Acts 2:42-47
A few weeks ago I illustrated a point from a film starring The Three Stooges. With that in mind, I hope no one is particularly shocked if I quote one of the best known songs from the end of the 20th century. It begins…
Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me
I think they’re okay
If they don’t give me proper credit
I just walk away.
They can beg and they can plead
But they can’t see the light, that’s right, that’s
right
‘Cause the boy with cold hard cash
Is always Mister Right.
‘Cause we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl….
Madonna not only raked in a lot of cold hard cash for her song, she also made bit by allowing a major department store to market a clothing line for young girls called, “Material Girl.” I won’t mention the store’s name but you might catch it if you watch any Thanksgiving Day parades or “Miracle on 34th Street” this Christmas.
Of course, Madonna didn’t create materialism she was just so blatant about acknowledging it. At the same time, she unintentionally points out one of the reasons why it’s sometimes tough to be a Christian. We Christians live in a material world.
We might think we could escape it by fleeing to a monastery but that’s an illusion. Historically the monasteries may have begun with the best of intentions but the forces of materialism are very strong. That’s one of the reasons why Henry VIII was so eager to dissolve the monasteries in 16th century England. He wanted to add their immense wealth to the royal coffers.
The temptations of a material world are still potent and Christians still fall prey to them. A few years ago, the story broke about a scandal at a Christian ministry that was focused on feeding the world’s poor. It seems the head of the ministry felt he couldn’t do his job without an $11,000 desk and other extravagant furnishing for his office. The material world is enticing.
What are some of the signs we may have become “Material Christians?”
We may have become Material Christians when we begin to believe God’s blessing can only be measured by the stuff we have.
It’s an ancient but very persistent view that wealth is a sign of God’s approval. That is why the disciples were so shocked when Jesus said a camel would go through the eye of a needle before a rich man could enter heaven. (Jesus, of course, was talking about the rich who might put their hope of heaven in their riches, rather than in the grace of God.)
Martin Luther once observed, “Riches are the least worthy gifts which God can give to man. What are they to God’s Word, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health, or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, wisdom! Yet men toil for them day and night and take no rest.”
I have no doubt that God’s blessings do come in material form—Jesus said God knows we have need of such things as food, shelter, clothing. But surely God’s best blessings can’t be measured by material standards. Joy, peace, fellowship, hope, a sense of purpose, are all blessings we just can’t put a price tag on.
We have become Material Christians if we measure our happiness by the stuff we have.
Someone once asked John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest Americans at that time, how much money was enough. Rockefeller replied, “Just a little more.”
Just a little more applies to stuff, too. We will be content if we have a newer car, a more up-to-date computer, a new dress, the top-of-the-line whatever. Of course, advertisers are more than happy to tell you that their products are just the thing you need to be happy, content, fulfilled, or successful.
But this can be true?
If so, centuries of wisdom have been wrong.
There is an old story of a king who was, despite his wealth, very unhappy. So he went to the wisest man in the kingdom and asked what he should do. The wise man said, “Find a happy man and wear his coat.” So the king went off to find a happy man. He went first to his richest subjects but none of them could say they were truly happy. At long last, as his rode down a dusty road, he saw a peasant who was building a stone wall. It was hot and the work was hard, but the peasant was singing! Surely this man was happy. So the king dismounted and asked the startled peasant if he was happy.
“Yes, Sire, I am very happy,” he replied.
“Then, give me your coat,” the king said, then added, “I can pay whatever you want for it.”
The peasant laughed, “Sire, I would gladly give it to you but I have no coat.”
We don’t know how much singing the coatless peasant may have done on a midwinter’s night, but the point remains: stuff doesn’t make us happy.
We have a need for material stuff and non-material stuff. We know that. Didn’t Someone once say something like, “You weren’t made to live by material stuff alone?” Both the materialist and the mystic foolishly forget that little word, “alone.”
In fact, we may have become Material Christians when we reduce all our needs to the material or physical.
Some of you may have studied the ideas of Abraham Maslow. Maslow argued that there exists a hierarchy of human needs, ranging from physiological needs, like food, to the need for what Maslow called self-actualization, a state that allows us to give vent to our creativity. Not everyone agrees with Maslow but he makes a good point that something is wrong if we get stuck in the pursuit of meeting one of these needs. Or if we convince ourselves that meeting our material needs will lead to meeting all the others.
Steve Wilkins and Mark Sanford point out some of the ways this might happen.
… consumerism encounters serious problems when needs arise that cannot be resolved by money. This forces consumerism to make substitutions. Since virtue cannot be purchased, consumerism tells us that a lot of money will make us socially respectable. Immortality is not for sale, but health care, life insurance and large headstones are. You can't pay enough to buy God, but a solid church budget can guarantee that you can get a preacher who can talk about God in an engaging way.
Of course, the problem with buying substitutes is that they do not address our real needs. When we try to get love, friendship, genuine respect and spiritual vitality from consumer goods, we find that they cannot deliver. The real need is still there. This is why consumerism is so closely linked with a relentless demand for a little bit more. Consumerism tells us that the holes in our lives will be filled if we just have more. Getting just a bit more proves to be unsatisfying, however, because money never fills legitimate needs for intellectual growth, moral virtue, love, true esteem and God. A counterfeit never replaces the real thing.[1]
I like to think that most of us who bother to crawl out of bed on a Sunday morning to come to church know this. We may not be as quick to see we can have other erroneous attitudes toward stuff.
A few years ago I sat in on a preaching class where a young seminary student delivered a sermon to the class as an assignment. He did a good job with his delivery and the sermon was generally well prepared. But one illustration troubled me.
As an example of piety or spirituality he pointed to his pastor. Although I can never imagine anyone dropping my name into a similar illustration, that’s not what troubled me. I was troubled because the only evidence he gave of his pastor’s spirituality was the fact he drove a fourteen year old car. Now, I can think of several reasons—apart from spirituality—why a pastor might drive an older car.
· The church might not have paid the pastor enough to buy a new car.
· The pastor might have been too cheap to buy a new car.
· The pastor might have enjoyed driving a car with sentimental value.
· The pastor might have enjoyed driving a car with such classic handling.
· The pastor might have enjoyed driving his wife and kids crazy by holding onto such an embarrassing heap.
The point is: we need to be very careful about judging the state of a person’s spirituality by the amount of stuff they have—or don’t have.
This is why the Bible presents neither a blanket condemnation of the rich nor a blanket commendation of the rich. Some were scoundrels like Laban who swindled Jacob; some were heroes like the generous Joseph of Arimathea.
Luke’s comment about the attitude and practice of the earliest Christians models the kind of attitude we need.
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
In the past, some have looked at this passage and claimed the early church practiced a kind of communism. Yet, a deeper look at the New Testament shows that the practice at Jerusalem was a unique situation. It was temporary, born of the special needs the church had in dealing with thousands of converts, many of whom were far from home and unable to provide for themselves.
What is remarkable here is not the solution to the problem but the attitude the believers had toward their stuff. They held onto it lightly. None of them said, “What’s mine is mine and I’m not about to let go of it.”
In time, the church seemed to develop a view of affluence that saw wealth as a blessed opportunity to make a difference. Christians who were blessed with more stuff than others were to pray that they might best use what God had given them. At the same time, those who had less stuff were to recognize that they might still have enough to do good as well.
At no time was the general principle, give your Christian leaders everything you have and they will decide what you need. Instead the operating principle was, let God guide you in using what you have and you’ll bring him glory as a wise steward. The first is a principle favored by the cults, the second is a principle favored by a church that sees all believers as possessing God’s Spirit who leads and guides each member.
Having said that let me suggest some ways I think the Spirit might lead Christians in this material world.
I think the Spirit would lead us to always make clear to onlookers that our sense of well-being comes not from our stuff but from our relationships, especially our relationship with God.
I think the Spirit would lead us to think twice before listening to the enticements of the advertizing world. Do you know that some churches are considering allowing local businesses to put small ads in their bulletins or newsletters? We need to learn to turn a blind eye or deaf ear to some of those ads.
I think the Spirit would have us resist the temptation to judge others by their stuff and reject the judgments of those who judge us by our stuff.
I think the Spirit would encourage us to distinguish between what we need and what we believe might boost our status before a watching world.
I think the Spirit would have us avoid a judgmental attitude toward our fellow believers. In the past few years both major political parties have tried to use class envy to sway voters. We can’t allow that kind of thinking into the church.
Conclusion: Back in 1985 Pat and I went to Australia on a partnership mission with hundreds of other Texas Baptists. We were assigned to the small city of Tumut NSW, about 250 miles from Sydney. After a week of special meetings in homes, schools, and the church we met to say a final goodbye to our new friends. As we moved around greeting the people, an old man approached Pat and thrust out his hand to give her a tissue with something wrapped in it. He muttered something and quickly moved on. He had given her several small rocks; some of them were chipped, revealing a shiny interior.
Perhaps I should say, revealing an opalescent interior. You see, the pastor told Pat that the man, Old Peter as he was known, had given her some uncut opals. He had probably found them when he worked in an opal mine. They were too small to be of much value, but they were valuable to him since he had dug them out of the ground.
The pastor went on to explain that Old Peter lived in a one-room apartment, with few niceties. People around town knew little about him since he was so very shy. But one thing the pastor did know. Except for what little Old Peter used for rent and food, he gave whatever money he had to missions. A man who might have been easily overlooked on the streets of Tumut was making an impact on the world far beyond its boundaries.
Now move ahead several years to a youth mission trip to Delbarton, West Virginia. Some of our youth and parents will remember that trip. In the falling-down houses, hungry children, and boarded up stores, we saw the impact of poverty and a failed local economy. For young people from a community like Worthington, it was an eye-opening experience.
On the edge of town, a short distance from the condemned school building where we were staying, there was a mansion. It wasn’t a Biltmore but it stood out in Delbarton. Naturally, our hosts felt they had to explain.
The home belonged to the CEO of a major food-services company. A Christian, he gave generously to help his adopted community and led the company to support a variety of Christian causes across the country, to provide scholarships to needy children, and to help struggling schools.
I never learned the CEO’s name but, like Old Peter, he was making a difference. Old Peter could have never stood in front of a group of wealthy business men and encourage them to reach deep and give generously to help the poor. He would have been tongue-tied. That was a job for a confident CEO.
These two men, as different as you can imagine, had a proper attitude toward their stuff.
[1] Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories That Shape Our Lives, Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 2009, p. 54. The authors add, “Money won't buy love, but it can pay for sex.”
