Bethany Lutheran Church
Bethel Park, PA
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Bethany Lutheran Church Bethel Park, PA
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From the Pastor’s Desk… Monday Morning Greeting At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, acclaimed author Kurt Vonnegut informed his friend, satirist Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its entire history of sales. Heller responded with his usual bite, “Yes, but I have something he will never have. I have enough.”
Really? Enough? Last night watching the Superbowl I was struck, as I often am, by the brand names bandied around. “This Bowl is brought to you by…” It is clear that whatever “it” is, “it” is never enough. While the first six of the Ten Commandments deal with matters of God and how our bodies are in relationship to others, the Seventh Commandment concerns our things. In this commandment God communicates that things pieced together from creation are good. The material stuff we surround ourselves with is useful to life; they are necessary to provide food, clothes, home and everything we need from day to day. Creation should expect the things of this world to sustain and prosper life.
Interestingly, our contemporary taboos seldom question the formerly popular topic of what others do in the bedroom. Instead, taboos now center on material things. This taboo came to be when popular culture understood things not as “life support” but namely as signs of success or indications that we or others have achieved an observable measure of happiness and influence. Of course this produces the troubles of today including corruption at major corporate firms, the credit crunch, bank collapses and the many current examples of taking money and property – often by fraud and false dealings.
John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, published as the sun set on the Great Depression in 1939, describes the nature of things. Specifically, Steinbeck writes about a common sharecropping family attempting to grow things to eat and sell so life might be sustained, but at odds with the things the bank requires. Steinbeck begins chapter 5 as the bankers grimly come to foreclose the sharecroppers farm. He writes, “The Bank–or the Company–needs–wants–insists–must have–as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time… But, you see, a bank or a company can’t [let you stay], because those creatures don’t breathe air, don’t cat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don’t get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so.”
It is just so. That is the dark reality of things. Things are not the stuff of life in themselves. When the desire or collection of things is perceived as life giving, they become the monster of Steinbeck’s novel. Things take on the character of wrath and perpetual requirement for more.
Leave it to the machines of government and trade to make the rules of distribution. But the machines of wealth, while made of men, cannot be controlled by men. As Steinbeck puts it, those machines of distribution – of things - finally “are not like men.” God, would agree.
The purpose of things in this world is to sustain life. Life requires neighbors. Food, clothes, home, family, daily work and all you need from day to day comes from the hand of God by exchange and gifts of neighbors. Our taboos about things come to a halt when they are no longer used to feed the monsters of status and power, one neighbor against the other. Rather, in faith we have eyes to see our neighbor not as monsters swallowing up the stuff of this world in greedy frenzy, but as those we are delighted to provide for, for richer and for poorer. In faith we trust our many neighbors to see us and to provide for us with a joyful, gracious heart as well. These gifts, this reliance on the hands of others, are the gifts of God.
Announcements Confirmation is tomorrow, Tuesday, February 7, from 5:00-7:00 PM. The first chapter of Revelation should be read (and don’t skip way ahead – focus on really reading just that first chapter!). See you there! Bible Study continues tomorrow at 7:00 PM. See you there for the Prophet Halftime Show. Amos headlines with Hosea on backup vocals. Open House for Bethany Lutheran Church at Pastor Natalie’s is scheduled for Sunday, February 26th from 1:00-4:00 PM. See your Visitor newsletter for more details! |
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