Luke 12:13 - 21
My wife and I are at that age when we are very much concerned about last things. We’ve purchased our cemetery plots. We met with someone at the funeral home. We haven’t got everything done yet, but we are getting there. My wife’s father had everything arranged, even to the post - funeral luncheon for the people who attended. She wants it to be like that for us. On the other hand, I think it would be good for our kids to have to drop everything and spend a lot of time and effort getting me buried. After all we’ve done for them, you know. That’s what happened with my dad, who died suddenly at the age of 57.
One thing we both agree on is that we have way too much stuff. It wasn’t on purpose. We’ve just gone through 56 years of marriage and raising a family, and not really throwing away much because we might need it. I recently bought a battery-operated hedge trimmer for reasons which I could tell you about but won’t. And I decided to take one of my two electric hedge trimmers that required extension cords to the Longmeadow swap shop. It hurt to give a perfectly good hedge trimmer away; now I only have two. So as we go through our possessions, and especially our books, we keep wondering why we keep things and at the same time we feel pain when we part with them. Is that a human reaction? Or is it a reaction of someone who lives in a privileged society and has never really wanted for anything? Or is it just me. Am I just a rich fool? But I’m not the only one. I once met a Jesuit priest. Jesuits aren’t supposed to own anything. When he had to get some personal necessities, he would go to his superior who would give him some money to buy toothpaste, or soap, or whatever. He found himself hoarding the change from the purchases.
A person named Marie Kondo wrote a book about decluttering. YOu are supposed to pick up each item and ask whether it gives you joy or not. If not, discard it. If so, find a place for it where you can see it. I think she’s on to something, but if I did that, I would probably reduce my stuff by about 10 %. I gave away a lot of my books a couple of years ago but I still have a whole room full of books and then some.
Several tribes of native Americans in the Northwest practiced a ritual called “potlatch”. That’s a word from the Chinook language that means “to give away”. And that’s exactly what it was. People who had a lot of stuff were expected to periodically have a great big party to which they would invite all their relatives, even very distant ones. There would be singing and dancing and feasting, and then the rich person would give away everything he had. There was actually a sort of competition among tribal leaders – who could give away the most. Now what they gave away was stuff. It wasn’t land, or the means to make a living. IT was things you accumulated. In some tribes, once you turned twelve, you had your first potlatch and gave away all that you had accumulated during those twelve years.
I’m not proud of all the stuff I’ve accumulated. I’m even less proud of the fact that when I get rid of stuff, I have an emotional reaction. It isn’t rational. And I worry that it is one of the many barriers between me and God.
Like all of us Christians, I want to be united with God for all eternity. And according to the scriptures, that’s what God wants as well. But there are barriers. They all have to do with things that take God’s place in my life. If I hold something of mine and it gives me pleasure, then that object is taking God’s place, at least a little bit. God wants me to give him my whole self. I want to hold back.
So what should we do about our relationship to possessions? After all, you can do a lot of good with stuff. It’s not wrong to be rich. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man who provided a tomb for Jesus’ body. There was a lady named Lydia who was wealthy and used her wealth to support Saint Paul. The parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux were not poor at all, they ran a successful lace-making business. And they are recognized as saints.
As is usually the case, we can learn from the Blessed Mother. When the angel appeared to her she was a teenager. When he told her what God wanted from her, she replied, “Do to me whatever God wants” or “Be it done to me according to your word” which is a nicer translation. And then she threw herself into allowing God to lead. And God gave Mary the gift of being the mother of his son. And God demanded that the gift be returned, and Mary freely returned the gift, though her heart was broken on that day on Calvary. But she would withhold nothing from God.
God does not ask us to be poor, to give away all our possessions. But he wants us to see that everything is a gift, and I should be ready to give it away, to give it back, to pay it forward, at the first sign that it comes between God and me. So we should ask, this Sunday, what possessions of ours might interfere with our giving ourselves completely to God?
And if anyone would like an electric hedge trimmer, let me know.
