our
relationship with treasure
and
linking it with Jesus around the issue of faith and discipleship.
We can’t even imagine what no ownership is.
so typically we even want to try to own the process
of faith
rather than living by faith,
or
more specifically to be lived by the process of faith working in us
through
the Holy Spirit, the Presence of the Resurrection Jesus in us.
For so many ownership is primary
and
faith is a category in one corner of our lives
that
we also want to have ownership over.
We substitute ownership for faith.
But Jesus says, “Walk as I walk.
I
give you a spirituality, a way of life.”
The Church tends to want to hear about faith in the form
of
the
definition given in Heb. 11:1
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen.”
… and not hear about faith in terms of discipleship.
We want to own the process instead of living by the
process of faith,
or
more accurately, to
be lived by faith,
to
know that we are being lived by
the
One in whom we live and more and have our being.
Admittedly
this is hard to get across.
To
live by faith is to live in creation where ownership does not exist
and
to love in the way that is self-forgetting.
I
can talk this way because of what I have discovered through meditation.
Meditation
is a spiritual practice that employs non-ownership,
so
it’s a good way to become available to discovering how this is.
Meditation
is non-ownership.
At
the end of the 4th opera of Wagner’s Ring,
Brunnhilde
represents the love
Alberich
had renounced in order to possess the ring.
She
returns the ring back to the Rhine from which it came.
It
is the downfall, doom and end of the world.
Everything
goes up in flames,
including
Valhalla, the stronghold of the gods.
The
whole world order that lusted after possessing the treasure
dies
in the purifying flames
through
the faithful, self giving of love
in
the act of returning what cannot be possessed.
And
the curtain falls
as
a new scene is revealed
of
creation fresh and young springing green.
