True Riches
“True Riches”
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, September 22, 2019
1 Timothy 2:1-7 Luke 16:1-13
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
One my favorite pictures from the Sabbatical in 2017 is of an olive grove. Olive trees growing on a hillside in Italy produce a crop of olives every year, and with care the trees just keep on living. Those particular trees were likely planted by Francis and Clare and others in the community as they sought to work with sister Earth to grow food. That means those trees are around 900 years old, and the trunks are weathered and twisted and gnarled. The branches get pruned regularly to keep the fruits active, and the ancient roots continue drawing nutrients from the soil. Almost a thousand years captured in a photo, and in a way linking me with Francis as our paths cross, or our circles overlap in that strange time-space continuum. Let’s hold that thought of almost 1,000 year old olive trees humbly planted with love and care, still producing food to this day.
The other night I joined millions and millions of people in, what for many is a daily ritual: I watched television, past the time I typically go to bed. Commercial advertisements, anywhere from two second blips to 30 second full-on stimulation, nurtured markets of consumers to inspire the purchase of a huge assortment of products. Commercial breaks went on and on and on, but then the House-Hunter show comes back on and we can see a man and his wife demonstrating savvy shopping as the Realtor highlights the features of beach-front homes. They had opposite styles, the man being more budget conscious and worried about hurricanes, and the woman wanting right on the water with lots of windows and open space. One home they visited was built in 2002, just 17 years ago. As they looked at the bathrooms, each featuring a toilet, sinks, shower and tub, the basic ingredients for bathrooms in America, she said again and again, “Oh this would need to go. It is so old. Definitely needs updated! We would need to rip this all out.” 17 years and it’s deemed worthless. 17 years and styles and tastes have shifted so much that what once was acceptable and appreciated is no longer valued. Do you think she’s ever been to Assisi, in Italy?
“Who ever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?”
When I was a kid my family would sometimes go on Sunday drives in the afternoon, exploring other neighborhoods and county roads. There were six of us, my parents and four kids, and I would typically get what we called, “the back-back” in the 1970 Ford Torino Station Wagon. I would have that big, open space, sometimes with my brother, but sometimes just me, and as we toured around the area one of the aspects of entertainment was to notice For Sale signs on houses.
Across town one Sunday there was a new neighborhood, a suburb built on a hillside that had a view of the Valley below. I distinctly remember being in the back of that car hearing my parents express their shock and awe when they said the house in front of us, brand new, was for sale at one hundred thousand dollars. It was the first time I’d ever heard of a house being six figures, and it might as well have been a million dollars because in that moment I realized something in life shifted. I recognized that we live in a system, and within that system there is striving and wants and potential. But in the tone of the conversation there was a mix of disgust, frustration, a sense of feeling defeated, and I realized my parents had limitations. There were things in life they would never be able to afford, and they would be excluded from the upper crust of society. It was a humbling experience as we drove away in disbelief that a house could be so expensive, knowing we would never live in that neighborhood, even if we wanted to.
I looked online at that neighborhood today and the going rate for a house is around $400,000. That’s basically a price increase of 10,000 dollars per year since I was there in that car. The Market for housing seems exponential, and for those with resources it’s a great investment, but for those with few resources, it’s a very tough situation. There is a need, a tremendous need, for affordable housing, but the market system of investment doesn’t prioritize affordable housing. Buy low, sell high is the operative system.
The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates that last part, saying, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” In the Greek, that word, “wealth” is actually, “mammon.” This is wealth, but more. It’s also “the system.” For us, our systems are the Market, Capitalism, Individualism, and lots of other “isms,” whether they be religious, economic, military, political, or social. For Jesus in this passage it’s not only what he’s saying, it’s how he’s saying it that shows the scandal of how we live our lives.
“No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and ‘the system.’” This is another way of saying that we live in dualism. Judging, choosing, comparing, weighing, strategizing. Our culture even commodifies relationships. A slave serving a master has no freedom, so even the metaphor shows how trapped we are in our own mindset of self-referential thinking. Serving God requires a new mind, a transformed heart, and an open spirit. Relinquishing identity and control, letting go of “the system” is something very few people actually do. And it’s less a giant leap and more a process of small victories, which accumulate over time through disciplines.
“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.”
What if Jesus was talking about silence? Sitting in silence for five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes a day? Doesn’t sound like much. Can we be faithful with that, just sitting in silence releasing thoughts as they come, removing all distractions so we can give God our undivided attention?
There is nothing in life in which God’s Presence does not participate, nothing in life which is beyond the need for divine grace and sustaining love. Splitting the field, living in dualism, is not on God, but it’s on us. Jesus is calling us to an integrated life, a unitive consciousness, a different operating system than what we typically settle for. This is the “true riches,” as we claim grounding in Christ.
In The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, the character Gollum and Bilbo Baggens have a contest of riddles. One of those is this:
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
What is this thing? [Time]. Time. How we use a little time is how we use all time. Being faithful with a few minutes, in silence, affects eternity, and can change your life.
One of those things I’m trying to be more disciplined in, intentionally faithful with a little, knowing that it is connected to more than that, is writing. In fits and starts I’m gradually developing a more disciplined approach, or at least an appreciation that a discipline is necessary to really be a good writer. I want to share a couple poems, just for fun. I took the time to write these, and in these poems there is more going on than just the words. The very structure of the poems has discipline to it, a pattern which is hard to pick up on just by listening, so I’ll post it up in Fellowship Hall so you can see it too.
One is a poem I wrote as I reflected on feelings involved with my dog buried in my yard. The other is a poem trying to make sense of my need to do things, to have projects around the house. That’s what poetry is, in a lot of ways; the poet’s attempt to use words to try and make sense of life’s realities.
Here is my poem, From The Corner Of The Yard: (read poem, printed on full paper) and also, Someday Projects. (read poem on other paper)
(Closing statement) A couple small attempts to be faithful with a little. What are yours? What is one small way you can open yourself up to a larger Wisdom? One small way you can invest your life in the Larger Life? Be faithful with a little, for it means a lot. May God be glorified through humble beginnings, both NOW, even as forever. Amen.
From the Corner of the Yard
Andy Kennaly
August 7, 2019
Where does sorrow stay?
Where does it reside
as the days go by
floating above
the pain that’s sunk
into the cells of some
part of my body
waiting to manifest and be
expressed in honest moments
or sickness
or rage
as pain projects its existence
The dog is buried and the grave
rocks have sunk as her body
yields to earth and rhythms
of life and death.
We cried as we put her in a box
and sealed her to our past.
As sorrow lives, I’ll invite it
into my house and put it on its bed.
Someday Projects, Andy Kennaly, September 19, 2019
Someday…
I’ll finish that French drain pipe, still exposed
among weeds as landscaping stalls out
leaving another project hanging
like the deer fence for the new garden waiting
for holes to set corner posts to hold
the tension as time pauses
and interruptions of other work
take focus and energy as labor
pulls and fragments the jobs
and the gravel pile sits
with a rusting shovel nearby leaning
right where it was placed
when I had to get going
into town to get moving
on duties I get paid to do.
But someday
if I finish
the fence then
the fruit trees can get planted then
the new green house built then
new garden beds dug then
bee hives set up then
the back patio installed then
new decks for the doors then
maybe even a hot tub so then
I can soak and enjoy time spent
in jets swirling warm
water to soothe my sore muscles
and relax yet ponder
the old crumbling barn quivering
under winter snow and ice heaving
timber posts and stressing beams that will collapse
…someday.