Thread by @jeffblack945

#RevThread # 120 c
What the Hell? Part 3 of 5
Of God and Greed

1/ “Greedy. I was always greedy, greedy, greedy. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that. But now, I’m going to be greedy for America!” Thus, approximately, spake the Don, to throngs of adoring white evangelicals.

2/ The warnings by Jesus about greed are many and severe. He creates parables about money, he teaches straight out about its dangers. Successful churches sail on by, oblivious to His urgent warnings.

3/ Jesus focussed so much on money because it is an object of our heart’s desire, and therefore it’s really dangerous. We kill for it, divorce for it, lie for it, commit treason for it. Nobody thinks they're greedy, but greed lurks just behind everyone's door.

4/ Here is a truth about money that only Jesus, so far as I know, perceived. He says “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.”(Matt 6:21) It’s so true and so clear and almost nobody gets it. At first I thought Jesus meant what other preachers on this text said he meant:

5/ "People’s money follows their heart. People prioritize and will give money for things that are important to them. So when you do the money sermon, make sure to list all the good things the church is doing, move their hearts...

6/... have them love the ministry. Because where your heart is, there your money will follow."

7/ Wrong. Pastor Jeff could have come up with that. Every marketer comes up with that. Dear Abby could come up with that. But Jesus was saying something interesting, something original, something revelatory...

8/ Jesus didn't say that our money follows our heart. No, what Jesus saw about all of us is that our heart follows our money.

9/ Money has the power to pull our heart. I lived for quite a while in parsonages. They were pretty nice and I tried to be respectful of the property and all, but the church council needed to take care of it.

10/ Then we bought our first home. Man, I was fixing that thing up all the time. I wanted it to look good. I had put my money in that thing and now it mattered to my heart.

11/ Money is intensely spiritual. Indeed, money has a spirit. Let’s survey 3 wars: WWII, Vietnam, and the war in Afghanistan. In the first two of those wars, the people personally put in a lot of money -- every family, every tax payer.

12/ In WWII, FDR brought the people in through his teachings and fireside chats. He also raised, taxes, and we bought war bonds in a big way. The public was hugely involved in WWII, followed every battle, had prayer meetings all the time for the cause,...

13/.. staged massive celebrations at its conclusion and demanded that we lead a new world order to justify the sacrifices made in the war.

14/ In Vietnam, President Johnson, to his credit, refused to finance that war with deficit spending. He got congress to levy a tax for the war. In Vietnam, the public really cared too--we had a near revolt as the ineptitude & dishonesty about our aims & prospects became clearer.

15/ For the war in Afghanistan, Pres. Bush gave everyone a big tax cut, called the war on Terrorism the existential crisis of our generation, & then told us our role was to go shopping. And now . . .17 years and counting? Shall we stay? Who cares? Not MSM, not JQ Public. Why?

16/ The families of the soldiers care. They have something at stake. But the population doesn’t, because it hasn’t cost us a dime.(Well, we are leaving a big bill for the kids.) The public’s heart is not in these wars because we aren’t putting any of our personal money into them.

17/ Our heart follows our money. No money, no emotional investment.

18/ Then there’s money’s second power. When we have some we usually want more, just enough to make my bills and have a little left over to make payments on more stuff I’ve just discovered I want.

19/ When we get more we want more. The fantasy is that with enough more we will feel secure and even, sneakily, a little superior to our previous version of lifestyle.

20/ Jesus warned his followers to beware of Mammon. He thundered, “You must choose. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Mammon was a god worshipped in Babylon. The name, in the ancient Chaldean, meant, “poise” or “serenity.”...

21/.. What the Chaldeans noticed was that when someone had a pile of wealth, a spirit arose from the wealth, a spirit of languid confidence. It changed how you talked and how you moved. Just watch Javanka walking across the White House lawn.

22/ Jesus’ stories about greed are devastating: There’s the one about the poor man at the rich man’s gate, so desperate the dogs licked his sores. Suddenly, blam! Both die. The poor man is in heaven and the rich man in hell.

23/ There’s the shocking event of the rich young ruler who begs Jesus to show him the way to eternal life. Jesus answers, “Sell your stuff, give to the poor, and come on! Follow me!” The guy’s shoulders sagged and he walked away.

24/“I tell you,” says Jesus, watching that man’s back recede from view, “It will be easier to shove a camel through the eye of a needle than to get a rich guy into heaven!”[Matt 19:24] This is really why the empire & the church of his day crucified Jesus. He unmasks our desires.

25/ The difference between Israel then and Trumplandia now is that Israel listened and considered Jesus for three whole years. In Trumplandia, He wouldn’t have lasted 3 days. The prosperity gospel crowd would have nailed him up.

26/ People overwhelmingly voted for Trump because he gaudily paraded his mob riches and the public thought, “He’s so rich! He must be really, really smart!”

27/ No, you can be really ignorant and really rich. You can become really violent getting or keeping money. I could too. Why do you think we make our pilgrimages to Vegas? Jesus knew what He was talking about.

28/ Anyone charged with spreading the teachings of Jesus has to come to grips with their own greed and find the path to generosity. Otherwise, he or she will betray their vocation.

29/ There are elaborate deconstructions of the plain meaning of Jesus’ teachings about money. But His words, as He promised, will never die.

30/ The Prosperity Gospel is to Christianity as Porno is to romance.

31/ God is not mocked. This false version of Christianity helped create Trump’s audience. Trump’s lifetime of depravity had prepared him to sense this vulnerability among a considerable portion of evangelicals. He exploited it right into the White House.

32/ Maybe God permitted this moment so we would finally see the utter corruption a lifetime of greed can produce. Look at Trump. Listen to him. Study his heroes. Soon we will see, in plain view, the worldwide extent of mafia takeovers of nation states.

33/ Greed produces real spiritual death and a conscience-free visitation of violence on the innocent. Look at those tents in our desert Southwest.

34/ Full confession: I’m a very wealthy man. I have health, friends, and so much more. Yesterday I was walking through the woods with the two collies who live with us, after a deep snowfall...

35/..Just now there’s a silence that is pure, holy. You can listen to it. Everything is clean. The coyote tracks and the turkey tracks tell you that invisible life is nearby...

36/ The long haired collie, Clancy, gets little balls of ice in the fur between his pads and I was watching him try to bite them out. I asked him if I could help and he lifted the paw to me, and I gently fingered out the ice...

37/.. His brown eyes looked fully into mine and he carefully licked my chin thank you. I said, “You ready to go home? Want to see if Mommy has a treat for you?” He barked.

38/ Back home, she greeted the three of us and fixed treats. For 53 years she has guided my ways, kept me healthy, fulfilled my desire, brought forth meals and laughter and wisdom and two magnificent children who now make massive contributions.

39/ This morning we head out to church. We’ll stop on the way to get some groceries to help share with the hungry. My truck may be 22 years old, but it still runs fine.