Date: Sept. 26, 2010
Sermon: Investment Advice
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
If you want to invest your money, I am not one to advise you. In fact, for me to give counsel about financial investing may be cause for malpractice!
If you want financial investment assistance, there are books and websites, as well as professionally qualified people, like our LUCC member Matthew Weber, that offer that kind of help. But don’t look for finance tips from a pastor!
While a pastor is not qualified to be offering financial investment advice, a pastor, a spiritual guide, a religious leader, should be well-qualified to give counsel about investing your life: Investing yourself in ways that create value and yield significant dividends! And in the scripture lessons that are assigned for today, we hear about just that: How to invest our lives with meaning. Each scripture offers a different insight, so we’ll listen to each lesson and reflect on it in turn. First, the prophet Jeremiah.
Read Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
What’s the first principle of any real estate transaction? Location. Location. Location. We don’t want to miss the implications of the location in this story or we’ll miss the message. Location. The field that Jeremiah is buying is located in an area occupied by the enemy Babylonian army. In fact, they may be camped out on the actual land! The armies of King Nebuchadnezzar are besieging Jerusalem. The city will soon fall and the government with it. Domination, oppression and exile ensue. This field can’t be worked or sold to anyone else. And what can Jeremiah do anyway, since he is in prison. He is in no position to do anything with the land. And yet, in a very public ceremony, with money measured and witnesses at hand, Jeremiah makes a spectacle of buying this worthless field. In the face of extremely dire circumstances, Jeremiah is banking on the future. He is exhibiting trust and faith in God’s future. He is loyal to a God who can effect reversals: Punishment to redemption. Devastation to productivity. Danger to security. Jeremiah is betting on God’s promise: “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” (Jeremiah 32:15)
So, strategy number one for investing your life: Take the long view. Look at the big picture. Expect change and transformation. Don’t merely consider immediate circumstances and short term gain. Bank on the long term.
This relates to our decisions and behaviors and choices on many fronts. It can relate to parenting. Sometimes parents can get all caught up in some small issue with their children. And it can disrupt the relationship and create friction that lasts and grows. But the initial issue may have been small. Was it worth it? A parent needs to think years down the line. Will this really matter? Each and every day, parents need to be looking years ahead at the ramifications of what they are doing. It is not enough to just look at the short term, or at momentary convenience.
Thinking about the long term is also an important consideration when it comes to something like the ending of a relationship. A divorce. Maybe there is anger and acrimony, but will a hostile termination of the relationship do anyone any good in the long term? Especially if there are children involved and there needs to be continuing contact as co-parents. Isn’t it better to work things out in a mutually agreeable manner that serves the long term? Getting vindictive satisfaction upfront will have negative consequences in the years to come. It’s not worth it.
Take the long view. Yesterday at Malcolm’s soccer game, the coach called out to a player who was complaining right near the end of the game, “Suck it up for 2 minutes to take the game.”
We also want to think about the long term when it comes to some of our most deeply cherished hopes and dreams about peace and justice. We need to invest ourselves in long term solutions. We need to examine our behavior and look for ways to pursue
these ends over decades and generations, not just in the immediate future.
This week the list of the richest people in the world was released by Forbes Magazine, and it told us what we already knew: Wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of a few. Transformation to an economy in which wealth is more evenly distributed is going to take years. It is not going to happen by the next election. But if there is to be any change, we must make investments in that future now. Take the steps we can toward economic justice. Keep the vision alive.
The same is true with the environment. We need to be thinking in the long term, both in terms of our resource usage and waste management as well as in terms of new technologies and energy sources.
Maybe you saw the little article in the paper this week about a dog park in Cambridge, Massachusetts, illuminated by lights that are fueled by dog poop. The people put the dog poop in a container and it generates methane which is then used to light the park at night. New solutions. New ideas. And that one came not from an engineer, but from an artist! (St. Petersburg Times 9/23/10)
The wisdom of the story from Jeremiah is take the long view. Don’t get succored in by immediate gratification, or apathy. We can’t do anything. We can’t make a difference. Our political system is set up for the short term: Do the things that will immediately please the people so that you will be re-elected. That is not sound strategy for investing a life, creating meaning, and making a difference.
We must think ahead. And like Jeremiah, regardless of image, reputation, or ridicule, bank on God’s intentions for peace, plenty and harmony. Invest now in a future with no war, no poverty, no bigotry, no injustice. Anticipate a safe and beautiful world for all people. Invest yourself in that future, regardless of current adversity, misfortune, and devastation. Bank on the long haul.
Now, on to Timothy.
Reading of I Timothy 6:6-19
Here we are given strategy number two for investing a life to create meaning and purpose. The author of First Timothy gives pointed teaching specifically about money and greed. And the investment strategy offered boils down to Don’t be greedy. It’s not all about money.
The writer of Timothy shows an awareness of just how great the seduction of wealth is. And that was before TV advertising, billboards, and the internet enticing us to spend our money in countless ways! The writer uses the words “temptation,” “trapped,” “senseless and harmful desires,” “ruin,” “destruction,” “pierced with many pains” to describe the effects of greed. That is strong language. The seductive power of wealth is real and can be devastating. So the author cheers, “Fight the good fight.” (I Timothy 6:12) Using imagery related to an athletic contest, the writer is showing us that there is compelling competition to the Christian life; there is a serious threat to our well-being, and it is named Greed. And we must work against it if we want to invest our lives in ways that are satisfying and meaningful.
The single-minded pursuit of wealth produces that which does not ultimately satisfy. The lure of wealth distracts us from doing good, from investing time and energy in religious pursuits. It takes us away from contentment with a simple life. It prevents us from appreciating all that God has provided “for our enjoyment.” (I Timothy 6:17)
And, the pursuit of wealth, the addiction to financial success, the seduction of the love of money, also, sometimes subtly leads us to betray our values and morals. We make choices that serve the ends of financial accumulation, but at the expense of human relationships, moral integrity, or even the well-being of other people and the earth.
People are getting rich from coal extraction, so the tops of the mountains of West Virginia are being stripped, causing enormous environmental destruction. This is seen as an acceptable cost for the pursuit of wealth. It is the destructive byproduct of greed.
And we know the human cost of greed when it comes to the plight of the farmworkers, kept in virtual slavery and exposed to harmful chemicals and pesticides. The United Farmworkers have started a campaign, “Take Our Jobs,” offering the jobs often done by illegal immigrants to legal US citizens. There have been very few takers!
We want to also consider the issue of greed and wealth from a larger perspective. While most of us do not think of ourselves as rich, in the eyes of the majority of people around the world, we are considered rich. We are perceived as being wealthy. For those with significant financial resources, Timothy has a word. Not of condemnation, but of cautionary advice: “As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty. . . They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share. . . so that they may take hold of the life that is really life.” (I Timothy 6:17-19) That’s the kind of investing we are commanded to do. Use our resources to do good, be generous, and share.
On the front of one of the birthday cards I got last week, it said, “If we had but one wish for your birthday, it would be this.” Then you open the card and it reads, “We wish we’d win the lottery.” Added below this, handwritten, was, “We would share, of course” That’s the spirit! Sharing. Generosity. The problem is not money, but Love of money that gets us into trouble. It is the lure of wealth, greed, that destroys our humanity and our character, and our souls. And this is something we must fight against. So, strategy number two for investing your life, Don’t be greedy.
Instead, Timothy tells us, invest in your faith. It will yield dividends of contentment, simplicity, acceptance, godliness, righteousness, love, patience, endurance, fortitude, and gentleness. Pursue these virtues through faithful living and loyalty to God. Invest in that good life. This teaching is not unique to Christianity by any means. In fact, the main philosophical and religious traditions of the first century emphasized these same values. Keep your life focussed on God, not the pursuit of wealth.
And this leads into the lesson from Luke that offers strategy number three for investing your life.
Read Luke 16:19-31
Dives, the name traditionally given to the rich man, was not intentionally bad. He was not knowingly immoral. He doesn’t spit on Lazarus. He doesn’t harass him. Dives is simply centered on his own well being. He is selfish and egocentric. Perhaps because he worrying about his investments and holdings, etc., he’s myopic. This blinds him to Lazarus. To the poor, hungry, crippled, sore -ridden human being thrown down at his gate. The gate which provides privacy, protection, security, and separation from the likes of Lazarus.
Was Lazarus famished while Dives feasted? Did Lazarus die of exposure while Dives lay ensconced in his linen sheets? Were Lazarus’ sores infected while Dives luxuriated in warm baths? We don’t know. But we do know that their lives were completely separate, though their proximity was immediate. Dives was simply ignorant of the existence of Lazarus and of his need.
Now let’s remember that Dives was from a religious tradition that emphasizes care for the poor and needy, charity and compassion, outrage at injustice, sympathy for those in need. Dives’ religion had been telling him about his responsibility to the poor his whole life, but he was ignoring that, too. He had denied the dignity, respect, equality and humanity of someone at his doorstep, not to mention denying Lazarus food and clothing.
While we may abhor Dives’ indifference, ignorance, and apathy, if we are honest, we will also have sympathy for Dives. We, too, know what it is to be separated from those in need in our community and in our world. We, too, can shut our door or our gate, and shut out the seamier side of reality. Get the homeless off the exit ramps and the benches downtown. We, too, know what it is to get caught up in our own affairs and not see the need around us. Our lives are complex and overloaded as it is with day to day concerns. Can’t we empathize with Dives – caught up in his own world?
So, now we get to life investment strategy number three. Pay attention. We don’t need a new teaching, or a new warning, or a new fangled way to be told. We have already been given our own religious heritage, as well as the religions and philosophies of the world which all basically teach concern for the poor and needy, sensitivity and generosity to those who are suffering. This is not new. We simply need to choose to take heed. Pay attention.
We need to look for opportunities to be generous with ourselves, our time, and yes, our money. And these opportunities are right on our doorstep, literally and figuratively, if we choose to pay attention.
We don’t have to be rich, like Dives, to be able to invest ourselves and the resources that we do have in significant ways, making a difference, embodying divine love and generosity.
When we were in Costa Rica several years ago, we got pizza at a place that had a buy one get two free deal. We had an extra pizza left over. So we decided to give it to a homeless guy we had seen around the corner from our hotel. We walked to where we had last seen him, and he was already holed up in a cardboard box for the night. Our daughter Angela spoke to him in Spanish. She got his attention. He peeked out of the box. She told him that we wanted to give him the pizza. After smiling and thanking us, he did not tear into a slice of the pizza. The first thing he did was whistle and call to his buddy down the block and around the corner who came running. Then they ate the pizza together.
Pay attention, and you will see all that ways that God is giving you to invest yourself. You will see the teachings and encouragement that you need. You will see the opportunities that are being given to you. And you will see your life significantly enriched because of your investment in the needs and well-being of others. But we have to be paying attention, or we will let real life slip by, and just be taken in by the equivalent of a Ponzi scheme!
So, our last investment strategy is pay attention.
As I said, I don’t know a thing about investing money, but I do know something about investing a life. I trust the witness of Jesus and of scripture. When we take the long view, avoid greed, and pay attention to the teachings of our tradition and the needs of others, we will find ourselves rich beyond measure in the things that really matter. We will reap dividends untold. We will receive endless returns on our investing. Amen.
A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.
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