Sermon for the Lord’s Day

September 13, 2009

 “Enough Is Enough”

Rev. Lorelei Hillman

Genesis 1:26-31

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make humankind?  in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

²⁷     So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” ²⁹ God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-20 (translation by Rev. Hillman)

 Even if you love money, money cannot satisfy you.  Even if you love being wealthy, getting richer won’t make you happy.  Money and wealth disappear.

Stuff only benefits the people who use it.  You can own a lot of stuff, but if you aren’t using it, it’s just something to look at.

People who work hard sleep well, whether they are well-fed or over-fed; but being richer than other people won’t help you sleep at night.

I’ve seen the problem: people hoard their wealth and it hurts them; they could lose it all in a business deal gone bad (or a stock market crash), then they won’t even have enough to take care of their own children.  They came into the world without any possessions and when they die they will take nothing with them.  Think about it – they worked and worked and worked, and for what?  And while they were doing all this working, they were made sick by the worry and aggravation of competition.  Their relationships were even hurt by it.

Here’s what I think makes sense: we should enjoy what we eat and what we drink, and we should enjoy the work we do, because the days of our lives are limited.  If you are wealthy, don’t let it eat you up; enjoy what you have as a blessing from God.  When you are thankful to God for all you have, your life will be happy and your hearts will be joyful.

"Enough Is Enough"

How did you do on the quiz for today - naming pictures of favorite 'greedy' characters like Midas, Scrooge, Jezebel, and the seagulls from Finding Nemo?  Who did I miss; what other favorite greedy characters do you have?  Anyone want to try an impression of any of the characters – how about the seagulls: “Mine, mine, mine, mine…”

We just love to laugh at these badies, don’t we; love to see them get what they deserve.  It’s clear in all of these stories that they upset other people.  The story of Midas is a classical story of greed.  Midas, a king of Phrygia (modern-day Turkey) receives the gift from the god Dionysus one day of a single wish-come-true for hosting Dionysus’ drunken mentor, the satyr Sinenus.  The king wishes that everything he touches will be turned to gold.  At first, he finds it great fun – a bowl, a chair, some fruit, his palace all turn to gold beneath his fingertips.  Midas only becomes upset  when he realizes that he cannot eat or drink anything because they turn to gold the moment he puts the food or beverage to his lips.  In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s version, Midas’ beloved daughter runs to comfort him in his moment of panic, and is turned to an inanimate golden statue the moment his hands touch her skin.  Midas did not know when to say, “Enough is enough!”

Fortunately, Dionysus is compassionate when the king begs for a reprieve.  He sends Midas to swim in the Pactolus river.  This is what they call an “etiological” myth – it explains why the real Pactolus river had a great deal of gold in it.  But the myth’s great power, which lasts even to this day, is as a warning: even kings can be greedy, and the result is painful indeed!

Our passage from Ecclesiastes addresses some of the same issues.  It describes the destructive force behind greed, how it consumes those who feed it, ruining their health, putting them at risk for complete failure, and even threatening relationships with those they love and are meant to protect.  All their energy and joy are burnt up and burnt out in competition, but they are ultimately left with nothing to show for it.  As Mahatma Ghandi said, “Nature has enough to satisfy the needs of everyone but nothing to satisfy the greed of even a few.”

In 1954, Galaxy Science Fiction published a quite-different version of the Midas story, called The Midas Plague.  It was written by Frederik Pohl.  In Mr. Pohl’s novel, society has evolved to the point that they have robots to do all of the labor work.  In order to keep the robot factories working, the government has developed a ‘rationing’ system.  Those considered ‘poor’ are forced to maintain high levels of consumption – they live in the largest houses, drive the largest cars, eat the most food…  Consumption takes up the majority of their time, leaving little for any sort of enjoyment.

The rich have lower ration requirements.  As a result, they have ‘leisure’ time – in which they love to make things, produce things, create things.  This, they feel is a pleasure, particularly compared to the relentless pace of consumption forced on the ‘poor.’

The story is about a young man named Morey, who is ‘poor.’  At the beginning of the novel, Morey marries a young woman named Cherry, who is from a much ‘richer’ family.  She is not used to the amount of consumption that Morey’s social status requires.  The pressure is driving her mad.  In an attempt to save her, Morey reprograms some helper robots to be consumers.  They stay in his basement, wearing out clothing, shoes, hats, furniture, etc.

The scheme is eventually discovered.  But rather than being arrested or punished the government wants to find out how he reprogrammed the robots; they see this as a possible way to alleviate the suffering of their society.

Morey then raises the moral dilemma of wastefulness – producing just to consume, without need, he says, is immoral.  On the other hand, the whole society is structured around maintaining or increasing the amount of things produced by the robots.  They find a solution: they program the robots to want to wear clothing and shoes, to use furniture, and more.

Society is changed – people are no longer rationed to consume; when the robots produce more than the people need or want, the humans simply reprogram the robots to want more of a certain thing until the balance is restored.  Problem solved!

The story is different but not so different.  The message remains that putting accumulation of wealth for the sake of wealth alone at the center of your life (or a society’s life) is destructive.  It takes over and distorts the value of life, binds the will, and destroys relationships.  It is only when we value each other over things that all may be restored.

Do you see any similarities between Morey’s society and our own?  In the last decade or two, our houses and our cars have gotten bigger and bigger.  We eat more; we eat out more.  We’ve added holidays (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents’ Day).  Our gift-giving has become more compulsion than celebration.  Ask our children what the meaning of our faith holidays are and you are likely to get some very different answers from the ones we give.  What does Thanksgiving mean?  Christmas?  Easter?

Most of the people I talk to are struggling to bring the level of consumption in their households down – and while a lot of their motivation comes from the collapse of the economy, there also seems to be a heart-felt desire to simplify our lives. 

So for the last few days, I’ve been studying this movement toward simpler living.  First, I read a short book, The Happy Minimalist by Peter Lawrence.  Its subtitle is “Financial Independence, Good Health and a Better Planet for Us All.”  Ambitious!  Mr. Lawrence gives some very sane and practical tips for becoming a minimalist.  For example, a minimalist will buy a single item needed for living, and will use that item as broadly as possible.  He uses his laptop for several things: as a television, as a DVD player, as a CD player, as a photo album, as a filing cabinet.  Therefore, he does not own a television, a DVD or CD player, a photo album or a filing cabinet.  Each compounded use makes the laptop more worth the money he spent on it.  Using an item for as many things as possible, then taking care of it and keeping it as long as possible makes you a minimalist.

There was a lot that appealed to me about this approach.  When I look around my home, or even my office, I long for everything to have its place and to be in its place.  But I am a practiced ‘stacker’ – I can tell you which stack is which, and they are usually stacked in a sort of priority system with the most pressing items on the top.  I keep saying I’m going to get rid of all the clutter, but…

So I read on.  Mr. Lawrence drives a car with no air-conditioning.  It runs well, but draws comments from his friends and family because it is unattractive (and perhaps a bit uncomfortable!).  He does not own a bed; he sleeps on the carpeted floor in a sleeping bag because he does not need a mattress.  He uses everything until it completely falls apart.  At this point, I noted that Mr. Lawrence is also single.  He has done a lot of wonderful and interesting things in his life, and I don’t mean to disparage him, but at a certain point his whole minimalist thing crossed over a line for me.  I like my mattress, I like my home, I like my little car – and I’m willing to work to pay for them because I enjoy them.

So I moved on to the next book – Bruce Elkin’s Simplicity and Success: Creating the Life You Long For.  And while this book is much longer, and more philosophical than practical, I got a lot more out of it.  In a nutshell, Mr. Elkin says we will not stick with a simplicity program that strips us of the things we really want to do or have.  Rather than focus on the negative – getting rid of what we don’t want – we must put our good energy into creating what we do want.  He calls this ‘creating what matters.’  I won’t go into a great deal of detail.  Suffice it to say that the author’s strong central point is that, when we center our thoughts and efforts on creating what we want to be, we are refreshed, more flexible, more resourceful, and we learn as we go along.

You are probably wondering how on earth this relates to our September/October focus on Peacemaking.  Well, just as greed can destroy us, our health, our values, our relationships, it can have the same effect at a societal or inter-societal level.  If our hopes and expectations on a national level are defined by a self-image of wealth, particularly wealth as compared to other nations, our greed will consume us and interfere with our relationships to other countries.  We will see anything that impacts our competitive status as a problem at the least, and at worst, as a threat.

However, if we take a page from Bruce Elkin’s book, and begin to focus our attention, energy, and plans on creating what we want to be, we will find that our circle gradually widens.  Do we want to be healthy and happy?  This we cannot be while others suffer.  Do we want society to be just?  Then we will treat ourselves and all others justly, as a matter of practice.  Do we want to live in peace?  Then peace will become our great goal, and all of our objectives and actions will move toward that end.  What we had seen as problems will become part of the landscape we travel through on our way to becoming people of peace.

Have we gone too far afield?  Do you feel like you are at a self-help conference rather than at church?  Let’s return to the Bible.  In Genesis, God has just finished creating a world of incredible diversity, complexity, and beauty.  The best of God is in creation, God’s very image reflected in the beings he formed and gave the breath of life to.  Everything has what it needs – plants and fish, birds and animals, and even humans have enough.  “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”  All the details fell into place, with plenty for each creature, because God’s goal was accomplished.

In Ecclesiastes, all the illness and aggravation of greed is overcome by one thing: “…enjoy what you have as a blessing from God.  When you are thankful to God for all you have, your life will be happy and your hearts will be joyful.”  Sound advice, indeed!  What was lacking in a lot of the material I read about simplifying your life was a sense of appreciation – not of one’s own work, for that was well-celebrated, but of all we have that is not earned, often not even deserved.  In order to truly discern when Enough is enough, we have to take the time to be thankful for what God has given us already. 

Thankfulness to God covers all the bases, from taking only what you need, what you can use, to correctly valuing the people who make it possible for us to enjoy so many things.  If I am thankful to God, realizing how comfortable my cotton shirt is, then I must also give thanks for the people who planted and harvested that cotton, who ran the machines to make the cloth, who cut and sewed it into a garment, who hung it on a rack in the store, who sold it to me.  When I think of all the people who contributed to my shirt, the value of my shirt expands.  If all the people who helped to make and sell my shirt are as beloved of God as I am myself, what is my ethic for purchasing the shirt?

Suddenly I am no longer isolated from the laborers who made my shirt, no matter what their part.  What do they earn?  What are their living conditions like?  Do they have rights, or is my consumption driving their subjugation?  Does the way I spend my money support my meta-goal of being a person of peace and justice or not?  Being a person of peace complicates my life by demanding more of me.  It also simplifies my life by making my choices (and their consequences) clearer.  Welcome to the wonderful, upside-down world of Jesus who said, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”^[1] [Matthew 6:28-30]