Challenging our priorities

There was a film back in the 1980s called Brewster’s Millions.  It was about a man who was given an inheritance which even without allowing for inflation would still make the Euromillions jackpot look small.  But there is a condition.  If he can spend $30m in 30 days and not gain any possessions he will inherit $300m.  Option B is to just take a $1m.  I can’t remember the full details of the film now, but it’s a comedy and things go from crazy to mad.  It is very hard to spend money on that scale and not gain any possessions.  You can give it away very easily and ‘buy’ untold benefits for lots of people – no doubt we can all think of plenty of good causes who would benefit from such a fortune – but that’s not what was intended.  The strange thing about money is that the more you have the more you gain and the less you have even what you have can be taken away from you, we get caught in a poverty trap.

This came to mind when I read the words in the epistle reading, from 1 Corinthians (7:29-31).  Here Paul is struggling with explaining where our priorities are to be.  He puts it in a series of odd sounding opposites.  Among them is ‘let those who buy be as though they had no possessions’ (v30b).  Those who mourn are to be as though they are not mourning and just when you’ve cheered up, those who rejoice as though they are not rejoicing.  The even odder one is those who are married are to be as though they are not.  That could get you into all sorts of trouble if taken too literally.

Paul’s point is that no emotional state at the moment is the last word on who we are or where we are.  The concerns of the day, while they matter, are part of a passing order and ahead of us lies a kingdom that is eternal and deserves our true allegiance, when the chips are down.  Paul is calling for us to restore our sense of perspective and the irony is that when we do that it has some very earthly spin off benefits.

We are in danger of being obsessed by money and the lack of it.  Things are tight for many of us.  Pay freezes, or increases which don’t match inflation; the cost of essentials rising beyond what is sustainable; we may well feel poorer.  To add insult to injury the news is focused on bosses’ bonuses enticing the green-eyed monster from his lair within us.  Paul is actually asking us a fundamental question.  Do you have enough and before you answer, how are you deciding what is enough?  The spin off benefit is that we don’t get envious because these things are not to be what defines who we are; we refuse to play the game.

We need to remember that Paul didn’t live in a large house, with a fast car or company yacht.  He didn’t have a large expense account or the latest flat-screen HD 3D 50 inch TV.  He lived modestly and was thankful each day that he had food and shelter.  He did this because his heart was not on this passing age and amassing great personal wealth or comfort, but on the glory of God in which we live and breath and have our being.

Now, this understanding helps us see what the other readings are fundamentally about.  The story of Jonah is one that lends itself to children’s books (Jonah 3;1-5,10).  A man is given a job, runs away, get’s thrown off a ship, is swallowed by a big fish, spat out on the shore and decides he’d better do the job after all.  He preaches to the people of Nineveh, modern day Mosul in Iraq, and they repent, they change their priorities, which is what repent means.  The result, disaster is averted, God changes his mind and decides not to obliterate them after all.  The key is their changed priorities.

Enter then Jesus taking a walk by the lakeside (Mark 1:14-20).  He spots Simon and Andrew fishing.  He suggests that they raise their sights beyond the here and now to the big questions of life and death and new life.  The same goes for James and John, whose nets are broken and need mending.  On one level fishing nets get torn and there is nothing unusual about finding they need mending.  But the gospels have a habit of hinting at a deeper meaning too.  Are these broken nets an allegory of life being broken, of the need for a fix?   And fixes come in different guises.  There is the drug fix, lust fix and retail therapy fix, the satiating of cravings with things which don’t really satisfy.  Then there is the putting right kind of fix, the dealing with the root cause and making the changes that really sort out the problem.

‘Come and follow me’ is the call that cries out to us from the page of the gospels.  It is joined by its twin call, repent.  Following involves changing our priorities from being obsessed with the here and now, the ever-greater acquisition of possessions and consuming.  This may sound bad news for the economy, if we don’t consume manufacturing doesn’t produce and decline turns into slump.  But we have seen where unrestrained consuming beyond our means leads us and it is a fool’s paradise.

Christian Aid used to have a slogan about living simply so that others may simply live.  We have this morning the spiritual rationale for that.  Christ calls us to follow him and in the process to make sure our priorities are focused on the right goal.  None of this means that we are not concerned for justice and for the dignity of all, or about poverty.  This is actually a basis for that because the concern is not with my enrichment in isolation of everyone else.  The irony is that when we change our priorities everyone benefits.

Sermon preached at St Theresa's Roman Catholic Church, Crossgates, Leeds Sunday 22nd January 2012