This sermon was preached first at the church I serve -- Faith United Church of Christ, International Falls, MN -- in the fall of 2004. It was then revised for the Ecumenical Lenten Soup Suppers and worship services sponsored by 5 churches in our community each year during Lent. It was preached that time at First Lutheran Church, Int'l. Falls, on March 2, 2005.
For each service there were many "gadgets" on the chancel, such as laptop, cell phone, digital cameras, PDA with keyboard, GPS, "boombox", cordless phone, CDs, DVDs, "walkman".... For some sermons visuals are important too.
Confessions of a Techno-Junkie
sermon preached by the Rev. Sue Judson Hamly, pastor
Faith United Church of Christ
International Falls, Minnesota
Scriptures: Luke 12:13-21 and Colossians 3:1-11
Okay, I admit it! I’m a technology junkie! I also admit that not all of these gadgets up here belong to me personally, but that’s beside the point. Another thing I’ll admit is that I came by this techno-junkie thing naturally – it’s genetic! My grandfather thought the telephone was the most wonderful invention of his lifetime. In an era when people made few long-distance calls, he never complained about the telephone bill because it was so amazing to him to be able to pick up the phone and talk to someone on the other side of the country!
My dad was a camera buff and loved taking pictures wherever he went. After he died, my mom discovered that one day while she was out, he practiced his portrait techniques on her teddy-bear collection! And my mom doesn’t know a lot about computers, but once I introduced her to e-mail, she was hooked on that method of communication!
Technology has added to our “stuff.” It has made our lives simpler, but it has also added to the junk we collect. Not that I consider any of this [indicate items on table] junk…. but you know what I mean.
One of the biggest problems with the wonderful world of technology is that it’s always being improved – so you’re always behind! I remember not long after we got married, we purchased a sewing machine. It was pretty exciting because we got a really good deal at the end of the year before the new models came out. But you know what happened when the new models arrived? They were the first free-arm sewing machines, and mine wasn’t.
Do you remember your first microwave oven? I do! For a few days we stood around with our noses glued to the glass door watching a cake or brownies bake – truly amazing! Now we take them for granted and I’m back to baking cakes & brownies in the regular oven – not as fun to watch, but I think they taste better.
But what do you do with all that technology when you decide you want the newer version? Do you junk it? Do you give it to someone who can’t afford the latest version? Or do you stick it in the garage for the next 20 years?
It’s always a shock to realize how much stuff you have when you move. When we moved next door a couple years ago, I unpacked a box of family pictures that were wrapped in newspapers dated 1991 – the box hadn’t been opened since we left California! It still hasn’t been unpacked, but it did make it into the house.
One of the worst things is that no one’s really going to want our stuff when we’re gone because they all have too much of their own. But it’s still hard to let go of our possessions.
So what do the scriptures have to say to us? Jesus doesn’t say it in so many words, but “you can’t take it with you.”
The man in the parable has enough grain and other goods to feed the entire neighborhood. He has so much that he needs to tear down his barn & build a bigger one. Only then, he tells himself, can he relax, eat, drink & be merry because he’ll be set for many years. The irony is, of course, that he hasn’t got many years left to enjoy his riches. His time is up now. And then what?
One of the things we don’t notice, but the people hearing Jesus tell this story would have immediately realized is that there was a glaring omission. This man had completely ignored the tithe. In the Hebrew Scriptures, people were called upon to give the first fruits to God. That was the original tithe. But this man in the parable left no grain for the gleaners or the widows and orphans. Nope, the only tithe he offered was a sigh of contentment.
The Apostle Paul tells us that we need better priorities. We who have been baptized and who claim to be Christians, have (symbolically in baptism) died and been raised with Christ. We’re supposed to focus on “things that are above” rather than on earthly things, according to Paul.[1] Now, I must tell you that I rarely agree with Paul 100%. He got pretty hung up on the separation of the physical and the spiritual. I’m not sure that was wise. In order to be whole and complete (which is something God wants for us), we need to find a balance between the physical and spiritual. But that balance should lead us toward giving and away from hoarding.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have techno-gadgets and other modern conveniences. Take hearing-aids for example – they make it possible for me to be a minister. God gave us the brains to figure out how to create all these wonderful things. But do we use them selfishly, or do we try to also use them for the good of others?
In his parable, Jesus is speaking to everyone – the widow with her mite as well as the rich and the middle class. And what he said in that parable speaks to us not only personally, but as a group, a community, and a nation as well.
It could be said that our own country is the rich man in the parable. As a minister in Michigan has pointed out in a recent issue of The Christian Century magazine, the United Nations asked the wealthiest nations to give 7/10 of a percent of their Gross National Product to foreign aid. Among them, the giving of the United States ranks dead last. The U.S. gives 1/10 of one percent. (Of course that doesn’t count military aid…) Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and Sweden lead the world in generosity. In fact, in 2001, the Netherlands – with a population of 5.3 million people – less than the population of greater Chicago – gave $3.2 billion![2] That was 1/3 of the amount our country gave to foreign aid that year and the U.S. is a heck of a lot bigger than greater Chicago!
This is a difficult parable for us to listen to. Every one of us has more stuff than we need. Most of us can afford to get a fancier model when our 10-year-old TV quits working. Plus we’ve been told over and over that we need to save for the future. Take care of our own security – provide for our children – don’t be a burden to society. Sometimes it’s even hard to resist “keeping up with the Joneses.”
And I don’t think Jesus is saying possessions are bad. Or that we don’t need all this new technology. I think selfishness is the point of this parable. Hoarding turns us inward upon ourselves. It makes us afraid of community. We forget how to care and share. If we put God first, and remember that we really can’t take the stuff with us, maybe our priorities will become healthier, and we’ll be more willing to give and to share.
In his latest book, Peace is the Way, Deepak Chopra touches on this issue. He says the problem with money is that it distracts us! It gets our minds focused on business and commerce and “distorts the true values of spirit by replacing them with pleasures and possessions.” He writes, “To me, this doesn’t say that money is evil or nonspiritual. It says that money is a distraction, and sometimes so powerful a distraction that people fail to go beyond it.”[3]
I suspect Jesus would have agreed with Chopra. The uniting of spiritual and material values is a positive thing because they both have much good to offer, and in combination they should bring out the best in Christian loving and generosity.
After all, aren’t we seeking to follow the God who gave us the greatest gift of all – the God who gave us Jesus Christ to show us how to live and love in the best way possible?
The more we give, the more we’ll have. We used to sing a song at camp about a magic penny. The song reminded us that love is like that penny – if you give it away, you’ll end up having more.
There’s a joke about a man who was so greedy that he made his wife promise to put all his money in the casket with him when he died. On the day of the funeral, the widow went up to the front of the church, bent over the casket, and could be seen putting something inside before the funeral director closed the lid. After the burial everyone was back at the church for lunch and the woman’s best friend came up to her visibly upset. She asked, “How COULD you put all his money in the casket?! What about you? You need it to live on!” The widow smiled at her friend and replied, “Oh don’t worry, I wrote him a check.”
Being rich toward God means loving our neighbors and sharing the wealth with those who don’t have it. Go ahead and enjoy your gadgets, but remember how much more fun it is to share their benefits than to keep them a secret. AMEN.
Endnotes:
[1] Colossians 3:1-11.
[2] Lawrence Wood, Fremont UMC, Fremont, MI, in “A lot of junk” published in The Christian Century, July 27, 2004, p. 20.
[3] Peace is the Way, by Deepak Chopra. 2005, Harmony Books, New York, p. 76.
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