Sermon for June 18, 2006

Greed and Generosity in the film "Millions"

7th in a series on Spirituality and The Arts

By

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

¹³ A man in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide with me the property our father left us." ¹⁴ Jesus answered him, "Friend, who gave me the right to judge or to divide the property between you two?" ¹⁵ And he went on to say to them all, "Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be."

The headline in the Post a couple of weeks ago captured a major problem for our country:

“CORRUPTION TEARS AT THE FABRIC OF OUR DEMOCRACY”

The editorial named the scandals in the past few months over bribery and corruption and greed: congressman Duke Cunningham sentenced to eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to accepting millions in bribes; congressman William Jefferson who has not admitted anything after $90,000 in cold cash was found in his freezer and after a Kentucky businessman pleaded guilty to paying $400,000 in bribes to Jefferson; former Illinois governor Ryan convicted just a few weeks ago for misusing state resources; and even in Colorado two weeks ago the founder of an Adams County charter school was charged with embezzling $72,000 in school funds.

The list could go on and on about the seductive power of money and greed without even mentioning the Enron scandal and tragedy or the FEMA debacle we heard about this week where hundreds of people just deceived the people trying to help after Katrina and bilked us taxpayers for over a billion dollars with their dishonesty.

Denver resident and spiritual guru Richard Foster, author of several books on prayer and spiritual growth, put his finger right on our problem a few years ago in a book that came out with one title and then it was his publisher I believe who caused him to re-title it with something softer. The original title was “Money, Power, and Sex”, and I believe his thesis was that these three temptations are so strong and so prevalent that we need to take great care to keep them in proper boundaries and make sure that we relate to them in a healthy way.

Because if we don’t, if we are not in control of them, if we are controlled by them (most people are), we will lose our moral compass and we will sow the seeds of our own destruction.

Remember where that phrase about losing our moral compass came from? One time I remember it is from the trial in the 1970’s of the people who were involved in the Watergate cover-up that caused the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Jeb Magruder, one of the operatives in that cover-up told either the judge or the congressional investigative committee when they asked why he had broken the law, said he believed he had just completely lost his moral compass.

How many people do you know who don’t seem to have a moral compass or if they ever did, they must have lost it? Or a better way to state it could be to say that the only moral compass they have points to themselves and their quest for the three idols Richard Foster names—money sex and power.

One of the reasons we looked at Rick Warren’s book together a few months ago and one reason for its popularity is that he gives so many people the basic framework of Jesus teaching right at the beginning of the book: It is not about you. You and your pleasure and your comfort and your security are not the center of the universe. You were not created for life to revolve around you. You and I were put here to serve and share and make a difference. And that is the beginning of a moral and ethical compass and a life direction and a life orientation.

That is at the heart of the teaching of Jesus when he says to the man in Luke’s gospel who wants Jesus to arbitrate a family dispute: beware of all greed for your true life is not made up of what you own no matter how rich you may be!

That is one foundation for a spiritual and moral approach to life and that desire for a moral compass and for a spiritual foundation is one of the key reasons we are hearing over the past couple of years that new people are joining our church. In this last new member information session there were many parents of young children who have found St Andrew Church—through invitations from friends, through our web site, through post cards—and most of those parents said that one thing they are looking for in a church is reinforcement from the church for the moral and ethical and Jesus—like foundations they want to teach their kids—because too many kids are growing up without a moral compass or a spiritual framework for life, and because we parents need all the help we can get in forming that compass and that foundation because the sea of selfishness and greed all around us is very, very seductive.

That is part of our purpose as a community of faith—to nurture that spiritual and moral foundation, to instill the framework of Jesus teachings in each other, and in that sense, as we imitate Jesus, we are the real descendants of Jesus that the DaVinci Code book and film are so entranced by.

Have you thought about that? One of the themes in the DaVinci Code brouhaha is that Jesus had kids and that the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are present today. Here is how that is true and real: I believe the people who are the real descendants of Jesus are right here; it is us, people who endeavor to live his kind of life, working to follow him, to imitate him, to live a Christ-like life. And part of the conflict with living like Jesus has to do with how we relate to those three idols of money, sex, and power.

One thing we probably want our kids to learn from the values and teachings of Christ is unselfishness and generosity. I remember learning about generosity from my father as I worked with him in his little hamburger joints and saw him set a full plate before a homeless man who had not eaten in a couple of days. Money was tight in our own family but my father knew how important it is to share even the little we had. It is a cherished memory of mine on this Father’s Day.

We have been utilizing some cultural resources of music and literature and film to see how Christian insight and biblical truths appear in the arts and the film we are using today is about greed and generosity. It is one of the most charming and important films I have seen in a long time and I urge each of you to see it with family (it is child friendly), friends and others.

It features two English children who discover in a field a bag of money—229,000 pounds—that has been stolen in a large robbery. The youngest child, Damien, believes the money has been sent from God and he wants to use this wealth to help other people. The rest of his family is more materialistic and they see only what the money can do for them. Damien is a very spiritually mature child and he is well educated about Christian saints and even has visions of saints regularly.

In the scene we will see, Damien and his brother are just counting the stolen money and are trying to figure out what to do and Damien has another vision of a saint—St. Francis of Assisi in this case— and Francis has some advice for Damien about what to do.

[CLIP]

Damien has to deal with the greed and materialism in his family and friends and he also has to deal with the thief who shows up and learns Damien has the stolen money. It is a delightful film that includes visits to Damien from St. Nicholas, St. Anne, and his own recently deceased mother. Damien has a compassionate and generous heart and his vision is that money should be used to make life better for the poor and vulnerable, and while his family wants to buy more toys for adults, as well as children, Damien’s best vision is to provide water for a small village in Ethiopia so people can have healthy water and can wash their hands and stop spreading disease.

Damien is a “descendant of Jesus” and Jesus’ teaching about generosity and unselfishness, and the film has some deeply Biblical truths: don’t build your house on sand; money is a thing and things change; the one I like best is, money makes it hard to see what’s what!

The film will be unsettling in some ways—I hope you will check it out or acquire a copy. It will be disturbing to people who have adopted our culture’s worship of money. Money is not evil; the love of money, the worship and idolatry of money is evil, according to the Bible.

And it is that idolatry, that greed, that causes Jesus to focus on the danger of greed. We have said before that Jesus talks more about materialism and greed than about prayer. It is a surprise to most people—because he knew how seductive greed can be. Jesus talks more about greed than about sex also, which may be surprising to people who only listen to TV evangelists and their preoccupation with sex!

Jesus did that because he also said, “Wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart will be.” Whatever you love the most, that is what you will really be worshiping, and only God deserves your ultimate loyalty, your true worship, and when you and I understand that and put God at the center of life, then everything else falls into the right place.

Jesus also says that one way to be in control of our resources and not be controlled by them is to give away part of what we have been blessed by; and for Jesus, that sharing is started with a tithe or 10% of what we have according to his dialogue with the Pharisees in Matthew 23.

We are frank about all of Jesus’ expectations here in this church and the list on the front of your bulletin is about what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus—not an admirer but a follower. We are to study with others, worship with others, share our faith with others, serve others, pray regularly, practice generosity, and put God at the center of life. That is what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

Our church is known for being a high commitment church and that commitment includes generosity of time and energy and money—not based on a church budget but on the spiritual expectation of following Christ.

We are all growing in all of these spiritual disciplines but we also are known for taking them seriously. Next Wednesday afternoon is the first day of our Methodist Annual Conference session. Several of us are leading a workshop for other churches on creating generous hearts and a generous congregation. At the last count, we had 130 people signed up from congregations across Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. That is a tribute to you and the example of generosity that you are living by and I am proud to represent each of you in this congregation next week as we share our story.

The film reminds us that none of our stewardship talk starts with dollars; it starts with where our heart is, what we have given our heart to, what is our heart’s desire. Damien’s heart’s desire is to make a difference with what he has been given. That is a deeply Christ-like posture and life orientation and that is how we all have to start the self examination: what is our heart’s desire? What do we believe we are put here for—to grab and grub, or to make a difference?

Three other quotes to conclude:

I love Methodist founder John Wesley’s quote on stewardship and money:

Earn all you can.

Save all you can.

Give all you can.

The second quote is from Jesus: “beware of all greed for a person’s true life is not made up of what they own no matter how rich they may be.”

The final quote is also from Jesus: "what does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their soul in the process?”

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