Prosperity's Need for Grace
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 13, 2011
I do not wish to plagiarise from a major financial institution in this city but there is something I have been thinking about for quite a while, and you will have seen a similar sign, although I am changing it to protect myself, “You are more prosperous than you think.” Note the change! The reason I say that is because I think we, as human beings get caught up with all the things that we do not have and forget the virtues and the gifts that we do have.
You might be saying, “Well, in what way are we prosperous, and more prosperous than we think?” Well, I am not just talking statistically about your own income or about your own portfolio, for some of you could enter into a very heated argument with me that in fact you are less prosperous than you thought you were. No, I am not dealing with that single sort of economic idea of prosperity. But, I do realize that as a nation, particularly by world standards, we Canadians are indeed very prosperous.
When you look at economic indicators in the world, it is very evident that we have a prosperity that we are often not aware of. According to the OECD, we are the tenth most affluent country in the world. By the standards of median income, we are probably seventh or eighth in the world in terms of what we as Canadians get to live with. In other words, by even the great standards of macro-economics, we are doing fairly well, and we are a prosperous nation.
Having said that, there are some caveats. Not long ago, I was reading The Centre for Urban Community Studies at the University of Toronto. The Centre does an examination on a regular basis of the state of the indicators that point to the condition of our society and our city. It is a wonderful publication. You can get it on the Internet.
A recent report points out the economic disparities that exist within the City of Toronto. I know it is in vogue to talk about that right now but the reality is it is access to affordable housing that to a large extent determines how prosperous citizens are in this city. If they are able to afford housing in an area where their work is, they tend to be more prosperous and more advantaged. If they are not able, they find themselves in places that make it difficult for them to sustain a high level of income.
There is a correlation they argue between access to housing that is supportable, and one's ability to advance financially. It is one of the reasons why in two Sunday's time, there is going to be a conversation between me and Dion Oxford on the Christian understanding of homelessness here in the city, and what can be done about it. That is a separate issue in some ways. Even those who have access to housing find themselves struggling, and therefore what has been an historically strong middle class is shrinking more and more as access to housing is becoming more and more difficult.
They also make the point that the city is starting to divide itself too much into ethnic enclaves. While these enclaves are a place of safety and security, particularly for new immigrants, the problem is being part of the whole of society, deriving benefits from all the cultural aspects, and making sure we are truly a pluralized city. One of the dangers with enclaves becoming entrenched is that communities do not talk to each other, but only to themselves.
There are problems. There is no question! There are challenges, but on the whole I think our society is characterized, certainly by world standards, as being prosperous. That prosperity of course brings with it another danger: Hedonism, the belief that the prosperity that we have is simply for our own good and our own benefit and our own pleasure.
Hedonism becomes all the more acute as society becomes more prosperous. Against that background, we have this incredible text this morning. It is a fascinating passage from the first chapter of The Book of Proverbs. To those of us that listen to it some twenty-five or twenty-six hundred years later, the wording might seem a little strange and antiquated, but the theme and the power of it is still as pertinent as it has ever been.
The line in this particular passage that sums it all up goes as follows: “The prosperity of fools leads to destruction” or the “prosperity of fools destroys them.” In the passage that we have this morning a different word was used than “prosperity.” It was the word “complacency.” “The complacency of fools destroys them.” In fact, in Hebrew, it is a very hard word to define. It is a fine line between “prosperity” and “feeling that you do not need to do anything.”
One of the great struggles is that complacency becomes wedded to prosperity. What I think the writer is getting at - and it would make for a very awkward sentence - is “self-conceit” or “self-ease.” That would probably be a better way to describe it. Those who have become at ease with themselves and have become complacent and prosperous, if they are fools, they will destroy themselves. It is powerful language.
The language that is used throughout all of wisdom literature makes a dichotomy between, on the one hand wisdom, and on the other hand, foolishness. Throughout The Book of Proverbs, Psalms, Songs of Solomon and others, you will find these words used a lot: “wisdom and foolishness” or “wisdom and folly.” In The Bible, “wisdom” is the personification of God and God's will; “folly” is the personification of idolatry and idols.
In this light, the writer is warning us to make sure that we follow the path of wisdom. The writer of Proverbs is explaining the danger of the prosperity of the foolish and the fools, who are the idolatrous, and that it will destroy them. He is making it abundantly clear that prosperity and complacency, if aligned with foolishness can destroy; but prosperity, if aligned with wisdom, can do the work of God.
I want to look this morning a little bit more closely at this magnificent passage, because in it there is much to inspire us in terms of our sense of stewardship and what we do with our time and our talents and our treasures. The first thing that seems to strike me in this passage is that prosperity needs grace. I think it is fair enough to say that for most atheists one of the reasons that they don't believe in God is that they believe that all their needs in this life are already covered.
Atheists are those that believe that their own prosperity, their intellect, their reason, the welfare of society is taken care of, and their needs are ameliorated simply by human activity. This is enough to keep them going and they find that they have no place for God and that there is no reason for God in a world where their needs are met. More often than not, I must say, the atheists that I meet are fairly rational but also a fairly prosperous group of people.
I remember many years ago my grandfather, God bless his soul, who grew up in southern Scotland and finally landed in the north of England during the Depression, was someone who recognized the problems of poverty and the need for a just society. He had a very strong social conscience. Granddad always wanted his children to have a sense of that social consciousness and to have awareness for the needs of others, particularly after his experience with the Depression.
Living in the north of England, he had decided that one of the ways he could teach us to be grateful for what we had was to take us down a mine in Yorkshire. So, with a group of students it was arranged for me, as a young boy, to go to south Yorkshire and down one of the mines. It was one of the bleakest experiences in my whole life. When what happened in Chile was so dramatic last year, it became evident to me that mining is an amazing thing, a great gift, but it is also profoundly dangerous.
When I came up from the mine, I remember my grandfather saying, “You know, I do not know a miner who doesn't believe in God.”
My comment to him was something like “Why? Is it because they have been down in Hell so long?”
He said, “No! They understand how fragile life is. They know how close they are, even in their work, to potential destruction and danger.”
Modern mining has come a long, long way from mining of 40 to 50 years ago. Even so, it is a dangerous thing.
The point Granddad was making was that when you face life's needs, when you see your vulnerability, then you recognize God. The problem is that we often associate our needs with our faith in God in such a way that it seems the more our needs are, the more we think we need God. In other words, God becomes - and this is the atheists' critique of religion - merely an extension of our own need.
The atheists' argument that all their needs are covered and therefore there is no need for God, and some believers who say, “Well, the reason I believe in God is because of my needs” both of them are narcissistic. The passage from Proverbs turns everything on its head. It assumes that when we are at our most prosperous, not needful, then we need God. We need God not simply because we hope that God is somehow going to assist us when we are without, but that we need God who assists us when we have plenty, and provides wisdom and guidance for us, and if not, we simply have foolishness, and prosperity of the fools leads to destruction.
The great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who I quote a lot, once said: “I fear myself when I am at my strongest, not when I am at my weakest.” Bonhoeffer understood that when his intellect, his brilliance, his ability to speak and all the great gifts that he had, such as the power and charisma of his personality, were in action, it was then that he realized that when he had the most, when he was at his most prosperous and virile, thoughtful and powerful, it was then that he was most scared of himself, because it was then that he could forget about God.
Dallas Willard, a wonderful writer who last year received an honorary doctorate from Wycliffe College, once said, “The Gospel is for the up-and-ins as well as the down-and-outs.” We often think that it is for the down and outs, the socially downtrodden, those who are in need of justice and healing and wealth and care, and it is, believe-you-me, it is, but it is also for “the up-and-ins.” It is for those who are the powerful, for those who are the prosperous, for those who are the intellectually acute, for those who have a great view.
It is for Canada. Canada needs God as much as the poorest corner of West Africa needs God. Why? It is because the prosperity of fools leads to destruction. What we need is wisdom. What we need is wisdom on how to guide our wealth, how to use it properly, and David will appreciate me quoting John Wesley, I love John Wesley's definition of stewardship, and it is just as simple as this, “Get all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.”
There is nothing wrong with prosperity. There is nothing wrong with saving and being good stewards of it. But, you also have to give it as well. Therefore, it seems to me that what prosperity and prosperous people need is grace: the grace and the wisdom of God. But, the other meaning for that word is “complacency” and I think complacency needs a mission.
It is very obvious to me that the prosperous are more likely to be complacent than those who are not, just simply because their needs are taken care of more easily. It is one thing to be content with what you have. The Apostle Paul made that abundantly clear in Philippians. I preached on it a few weeks ago. He said, “I have learned to be content in all things in times of need and in times of plenty.”
Contentment is the recognition that what you have is a gift from God. What you own and what you have been given is something that you should rest upon and be grateful for. Contentment is a spiritual state of being that knows that you are cared for. That is a good thing. That is wisdom.
Complacency is folly and foolishness. Complacency is the belief that even if one is prosperous, nothing is required of you. Complacency is not recognizing that you have been given something and are content in peace of mind, but that you just simply have no need to use it.
I was watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel not long ago that was covering animal life in Africa. I am always loathe to turn on the Discovery Channel simply because it always has animals bounding along, and my poor Cocker Spaniel, Humphrey, cannot distinguish between real animals and animals on TV, so he thinks he has to go and run along with them while they are running through the veld in South Africa, and it gets quite dangerous with a flat screen.
Anyway, I don't watch it very often for that reason but this day, Humphrey was locked in some jail somewhere, so, I was watching this and the commentator was speaking as if it was on behalf of one of the animals. It was just brilliant. He said, “The gazelle gets up in the morning when the sun rises and thinks to itself, “I must be able to run faster than the fastest lion or else I will not survive.” Then the camera scans to a lion under a tree, yawning and waking up from its sleep as the sun rises on the veld. The lion then says, “I must be able to run faster than the fastest gazelle if I am going to eat today and survive.”
His commentary was this: the gazelle and the lion both need every single day to decide that they are going to run fast and do something. There is no room for complacency in nature. Nor is there in the Christian life. It leads to destruction as it would to the gazelle or the lion. And, it does with our walk with God! If we think complacency is all right and that there is no need for a sense of mission in our lives, then we are sadly deluded.
I love what Tony Campolo, the great evangelical writer said, “In our society everybody agrees we need self-fulfillment, but what they don't agree on is the need for self-mission.” He argues that mission and having a sense of the call of God is what is desperately needed.
I was reading a passage from The New York Times some time ago about a great change taking place in farming in the United States. Many very good farms are converting into what is known as “agri-tourism” or “agri-entertainment.” In other words, farmers are renting out their farms for people to enjoy.
They can walk in the wheat fields as if there is a maze there or a labyrinth that they can walk through. They pay $1.00 to pet one of the lambs. They have an admission fee to wander through the fields and to see nature. They argue that urban people all over the world love to spend a little bit of time on the farm, at least for a few hours and as long as someone is doing the clean-up.
The argument in this was that there is one problem with this: while it might make some farmers affluent because they have done this, what is the purpose of a farm? It is to produce food! If they lose their sense of mission, if entertainment and profit are all that really matters, then what have they got? We have lost the very ability to feed ourselves. This is serious!
So it is with the Christian life. We need to have a sense of mission. Wisdom gives us that sense of mission, not foolishness. There is nothing wrong with being prosperous. Nothing at all! The only danger is that we use it foolishly rather than wisely. Jesus said in The Gospel of Luke in Chapter 12, “To whom much is given, much is required.” While that is often overstated, Jesus made it abundantly clear that to those who have been given a lot, as is evident in The Parable of the Talents, a lot is expected.
We are prosperous. We have been given so much, and we are so fortunate. Let us make sure that the prosperity that we have is used wisely, and that it is not for destruction, but for salvation, and for the Kingdom of God. Amen.