Enduring

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But 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. For 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.

But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

As 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. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus 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.

As we continue our exploration of 1 Timothy, really an exploration of the constants of our Christian faith that show up in the strange and often problematic book of 1 Timothy (last week it was the constant of the gift of Grace)— this week, it’s the shunning of exorbitant wealth, and the command of fair and generous distribution of resources. And it’s also a warning.

Last week, we talked about the fact that 1 Timothy was deeply influenced by the time and culture in which it was written, further removed from the origins of Christianity, and assimilating a bit into Greco-Roman culture and Hellenistic philosophy—for better, and for worse. There are some parts of Greco-Roman culture that are at odds with the roots of Christianity—parts that involve hierarchies and strict and patriarchal rules of domestic and family life—but there were some aspects of Hellenistic philosophy that are very compatible with Christianity,  and one of those aspects is the one we’re discussing today. It wasn’t just in Christian thought that wealth and riches were not only discouraged, but often demonized— one of the most famous Bible passages of all time is Jesus saying that it’s easier for a camel to through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven; it was also in Hellenistic philosophy, very much in Aristotelian ethics—shout out to my husband Chris for the assist on this one.

“The characters which accompany wealth are plain for all to see,” Aristotle writes, “The wealthy are…arrogant, being mentally affected by the acquisition of wealth, for they seem to think that they possess all good things.” This is was as true for Jesus as it was for Aristotle; and this is as true today as it is now. When people get to the point of extreme wealth, they change. They associate their material success with intelligence; to add to this—and this is something I preached about last winter when we discussed Luke’s Sermon on the Plain—when people get to a certain level of wealth, they become so insulated from society that they truly have no idea how everyday people live and work and survive. So they think they have all the answers without actually truly understanding how the world works for normal folks, what they want and what they need. That’s why you had someone like Elon Musk weaseling his way into the White House months ago, despite his wild unpopularity. That’s why you have people like Sam Altman continuing to try to push AI upon a world that, by and large, does not want it, and will not benefit from it. That’s why you have Peter Thiel pulling the strings with his surveillance business Palantir, while making ludicrous statements about the Antichrist while wondering aloud whether or not the human race should continue. There’s a reason why the uber-wealthy TV network CEOs are destroying free speech and silencing anyone who they don’t agree with the second government official oversteps with authoritarian threats, with no pushback at all— in their arrogance, they believe they know what’s right, and in their arrogance, they are destroying this country.

These are extreme of examples, of course—but we were also talking in Bible study about examples we see in our own backyards—wealthy people from outside our community buying up acres of land, building compounds, slapping posted signs around bucolic trails that were once open to all. It’s this arrogance of people who find themselves outside society in a way, that makes them think they should be the ones to call the shots, that they should be deciding how we live and where we are allowed to walk when they truly have no idea.

“…we brought nothing into this world… [and] we take nothing out of it,” says not-Paul at the beginning of our passage today. How can anyone be so arrogant, rich or not, to be able to think we can truly own anything on this earth, that we could truly own a piece of land, a tree, a blade of grass. As long as we have what we need to survive, food, clothing shelter, we should be content. And yet. Here we are… in a world where so many people go without because so many people have more than they could ever possibly need.

Let me repeat verse 10—  “…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.” This has been mistakenly quoted in the past as “money is the root of all evil.” But it’s very clearly the love of money. It’s the insatiable desire for money, it’s the greed, essentially, that is the root of all kinds of evil. This is helpful. It’s also, I think, a huge relief. A recurring theme that comes up all the time in my sermons, and in discussions at Bible study is the fact that it is downright impossible to be a truly good Christian under this hyper-capitalist economic system in which we all live. So when we read in the Bible, about leaving all our possessions, about the impossibility of people with money to make it into heaven, it can be shocking and uncomfortable. But the last few verses of our reading today soften the blow a little. They make the commands of Jesus and the commands of our faith a little easier to reconcile with the world in which we live. We all need money to survive in this world. But that’s just it—we need money to survive. We need money and resources to keep a roof over our heads, to keep our families fed, to keep each other supported and safe and warm.

In The Way of Abundance, a book that analyzes scripture of the Old and New Testaments through a lens of economic justice, economist and theologian Edith Rasell writes,

We need material resources to live, and without them, we die. But am I willing to open my hands, to share, to risk, and to trust so that everyone, including myself, has enough for abundant life? Do I trust God to provide enough for all if I first seek the kingdom? Do I trust my neighbors to share enough? Can I live the story?

These are serious questions. Do we trust each other? Do we trust God? Do we trust ourselves? Who can we trust in a world this broken, in a world run by the richest and most arrogant? Who can we trust in a country where free speech is looking to be a thing of the past? Well, we can, and we must  trust each other. We can and we must trust in God. We can and we must trust in this community. Faith communities like ours must exist and must thrive in order that we can continue to have a safe place, where we are free to be our whole selves, where we are free share our whole selves with one another.

 Not-Paul here writes that those with more than they need “…are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future…”. If you haven’t gotten it yet, you’ll be receiving your stewardship letters in the mail soon—huge thanks to Rachel and Tom for being so on top of everything, by the way—and in it, I focused on the concept of sharing. Because that’s what we’re doing when we give to the church, whether it’s money we’re, or our time, our ideas, our opinions—we’re sharing those with this community. We’re not just giving our resources away, to disappear into the void. We know where our resources are going. When you share your material resources with us, they’re being used to help each other, and to help the surrounding community—people in need, and hyper-local organizations that do incredible work. And when you share your time with us, you see the huge impact you can make when you’re an active part of a small, but vibrant community. And when you share your voice and your ideas here, you know you will be heard, respected, and loved.

There is no denying that are living in a time right now when sharing our opinions, our voice, our concerns, our criticisms can feel downright terrifying— freedoms we once took for granted in the public sphere seem to be slipping through our fingers. We need spaces like this now more than ever. We need sanctuary— sanctuary from  the oppression and authoritarianism that’s running rampant outside of these doors. We need this to continue to be a place in which we are able to be rich in good deeds, and therefore share with one another.

“But as for you…shun all this [shun the temptation and self-destruction, shun the evils brought on by the love of money, shun the arrogance and cruelty brought on by greed];  [rather], pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” Endurance and gentleness, two things we are in dire need of right now in the world. And this space here we receive the gentleness we need to recharge from the violent and cruel world. We are in this space to be reminded that the world can be good; we are in this space to be reminded of what our faith tells us—that together, by supporting each other and sharing what we have, we can create a world that is safe and comfortable for every single creature… but to continue to have this sacred space, we must endure. And to endure, we must share.

The world feels so overwhelming and scary right now. It’s easy to feel helpless and paralyzed. But we will persevere, because we have each other. We have this sacred space. But to continue to have this sacred space, we must be “ready to share,” because when we do, we set a “foundation for the future,” to “take hold of the life that really is life.” But what is this “life that truly is life”? Well, in the spirit of gentleness, and endurance, and because I think it explains that this life is, and should be better than I ever could, I’m going to end this sermon by reading Howard Thurman’s meditation “Life Goes On.”

During these turbulent times we must remind ourselves repeatedly that life goes on.

This we are apt to forget.

The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms;

the purpose of life outlasts our purposes;

the process of life cushions our processes.

The mass attack of disillusion and despair,

distilled out of the collapse of hope,

has so invaded our thoughts that what we know to be true and valid seems unreal and ephemeral.

There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility.

This is the great deception.

By it whole peoples have gone down to oblivion 

without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength of the clean and the commonplace.

Let us not be deceived.

It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces

by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained.

Birds still sing;

the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam over the desolation of the battlefields,

and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed.

There is no need to fear evil.

There is every need to understand what it does,

how it operates in the world,

what it draws upon to sustain itself.

We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil.

Over and over we must know that the real target of evil is not destruction of the body,

the reduction to rubble of cities;

the real target of evil is to corrupt the [our spirit] 

and to give [our] soul the contagion of inner disintegration.

When this happens,

there is nothing left,

the very citadel of [humankind] is captured and laid waste.

Therefore the evil in the world around us must not be allowed to move from without to within.

This would be to be overcome by evil.

To drink in the beauty that is within reach,

to clothe one’s life with simple deeds of kindness,

to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God

in the quietness of the human heart and in the workings of the human mind—

this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deception.

Amen.