2/26/23 Sermon
I was going to take time in consideration of our Gospel reading today to mount a beautiful rhetorical attack against the ideas of a prosperity gospel. I was going to pull out all the stops as I launched into how what a perversion of Christian Doctrine, theology, and the Gospel itself it truly is. I was going to pull out my pontifical soap box and boldly declare that Jesus is not a “get-out-of-hell-free card” and that the idea that we give money to the church or to someone so that we can receive more of it is about the furthest thing from what a poor carpenter in Galilee meant when he spoke the Sermon on the Mount or when he charged us to take care of the widows and orphans. I was going to take a line from Jack Kennedy’s book and ask not what God can do for us, but what we can do for God. Trust me; it was a masterful sermon that you would have been talking about for weeks. But… That isn’t the sermon I have today.
And as much as I disagree with and am disappointed by this so-called “Prosperity Gospel” I started thinking about how comfortable we all live. And that storing money in banks and ensuring our comfort is a second nature to us. I was going to then use numbers and statistics to talk about the 854 million malnourished people in the world. I was going to tell you that we’re 6% of the population consuming about 40% of it’s recourses.
I was going to break your heart by telling true stories of priests in Latin America who had people confessing to them that they partook of the Eucharist even though they did not meet the requisites simply because they were literally starving to death. And then I was going to admonish us all, even myself, for our selfishness and our laziness and our lack of compassion and true understanding of people in this world. Many of whom our in our communities. We pass them thinking that they’ll spend any money or help we give on drugs or alcohol and we’d just be wasting our time. Again, it was an amazing sermon that would have moved us all into action.
We would have almost run out of the church to find people to help, to go make a difference. Who knows… Some of us would have come right up to the communion table and sworn vows of poverty and scattered throughout the world to help people. I would come back next week and find you all had gone out into the world on mission and no one was in town anymore. But… Again, that isn’t the sermon I have today.
No, the sermon I have today isn’t fanciful or masterful. It isn’t going to make me an even greater legend in my own mind. And unfortunately it isn’t a great call to action. But, rather it is a simple story from the Mediterranean about an even simpler fisherman. Yet, it turns out that this fisherman was the student of a great mystic named Ibn-Al-Arabi.
And this fisherman had a student of his own. And he loved his teacher; this student. Everyday they would go out fishing together on the Mediterranean and reel in nets and nets of fish. And this poor spiritual fisherman would give away all of what he had among the poor of the village. He always fed the hungry and he saved nothing for himself except for one fish-head that he would eat at night. As it would happen, one night while eating this humble meal, he turned to his student and asked him to go find Ibn-Al-Arabi who was his teacher. He told him he didn’t feel like he had grown spiritually in quite some time. In fact, he felt quite spiritually sick. He needed guidance from Ibn-Al-Arabi on how to better strengthen the connection to God that he now felt he was losing.
As so the student, out of dedication, loyalty and love set off for the long journey to Ibn-Al-Arabi’s home. He eventually came to the town where this great spiritual master lived and asked where his house was. The people told him that it was on top of a hill on the outside of town and was very hard to miss. And as he started toward it, he noticed these lush and beautiful fields full of vegetables and grains. He asked the people working in them who the fields belonged to and they told him that these were Ibn-Al-Arabi’s fields. And as he got even closer he came upon these great cattle fields full of big, healthy cattle. He asked someone working in these fields who they belonged to. He was told again that they belonged to Ibn-Al-Arabi.
And he got to wondering why his poor, ascetic teacher who only ate a fish head a day and gave the rest to the poor would seek out a man of such opulence and wealth. But he had made her promise and continued up the hill toward Ibn-Al-Arabi’s home. And he saw a huge palatial mansion as he approached. He started to get a little offended. What possibly could this man have to offer his teacher? He rang the doorbell and one of the servants, who was dressed head-to-toe in hand-made silk, told him that Ibn-Al-Arabi was in counsel with the Sultan but was returning that afternoon. He invited him to wait in the courtyard and he accepted. Soon, he heard trumpets and in walked this great procession of elephants and the Sultan’s honor guard carrying Ibn-Al-Arabi. As they set him down the student approached him and told him who he was and why he was there. He told him of his poor fisherman teacher who felt spiritually sick.
Ibn-Al-Arabi said to him, “Tell him that he is too attached to the things of this world.” Then, he turned around and went into his house. The whole trip home the student was indignant that a man living in such luxury who has counsels with rulers could be so bold as to tell his poor teacher who lives in a shack and eats one fish head a day giving the rest to the needy that he was too attached to this world. He contemplated how, if at all he was going to tell his teacher this.
When he finally got back home, he was painfully silent still not knowing what to do. His teacher kept pressing him, “What did he say? Did you see Ibn-Al-Arabi? Did he tell you anything for me?” Finally he gave in and told him what Ibn-Al-Arabi had said to him; that he was too attached to the things of the world. The poor fisherman sat down astonished and began to cry. His student looked at him and asked him why he was crying and what right did Ibn-Al-Arabi have to say such things when he lives in such wealth. The fisherman answered him, “No, no… He’s right. He truly cares nothing for all that he has, but when I sit down to that fish head each night I wish it were the whole fish.”
You know, it is easy to hear the Gospel reading today and dismiss it or gloss over it. “Oh great, Jesus is telling me I need to be poor and give all that I can again.” Those of us with money cringe a little thinking of the money we have saved and those of us who are poor sigh with a little relief thinking that we are off the hook. But, perhaps the lesson in Jesus’ parable is much like the lesson of the poor fisherman. It isn’t in how much we have where the true pitfall lies, but in how much stock we put into it.
You see, I don’t think this passage is about wealth being bad. I think it’s more about attachment and what lays claim to you heart. The issue isn’t about the man having too many possessions. The issue is the man’s inability to let go of his possessions. He clinged to them to the point that it impeded his ability to follow Jesus and connect to God.
Paul Tillich, the theologian we talked briefly about last week defines idolatry as you small g god that you put above the capital G - God. And he gets really intellectual and confusing when trying to describe what he means. He says things like a small g god is anything we put ultimate concern in that isn’t ultimate. But essentially what he means is that whatever we put as the primary concern in our lives is what becomes our god. Like money. Or power. Or popularity. Or security. And that list goes on and on. Whatever occupies the majority of our thoughts and actions becomes our God. And for Tillich, the problem arrises when none of those things are actually God - when what we’re ultimately concerned with isn’t ultimate. Because only God is ultimate.
And so for Tillich, for this story about Ibn-Al-Arabi’s student and I think for Jesus if we go by this passage, intention and attachment plays a big role. God should be the central focus. The problem is that we get attached to and hold on to things that we refuse to let go of. And sometimes those things get in the way of doing what God calls us to do. It isn’t the wealth in of itself that’s bad. It’s when it becomes our primary focus and something we cling to to the point where it gets in the way of following God.
So may you let go of anything that holds you back.
May you embrace the new thing and the new life that God may be calling you into.
And May you let nothing stand in the way of following your God.