GETTING YOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT

October 15, 1989
8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Worship Services
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
Scripture

Luke 16:1-13

"No servant can serve two masters;...You cannot serve God and maymon."
~Luke 16:13 (RSV)

‘In-his memoir, The Good Times, Russel] Baker, New York Times:
correspondent and columnist, begins with an anusing observation.

"My mother, dead now to this world but still roaming free in my mind,
wakes. me some mornings before daybreak. ‘If there's one thing I can't
stand, it's a quitter.' I have heard her say that all my life. Now, lying
in bed; coming awake in the dark, I feel the fury of her energy fighting

the good-for-nothing idler within me who wants to go back to sleep instead
of tackling the brave new day...

"Silently I protest. I am not a child anymore. ‘I have made
something of myself. I am entitled to sleep late.

“Russell, you've got no more gumption than a bump on a log. Don't
you want to amount to something?!

"She has hounded me with these same battle cries since I was a boy in
short pants’ back in the Depression.

"Amount to something!

"Make something of yourself!

"Don't bea quitter!”

Baker tells how in 1954, at the age of 29, he was assigned to cover

the White Howse - as close to heaven as a correspondent could get. He went
home to Baltimore to tell his mother about it.

"I’ should have known better. ‘Well, Russ,' she said, ‘if you work

hard at this White House job you might be able to make something of
yourself.’". [p. 7-8]

The problem for Baker was that he wanted to write for a newspaper and
beginners, ‘police reporters, were paid very small salaries. Only top
correspondents made money. One time he overheard one of the paper's top

foreign correspondents wire for expense money — $5,000. Baker was ‘very
_impressed. Later in the book Baker relates how his boss at the Baltimore
Sun invited him to lunch at an elite private club to announce his new ._
assignment in London. Baker was dazzled by the place and describes his
memories of the waiter, table cloth, the drinks, and finally, the new
status - a foreign correspondent who could actually wire the home: office
for $5,000 in expense money. That really was heaven!

The book strikes a familiar chord with people whose values, hopes,
dreams and expectations have been shaped by the American experience: in the
middle of the twentieth century, which means most of us. We either lived
through the Great Depression, or were raised by parents who did, or -by
parents whose values were very much shaped by their parents who. were
- forever marked by that economic trauma: Frugality, responsibility, a
: suspicion of credit and an aversion to indebtedness, most of alla sense
that survival means hard work, absolute responsibility, and the willingness
to delay gratification and to work very, very hard. Russell Baker's
mother's litany - "make something of yourself, work hard, don't quit, get
ahead" is familiar to all of us, I suspect, and still drives many-of us.

~It may, in fact, define us more accurately than we suspect, or even
want to know about.

one of the most perceptive analysts of the human condition in our. _
century was H. Richard Niebuhr, who taught at-Yale Divinity. School,. brother
of the more widely known Reinhold Niebuhr. H. Richard Niebuhr. was-a-.
theologian whose focus was ethics. He taught that. behind our specific and
relative values, we have a center of value, on the basis of which -the
lesser values gain their meaning. “That center of value," said H- “Richard
Niebuhr, "is essentially theological, whether or not we are traditionally
religious. It is our god, the object of our loyalty and worship. -It is

- our theological frame of reference... it gives meaning and shape to. our
lives. Furthermore, everybody believes ultimately in something..

everybody has a center of value." Russell Baker is candid enough ‘to,
identify his mother's litany's as his center in a way that helps us
identify our own. The point is that each of us has one - a center of: value
which forms our other values, which gives meaning to our lives.....which
shapes our hopes and dreams and expectations for the future, even our:
ultimate future. That is to say, each of us has a god. Lek

And that is the point of what is arguably the most troublesome story
Jesus ever told: certainly one of the most intriguing. If the “charming
rascal" is one of your favorite literary character types; if, you love:
Travis McGee, you're going: ‘to love the man in this: stery. He's "as steward,
an estate Manager actually, in the employ of a wealthy land owner... The
land owner leases his property to tenant farmers whose rent is a percentage
of the produce they harvest from the land. The steward's job -is.-to. manage
the systems for the owner: negotiate the percentages, keep. the books,
collect the produce at harvest time. It is an important job. “The: owner.
depends. on his steward's effectiveness and most of all, honesty.

This particular steward, said Jesus, was charyved with wasting his
master's goods. The owner called him in, gave him notice, -told- him: to...
bring. the: books up to-date, clear out his desk, move on. He was fired.

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Notice that. he does not argue, explain or plead his case. Instead, without
wasting a moment, he goes to his office, summons the tenants one by one,
‘who do“not' know apparently that he has been fired and announces that the:
percent: they owe has been reduced and the landlord has lowéred the rent.
The implication is that he, the steward, has been instrumental in arranging
this happy surprise. Note how he is careful to be sure that their
handwriting, not: his, appears on the ledger. The farmers are delighted.
Nothing like this: has ever happened before.

Now the land owner discovers what has happened and he has only two.
options actually. He can jail the dishonest steward and reverse the damage. -
-done’ - but: ‘there's already a celebration going on in the town square. His
- tenant farmers - are, at the moment, perhaps at the pub, lifting their =). ./2 2
glasses to toast his -penerosity and his steward's kindness. He decides not.
to tell them ‘it is ’a mistake and that their good friend is. under arrest.

The ‘other option. is to absorb the loss, essentially to pay the price
himself for fis’ steward's | “salvation. That is what he does. He shows
unusual mercy ~ amazing grace -- and then he commends the steward for his”
shrewdness; his sense (of priority.

“it is: a subtle point: But Jesus often used “slightly unsavory - ‘:
characters to make it. . Prodigal’ sons, unjust judges, uncaring neighbors,
all point: to God's amazing and dependable graciousness. God's unexpected
and always. surprising willingness to love us and accépt us. This man-is
not a moral. model for anyone.: But, to his everlasting credit, he does know
what the most important issue ‘in life is and where to take it. He isos)
commended | “because he knows where to go for his safety, security, salvation:

-He knows somehow that he can depend, utterly and ultimately on the
generosity ¢ and grace of his master. [See Poet and Peasant, Kenneth Bailey,
p. 86 ££}

“And then, -in case we miss the point, Luke reports a lovely saying of |
Jesus!

"No servant can serve two masters,
you cannot. serve God and mammon."

-.Mammon-- what a great Biblical word. It means “wealth, money,
prosperity, profit," says one dictionary. It's money, but it's more than.
money. Tt! Se nyoriaue of money, the essence of wealth. [t's money: in
capital” ‘letters It's the gorgeous ads in the Sunday supplement... it's
trudging across an acre of lush Kentucky Blue Grass to borrow a cup of
Johnny Walker Black Label from your neighbor. It's a car you never. quite
pelt to see because its name is Infinity. It's a culture that invests its
most creative architecture no longer in cathedrals but vertical shopping
malls. Mammon is whatever shapes your dreams. Tt is your center of value
perhaps. It. is whatever you worship, Tt is whatever you expect to save
you, ; *.

“Mammon is defined differently by Russell Baker and children of the -
Depression as: accomplishment, ‘success, security. Comedian George Carlin,
who would: probably be surprised la be used as a sermon illustration,
defines it as veturg” - the accumulation of things for which we must

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provide space, shelves and drawers and garages and walls. and cabinets and
boxes and trunks. I discovered this summer that mammon- is defined for- most
of us, at least partially, by the word comfort Being-comfortable:is' more
important than we realize, therefore more powerful in actually determining
our values and our behavior. I hadn't realized how deep that is for.us..- I
learned it at the Outward Bound School, Hurricane Island, Maine, on a five
and one-half day expedition with thirty other middle-age, comfortable
people. From 5:30 a.m. dips in the cold, 52 degree, coastal waters, to
three days and nights on a thirty foot open life boat without any of. the
amenities which we simply take for granted, Outward Bound eloquently ;
demonstrates how very much of our energy, imagination and resources we are
willing to invest in comfortability and how very much of life we may miss

-_ in the process. [It is not a lesson most of us enjoy learning, But it.is
an important one. "I was comfortable” is not. a particularly inspiring.
epitaph after all.

' Another contemporary variation on the old theme of mammon night be
called "self-fulfillment." In a study of American Mainline Religion, the
authors report on a David Yankelovich opinion poll to the: effect that. 80%
of us are in some way involved in the "quest for fulfillment.” .17% of us
are intense seekers....17% "spend much of their lives assessing and
reassessing their personal lives, their jobs, friends, mates,-from-:the
perspective of the needs and wants of the self.". Yankelovich says. they
tend to be under 35, unmarried, college educated, white collar...
professionals. They are the ones most preoccupied with finding spiritual,
marital, physical wholeness through diet, exercise, meditation,
psychotherapy - many are candidates for such quasi- spiritual | activities as
primal therapy or "BST."

Thus, the authors conclude, "Given the intensity of theic quest,
many have stumbled into the ‘fulfillment trap’... wanting more than they
can have and putting self ahead of social relationships.” {Roof and
MacKinney, p. 47] —

Jesus would put it this way - "You cannot serve two masters.".
Theologically, we are here talking, thinking, you can't serve God- and
mammon. It's not that mammon is bad. Jesus has been consistently
misunderstood on that point. He did not condemn wealth in and of itself,
He did not condemn ambition or hard work. He told one wealthy young man to
sell all he had and give to the poor, but that was a particular... -
prescription, not a universal model. What he said here is that wealth, or
any form of mammon, doesn't work if we look to it for our salvation. It's
that simple. It doesn't work. And there is a sense that people who have
it know it best. — .

‘Harvey Cox observes that there is a revival of Eastern spirituality
in Western culture precisely because materialism doesn't work as a. source
of ultimate meaning or salvation. In a particular percepLive section in a
new book on comparative religions, Professor Cox notes that Young Urban
Professionals are "victims of a painful overload of contradiction" -between
the stated value systems of our seciety and the actual values which. operate
in the marketplace. “They are pulled apart. Jn family and religious life
they have been taught to share and cooperate and. even to love, but the.
world of classroom and market requires them: to connive and ‘compete if they

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wish to. succeed.” The: young adults who chose to spend a beautiful October
Saturday - yesterday: cleaning, . painting and rehabbing apartments of Cabrini~
- Green are: looked at with curiosity and often scorn by colleagues.”

a Cox, says’ one of the ‘appealing resolutions for many thoughtful” young
adults is-a vigorous,. disciplined, cult-type religiosity which provides val.
chance’ ‘to. test and ‘stretch- themselves as opposed. to the debilitating
“pursuit Of comfort that isthe chief characteristic of consumer culture,”
{Many Mansions, p. 188}

Mammon: doesn't work. “The first rule of economics someone said is
that." "you. can't have everything." You have to choose. Individuals and” .
nations. “Priorities must be established. In theological terms, a- god must
be chosen and > served, ae

; gaying yes to God, that.is, means saying no to other gods. It ‘is a

- matter of very basic ‘theology. In his monumental work, Does God Exist,
Hans Kung makes the point eloquently: to believe in the one God is. to
"repudiate the many gods that are worshipped today... the preat God Mammon
or the great God Sex or the great God Power or the great God Success, _or

the great God Nation, or the: great God Party.” tp. 619] Rents

“the trouble with us, the Bible concludes, is that we are always
getting our: priorities confused: We are looking for the meaning of | our.
-lives in the wrong places. .In the Biblical idiom the trouble with mammon,
is: not: ‘that: it ‘is evil. The. trouble is that it doesn't work, In fact, “all:
that: mammon. is good for is: producing worry and anxiety. If your. job-is the.
most” important. thing in the world to you, you're going to worry a lot. about.
it. Tf ‘it's your house, - your ‘automobile, your position in the community,
your sex ‘life, your children, you re probably worrying a tot.

One. ‘ot the most important. lessons of life. and one of the basic
insights” ‘af Judeo-Christian religion is this: if” you try to squeeze .
something: infinite out of- something finite, you will not only be

- unsuccessful and frustrated, you will very likely squeeze the life out as-
well.- One of the lessons ‘in- life that parents must learn is that if
children are expected to provide. peace, happiness, Contentment, an
salvation, _the> load will be too heavy fer the relationship to bear. If .

“your ego; your sense of self- worth, is dependent -on. your child's °
accomplishments, athletically, academically, economically or socially, the
child involved is being asked. to carry a very heavy load. In fact, it

won't ‘work. - Or if your, happiness is dependent. on your apartment On,
automobile, you! reo in: trouble _spiritually. And the ultimate irony .is. that

if you: look: ta® manmon, the mystique of wealth, prosperity and security. to on

provide happiness, ‘peace and. salvation, you probably will -not ever enjoy.
very mach of what you already have. ae

“the: truth: of. the: patter is--that- you and T only deeply enjoy what we
don't: ultimately: need. ~The ‘truth is that it is not possible to enjoy that

which you depend, on, ‘Psychologists know. that obsessive need ~ dépende nce a

“is not’a strong basis fora healthy relationship... The truth is that.
children are far better off when pareuts do nol-need them for ero re
“fulfillwent.- And they are. far more enjoyable - which may be one oF the us
reasons grandparents so absolutely enjoy their -prandchildren. aa

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The truth is that you cannot enjoy anything if you load it up with
expectations and demands and insist that it reward you with happiness,
peace and contentment. You can't enjoy anything that exerts that-kind of
power over you. You can't enjoy your sexuality if you look to it to
demonstrate your masculinity or femininity or attractiveness or youth, You
wont' enjoy romance or friendship or Family affection if you need it to
prove something to yourself. And mammon as money... Frederick Buechner
quips that "There are people who use up their entire lives naking money so
they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up." [Whistling in the
Dark, p. 80]

Jesus told a story about a man who was as flawed as anyone in the
Bible and as human as anyone here this morning, but a man who knew at least
where his salvation would be found. Jesus told that little story to the
people he was preparing for discipleship. He concluded it by teaching them
and us that it is a matter of very great importance that we get. our
priorities straight. ,

If we give our hearts to mammon, whatever that wight be for us, we
will not be happy and, in the process, we will miss the saving miracle of
God's unusual generosity, God's amazing grace, God's unconditional love for
us which is, he taught, the only source of our salvation...

Somehow in this season of stewardship - when this church and. all
churches ask us to think seriously about our resources, our relationship to
Our money, our decision about how to use it — this basic matter can't get
lost. It is not simply an issue of making pledges so that budgets may. be
established. [It is very much a matter of looking at and deciding our
priorities... deciding at heart, who we will serve: What our center of
value will be: Who will be our God.

The radical word of Christian faith, to those would-be disciples in
first century Galilee and would-be disciples in the 20th century is that in
order to experience salvation we must say "no" to all the other gods. who
clamor for our love and hope and faith and enthusiasm and passion, and say
"yes" to the God who has loved us inte being and came to be among us and to
teach us and to live and die with us and to rise again for us in Jesus

Christ. ;

We are.God's top priority it would seem. God has decided to love us,
to give us life and the capacity for love and joy and peace. God has
decided ta pive us life eternal, life in all its fullness, life blessed by
the beauty of art and music and the Indian Summer days of October, life
with all its potential for creativity and accomplishment, life with its
wonderful capacity for love and passion and intimacy and ecstasy, life -
which is Jesus Christ, is diminished by nothing, Limited and hemmed in
ultimately by no thing, not even death. That's what God has decided about.
us, we believe. And after all the deciding, God made one more decision —
namely to allow us the final one - the big one ~ the only one actually -
Who we will serve... Who will be our God...

AMEE EY

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