Sermon 10/13/19  1 Timothy 6.1-12

“…Teach and urge these duties.

3Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, 4is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, 5and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. 6Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

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Today’s scripture passage is from one of three little pieces found in the NT: “The Pastoral Epistles.”

Here are some good questions to ask ourselves whenever we read scripture: Who wrote it? Why?  What was going on when it was written? Who was the original audience? What did it mean to them? And finally, what does it mean to us today?

Who wrote these letters? There’s debate that still orbits around this question. But whether or not Paul actually wrote them does not lessen their importance. These are letters written by an older, more experienced church leader to a younger one just starting out, with instructions on how faithful church leaders are to conduct themselves, how all church members should behave themselves, and more than a little of what often shows up in a lot of training for pastors these days, and that is the subject of “Boundaries”.

When these letters were written, the young church was going through a time of immense spiritual upheaval and organizational growing pains. Lots of different groups were emerging who offered their own version of Christian faith. One of them radical and severe (led by a guy named Marcion). Another offered a way of “special spiritual access” to God, but only to those who were qualified to learn the “secret knowledge”. (these folks were called Gnosticis).  And that’s just two groups. There were others, with ideas about Christian faith that presented a big challenge to the integrity of the young church. So, in these three letters “Christian Faith” starts being called “The” Faith: that amalgam of doctrines, rules for ordering the life of the church, and the institution of formal leadership roles like Bishops, Pastors, Deacons– things that are still with us today. The #1 boundary that needed constant attention back then, was this: What constitutes “The” Faith, and what does not.

That #1 boundary gave rise to other corollary boundaries—including some in chapter 6.  Chapter 6 kicks off with a repeat of the #1 Boundary: What to teach in church…and what not to teach, and then comes this boundary: On one side: the attitude that the religious life is a nifty way to make a lot of money and climb the social ladder. On the other side of the boundary is the attitude that the real gain to be had in religious living is that of growing as a human being while at the same time growing closer to God. (The Orthodox call this Theosis: “God became human, so that humans can become like God.”)

Sometime when you’re bored, do this Google search. Type in two words: “wealthy” and “evangelist”.  A long list will pop up, and at the top of the list is Kenneth Copeland, with a net personal worth somewhere 300 and 750 million dollars (estimated because he refuses to cooperate with IRS auditors) (Beliefnet.com)  We could go down the list from there, but it’s kind of long, so just Google “wealthy evangelist” and draw your own conclusions. (I refuse to call any of them ministers of the Gospel Jesus Christ; they are ministers of the “Gospel of Prosperity”–a very popular belief: God wants you to be wealthy, and if you’ll only send a significant donation to the preacher, you’ll get rich.

From which side of the boundary does this stuff come?

That finally brings us to the boundary which is the point that Pastor Luke wanted us to consider this morning: a boundary that runs right through the middle of this: (show 1 oz.silver dollar and pass it around). This baby goes by a lot of names: legal tender, bucks, dough, bread, moolah, loot, smackers, simoleons, cabbage.  The ancient Syriac language had a word for it, which Jesus of Nazareth took and kind of personified — as if it were the name of a deity who was in a head-to-head competition with the God of Israel for followers.  Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and _______.”  (Mammon)  If you were to take the time to count up and catalogue all the subjects about which Jesus had something to say, #1 would be “The Kingdom of God” and #2 would be every time Jesus touched on the subject of wealth, or economics.

Well, our verse from I Timothy is one of the most misquoted in the whole book, and the misquote goes like this: “Money is the root of all evil.”  What the book actually says, is “…the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Money itself is neither evil nor good.   But it is chock-full of potential, brimming with power waiting to be unleashed and achieve any number of outcomes. I liken it to electricity…or nuclear energy…or nitroglycerin, any of which can be used for great good… or great destruction.

Thinking about my own experience—it seems to me that it is this potential/power which is so attractive, and which can tempt, ensnare, and enthrall. Money gives you that power: power to do things, to get things done, to influence elections, to get things. But when you use that power, you risk falling for the delusion that because you have this power in your possession, your awareness of God and your ultimate need for God’s presence and power in your life can get distorted… and wither….and die.  By chasing after mammon for its own sake, a person can get sucked into a kind of bottomless, addictive whirlpool. Jesus recognized it.  The author of Timothy recognized it.  And in our own spiritual journey, we do well to recognize The Boundary which runs right through all of this, and where we stand in relation to that boundary, and it looks like this:

Mammon can be a wonderful servant. ||  Mammon can be a terrible Boss

Jesus had a lot to say about Mammon, much of it critical.  But on the other hand, his ministry, and the movement it started, was supported by the financial resources of those who recognized the importance of what he was up to.  (Like Lydia, in Acts 16)  And likewise, from the very beginning, the Christian movement shined a critical spotlight on those who possessed wealth but whose need to hang onto their wealth was greater than their desire to share it. (Acts 5:1-11 — Ananias & Sapphira, who secretly withheld a part of their offering to the church’s work, and dropped dead when they were called out for it.)

Mammon is not intrinsically an evil guy, but in his comings and goings in our lives, he is often at the root of all kinds of evil.  Some kinds of evil are pretty stark: folks commit awful crimes to get their hands on money:  robbery, blackmail, extortion, credit card theft, scams, murder,  or… by legally using aggressive marketing strategies and giving handsome bonuses to sales reps for persuading doctors to prescribe excessive amounts of … opioid drugs.  ….And now, here we are. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/   (‘way back  in 2001, Purdue Pharma paid $40 million as incentive bonuses to its sales representatives.¹⁹)

Money can be at the root of all sorts of evil.  And those of us sitting here may think (a little self-righteously?) “Well, I would never get caught up in that kind of wickedness.”

(But we are, each of us –to some degree— unwittingly-tangled up in this evil business.  We routinely drive back and forth to work, or here to church, and in so doing, we spend our money on what it takes to fuel and lubricate the vehicle. But…  Some stock holders of petroleum companies make profits off the money we spend on petroleum products, and other human beings inevitably suffer in the process.

You may recognize the term “Cancer Alley”. It’s a very stinky stretch along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, where more than 150 industrial facilities make stuff out of crude oil. They produce a quarter of this nation’s petrochemicals, and it ain’t called “Cancer Alley” for nothin’.  One example: In 1969, DuPont opened a plant there to manufacture chloroprene, the main chemical building block for a kind of durable rubber called neoprene. Dupont sold it in 2015 to a Japanese chemical company, Denka. The EPA has singled-out the area around that plant because if you live near there, the likelihood of you getting cancer from air pollution is over 700 times the national average.

Chasing after Mammon for its own sake involves taking the immense risk of being caught up in its power, the power to foster greed…. and then dragging whole economy—all of us–along on a terrible, tortured ride as a consequence. Think of the “Great Recession” of just 11 short years ago, brought on by the “irrational exuberance” of banks and financial markets that were drunk on the immense profits to be made by selling derivatives of bundled-up dicey mortgages and other such financial junk.

That’s one side of the boundary:  Mammon as a Terrible Boss.

And then there’s the other side of the boundary: Mammon as a Wonderful Servant.  (These examples are from: https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/philanthropy-magazine/less-god-less-giving).

In an article for Philanthropy magazine, Karl Zinsmeister examines a range of data to show how America’s religious faith is connected to charitable giving: “In study after study, religious practice is the behavioral variable with the strongest and most consistent association with generous giving.”   In other words, faith leads to generosity.

Here are a few highlights from the report:

• Americans with any religious affiliation made average annual charitable donations of $1,590 versus $695 for those with no religious affiliation. In addition to giving larger amounts, the religious give more often—making gifts about half again as frequently.
• Religion annually contributes an estimated $1.2 trillion of socioeconomic value to the U.S. economy. That $1.2 trillion is more than the combined revenue of America’s ten biggest tech giants. It is bigger than the total economy of all but 14 entire nations.
• Members of U.S. churches and synagogues send four and a half times as much money overseas to needy people every year as the Gates Foundation does.

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Money has power.

Like electricity, nuclear energy and nitroglycerin, money has immense power for good…or ill.   And maybe that’s why we’re a bit ambivalent about the stuff….why the subject is a touchy one….why we are reluctant to bring up in our conversations.  It has been said that money is to our generation what sex was to the Victorians—which is to say, that many people are willing to read about how others handle it or mismanage it, but few are ready to disclose their own involvement with it…. especially in Church.

The Punchline:

Ah, Mammon….  (Can I have my silver dollar back now…… pretty please? My grandfather gave it to me, and I may have to preach this sermon again someday.)

Mammon…..  We are often ambivalent about Mammon/money. We would rather not examine our relationship with Mammon too closely. But because Mammon holds such great potential, such great power, and because Mammon is such a wonderful servant or such a terrible boss, it is important for each of us who follow Jesus to regularly and intentionally take the time to do some spiritual heavy-lifting: to discern what parts of our lives might put us on this side of the boundary or that side of the boundary, and in doing so, be more able to put money in its proper place: not as our boss but as our servant, so that each decision we make concerning money is mindful, prayerful, intentional.  That, to me, is why the church’s Stewardship Season is so important. It’s not just about fundraising for the church.  This season gives us the opportunity to do the spiritual heavy-lifting and “put money in its place,” so that we may more and more often find ourselves among those described in verses 17-18 in this 6^th chapter of First Timothy:

¹⁷As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. ¹⁸They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, ¹⁹thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that  really  is  life.