Janet’s Blog

 (Readings Philemon 1-12, Luke 14:25-33)

 What is your most valuable possession?

Perhaps a different question? Assuming all living things were accounted for, If you could only rescue one thing from your house as it burned to the ground, what would it be?

A fool of course knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. (1)

A quote for us…

“The lust of avarice is so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth.” (2)

If I came home one day with the family safe, and perhaps the children’s  bedtime cuddly toys in their arms, and found the house completely flattened to the ground I have to admit there would be a part of me which would be grateful, ‘thank God it’s all gone’. Of course I could only think that way because the insurance would then replace the things we needed. I don’t know if it’s just a Mum thing, but I am constantly pressurised by the need to tidy, sort, file papers, throw out, recycle, wash, clean dust and try and protect the things the possessions we have.

Betrarnd Russell, the English Logician and Philosopher said this

“It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly”

This is a real problem, we do not control possessions, they control us, as other uses of the word possession clearly demonstrate.

Jesus’ is saying in the gospel that you must not love anything more than God, and you must not let anything control you other than freely giving yourself up to the will of God.

This is the context in which Jesus says “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

We are not all called to give everything away that we own placing the burden of care for us on others, but we are all called to not let the things we have possess us.

Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men?

Natalie Clifford Barney

When we take this on board these ideas about possessions it can give us incredible freedom.

What’s your vision? 

What do you believe God could be doing in this place?

In this church, in this town, in this country and in the world.

What could he be doing if we were all prepared to adopt some radical reality of faith, allowing only God to possess us?

Pete Greig wrote this at the turn of the Millenium, (3)

So this guy comes up to me and says,

“What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”

I open my mouth and words come out like this…

The vision?

The vision is Jesus:

obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones?

I see an army.

And they are free from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.

They could eat caviar on Monday

and crusts on Tuesday.

They wouldn’t even notice.

They know the meaning of the Matrix;

the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind;

they belong to the nations.

They need no passport.

People write their addresses in pencil

and wonder at their strange existence.

They are free, yet they are slaves

of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.

It makes children laugh and adults angry.

It gave up the game of minimum integrity

long ago to reach for the stars.

It scorns the good and strains for the best.

It is dangerously pure.

 

God needs us to be committed to him, to be free of our possessions. In the gospel where Jesus talks about the tower builder and the king setting out to war. They need to know their resources before they embark out on their venture, they will not do something if they don’t have what they need. God needs us to be his resources here, unencumbered, as ridiculous as it might seem we are God’s resources here. We are his disciples on whom he is relying to accomplish his mission, he has no plan B.

And what is it that we strive for anyway? Paul writes to Philemon, “When I remember you in my prayers I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus.” We will not be remembered for the objects or wealth we  possessed, but if we do not let our possessions possess us and instead let God be our portion, then we may be remembered for our love and faith.

A woman meets a stranger by the river one day. The stranger, a man is sitting on the river bank and looking at a small rock in his hand. The woman recognises as it a precious thing, a huge but uncut jewel, and she asks him about it.

‘So what is it you’ve got there?’‘A piece of rock’, says the stranger.‘Isn’t it valuable?’ she asks.‘Maybe’ says the stranger, the woman overcome with greed finds herself asking, although she hardly knows how. ‘Will you give me the rock?’ The stranger sits quietly for a while and then says,‘Here it is then.’ And hands it over to her. She says thank you and then runs away back towards her village thinking of all the things she can buy when she has sold the precious gem. Her steps begin to slow and then she turns around and goes back walking towards to river where the stranger is still sitting. When she gets to the bank the woman hurls the stone into the river and turns to the man and says ‘Now give me the real treasure, the real treasure inside you that made giving away that gem as easy as if it had been a worthless pebble.’

Notes

(1) Oscar Wilde

(2) Pliny the Elder

(3) THE VISION : Pete Greig © 2000