Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Water Tower at MSF

Americans are indoctrinated from an early age to believe that owning things equals happiness. Parents ask their children before they can walk or talk, “What do you want for Christmas? What do you want for your birthday? What things do you want? Even our coffins are littered with stuff.

Our so-called freedom is all about buying and selling. It’s having money to own whatever we want. If you have the money you can buy clothes, cars, houses, vacations and education.

Once you’ve created that expectation – that freedom is buying anything you can afford – it’s very hard to set boundaries around it. Yes, you can buy all the clothes you can afford, and the cars, and the houses and the land; but you cannot buy abortion, recreational drugs, and weapons of mass destruction.

Says who? We are sponsoring criminal cartels in Mexico and Columbia and the Taliban in Afghanistan with our demand for illegal drugs and no law enforcement agency can stop us. If you believe that laws make a difference, read Last Call, the Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent.

In such a culture, the Christian is surely a person who makes a habit of shedding stuff. We have heard Jesus’ message: Guard against greed. You may be rich, but your life does not consist of possessions.

In his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas Friedman speaks of middle class people around the world who live as, or aspire to live as, Americans. He calls them Americums and they are consuming the earth at an alarming rate, and the disease of consumption is spreading rapidly. Americums believe Whoever Dies With The Most Toys Wins.

Can the Christian make a difference in the face of such an epidemic? I don’t know but we have to start somewhere; and it begins in the home, more precisely -- the closet.

Every time you buy, receive, build or steal something, you have to get rid of something. That’s a basic principle of systems. When you eat you have to excrete, or get fat. When you buy, you have to get rid of something or “build a larger barn.” But there is no end of building larger barns. “…and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Reverence for the earth begins in your closet and your storage bin, and then moves out to your grocery store, clothing store, and appliance and electronics stores.

Secondly, the Christian knows everything you own comes with responsibility. If you buy a book, you have to read it. If you buy clothes, you have to wear them. If you cannot drive two cars at the same time, why do you have two cars?

Leo Tolstoy tells of the peasant who was offered as much land as he could walk around in one day. Early in the morning he charged into the wilderness to stake his claim on an enormous tract. Unfortunately, the poor fool died of a heart attack as he was rushing back, trying to close the loop. The story is called, “How much land does a man need?”

How much property do you need? How much control must you have to get what you want? How much security do you need before you can breathe easily? How many toys do you need before you’re ready to die?

Martin Luther had it right when he reminded Christians, sola fides – faith alone. We are saved by our faith in Jesus Christ, not by the things we own.