First – Some disclaimers about today’s message.

1. If you didn’t pick it up from the scripture selections that were just read, I will tell you now that this sermon is about money.
2. I won’t apologize for talking about money in church.  The verses we heard today are just three passages among hundreds in the bible about money and finance.  God has dealt with God’s people about economic issues since before the time of the matriarchs and patriarchs; Jesus spoke about money more than just about any other topic; the apostle Paul wrote about it in his letters to the early church.  it is an entirely appropriate topic for discussion in church.  Furthermore, how we relate to, acquire, use and invest money is a deeply spiritual issue.
3. Some of what I talk about today will not apply to everyone here.  But everything I talk about will apply to at least somebody here, and since we’re all in this together, I hope we will all listen with an open mind.  Because sometimes when we most think it’s not about us – it really is.
4. No one is here to judge.  We are all subject to the human temptations around money, and this is about helping each other.

In America there is a strong cultural myth about economic well being and financial prosperity.  It is called the American Dream, and many of us have unexamined assumptions about this dream that cause us to subconsciously make decisions that are not in our own economic self interest and not faithful to God’s intention for our lives.

The American Dream teaches us that our success and self worth are measured by what we have and that our achievements and status are to be demonstrated by outward and visible accumulation of possessions and consumption of goods and services.  We believe that our worth as a human being must be demonstrated to those around us by where we live, what we drive, how we dress and whether we possess the latest electronic technology.

Furthermore, our culture is saturated with images and messages designed explicitly to deceive us into wanting things and then seducing us into imagining that we need those things.  (Martie’s credit card invitation)

Easy credit has taught us that we don’t have to have the money today for the things we want today and convinced us that we deserve them, whether we can afford them or not.  We are in a load of trouble when it comes to personal debt.  Here are some statistics on total personal debt.  (from CNBC’s website).  Payday loans 40 billion; small business 68 billion; farm loans 114.2 billion; auto 313.8 billion; owed to IRS 345 bill; student loan 556 bill; home equity 577.8 bill; consumer credit 953.1 bill; mortgage 14.64 trillion.  Medical debt, gambling debt and microloans were not counted.

The recent economic crisis has brought home to us with new urgency that this way of living is not sustainable, but the alarm was raised in a compelling way ten years ago, when PBS ran a special program titled “Affluenza.”

This program coined the term “affluenza” to tell us that our American Dream was turning into a nightmare of epidemic proportions.  John De Graaf, the producer of that program has written a book entitled Affluenza:  When Too Much is Never Enough.  The website associated with this program, which is still available online, defines Af-flu-en-za as 1.  The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses.  2.  An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream.  3.  An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.  4.  A television program that could change your life.

Affluenza is fed by consumerism, commercialism and materialism.  The producers of the program were concerned with the social and environmental implications of the American Dream.  At the time of the program 5% of the world’s population lived in the United States, where we consumer 1/3 of the world’s resources and produce 1/2 of the world’s waste.

I would add that there is a spiritual dimension here as well.  It cannot be God’s intent for the resources provided in God’s created world to be so distributed.

If you have succumbed to affluenza, I don’t have to tell you that you are living a nightmare.  I’m in recovery from this disease and I know.  Here are some questions from a diagnostic quiz that appears on the Affluenza website:

     Do you make only minimum payments on credit cards?
     Do you shop as a way of dealing with feeling, sad, blue or discouraged?
     Do you want or have an SUV when you don’t drive anyplace that requires one?
     Do most of the activities you enjoy with family and friends cost money or are they free?
     Do you measure self worth by comparing yourself to others in terms of what you each earn or possess?

The endless cycle of too much never being enough is exactly that – an endless cycle.

(the Affluenza quiz can be found at http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/escape/quiz/index.html)

By the way, did you know that in terms of satisfaction with money, how much one actually has is virtually irrelevant?  People at all income levels can be trapped in this endless cycle – and people at all income levels above abject poverty can be deeply satisfied that what they have is enough.

The relevant issue is whether your use of money is aligned with your deepest commitments, values and desires.  Too many of us have not identified our deepest desires.  We know we want something, we just don’t know yet that the acquisition of things will not ever give us what we truly want.

The truth is we were created to desire not things, but relationship.  Created in the image of God, the image has become distorted in humans.  Meant to desire God, we have turned that desire to possessions.  Meant to find our ultimate security in God; we seek it by trying to amass wealth.  Meant to love people, our relentless drive for possessions and wealth instead causes us to compete with them.  Given amazingly free and simple gifts to bring enjoyment to our lives; we ignore those gifts as we pursue money and things.  Meant to be generous with what we do have, we hoard for ourselves.  This is who we are as human beings – and we who are caught in the story of the American dream where it’s all about “moving up in the world” are especially endangered.

This nightmare is not God’s dream for us.  If we decide – and our lives depend on us making this turn – if we decide that we want what we were created for – we have to begin to let Christ work in us, daily turning our lives toward the abundance that is promised by God in God’s story.  This is, like most spiritual things, a matter of learning and practicing daily what we learn.

God’s help comes to us through the words of scripture, through the call our church makes upon our lives, through the still, small voice speaking within us that says that the way it is now is not the way it is meant to be, through the example of those among us who have begun to live counterculturally, simplifying their lives, living below and not above their means.

It is possible to find spiritual freedom and abundance through silencing the voices that tell us we need more, more more and developing an ear for the voice that says “enough, enough, enough.”

We can simplify our lives.
We can live below our means.
We can free ourselves of debt and stop using credit.
We can build into our budgets – no matter how large or small the numbers – a plan that balances our values, God’s call on our lives and our available resources.

We can be free of the many griefs that afflict us when our eagerness for material gain causes us to wander away from the faith.  We can give up lots and lots of stuff and gain our whole lives.

With God’s help.  We can.  This prayer is one tool.