Every person makes every decision they make about money based on either greed or fear.  They’re either driven to get more because, no matter how much they already have, it’s never enough or they’re trying to protect themselves from some loss they perceive would leave them without what they need.  Greed or fear, that’s it.  At least that’s what my supervisor tried to drill into my head for five years when I was in sales.  When we sat down at the kitchen table to do a deal, we were supposed to assume that our potential client was driven by either greed or fear, figure out which of the two it was as quickly as possible and work that angle toward the sale.

Recently, one of our church members told me that every time he and his wife write their tithe check to our church, which he said long ago came to mean more than simply ten percent, it was a genuine act of worship.  He confirmed what I had suspected all along.  First, when my sales manager gave us the greed-fear speech he was probably telling us more about himself than anyone else.  Second, I had always wanted to believe that, especially in our relationship with the material world, we could be motivated by something higher, nobler, than the most base, even self-centered, human emotions, greed and fear.  Jesus seemed to think so, too.

My sales manager said, “greed or fear.”  Jesus said,“‘Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all (the) things (you need) will be given to you as well.’”  If we will lose ourselves in pursuit of the highest of all human ambitions, finding, loving and serving God, Jesus said, everything else we absolutely must have would come to us another way as the providential gift of our loving father in heaven.  Do you believe that? 

The late Malcom Muggeridge came to the end of his life to say that he saw things differently after finally trusting the God he’d spent a lifetime trying to prove didn’t exist.  “When I look back on my life, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd.  For instance, success in all of its various guises, being known and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, exploring and experiencing whatever (it) has to offer.  In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy.  They are diversions designed to (distract our) attention from the true purpose of our existence in this world, which is, quite simply, to look for God, and, in looking to find Him, and having found Him to love Him, thereby establishing a harmonious relationship with His purposes for His creation.”  (Malcom Muggeridge, “A Twentieth Century Christian Testimony)  If what Muggeridge said is true, I sure hope I’m not nearly dead before I figure it out.  How about you?

Here’s the dilemma.  God created us the way he did, vulnerable.  We are physical beings with physical needs.  We have to have food, clothing, shelter and so on.  Jesus even acknowledged that. “‘Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.’”  Most animals in this world have to spend nearly every waking moment pursuing their next meal or otherwise face starvation; we, too, have to spend a great deal of our time one way or another making certain that we secure life’s basic necessities.  But, Jesus seems to be saying that the our physical limitations and needs were not meant to be ends in themselves but merely another avenue through which we came to learn of and trust a God who cannot be materially measured.  Getting our physical and material needs met actually happens on the way to something else, the pursuit of the highest reason for our existence, a trusting relationship with our Heavenly Father. 

Jesus even warned us, in his parable of the sower and the seed, that we can become so consumed with what we consume that we miss God’s greater eternal purpose for us (Matthew 13).  Now, before you think I’m beginning to sound too much like a preacher, I hear this from you more than you hear it from me.  People, especially as they approach midlife, expressing frustration with working harder than ever and finding less meaning in it than ever.  Working so hard they’re losing their families, their joy and even their hope and saying, in one way or another, “this just isn’t worth it.”  The price they’re paying to pay the price tag of their lifestyle now means writing checks on their joy and hope their souls can’t cash anymore.  Jesus said the only way out of that dilemma is to stop worrying and start trusting. 

Now, I have to confess to you that I’m asking you to go with me into some country I haven’t traveled well enough myself.  To a spiritual territory where seldom is heard a worried word.  But, before I go there, I need to remind that I’ve been where many of you find yourself today.  I remember what it was like, not long enough ago, sitting in church listening to the preacher talk about tithing when I didn’t know how I was going to pay rent the next week and bargaining with the Credit Union so I could keep my car one more month.  I remember chaffing under the preacher’s counsel to trust God and thinking, “Easy for him to say.  He gets a check this week and all I get are some more cold leads to greedy or fearful people who want to do anything but buy something from me so I can pay my rent.”  But, Malcom Muggeride like, looking back on it now, what strikes me most forcibly about that whole experience is that the only thing worse than not knowing how you’re going to pay rent is having the very joy of life sucked right out of you by worrying about it.  

Jesus is calling us to something higher, more noble, than greed or fear.  To a place where worrying about getting what we need doesn’t drive our every waking moment.  And, if you need it in a simple little box you can carry with you every day, I’d suggest this.  Look around, look back, look up.

Look around, Jesus said. “‘Look at the birds of the air . . . consider the lilies of the field.’”  Nature itself tells a story of God’s providential care.  Like the old hymn celebrates, “Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, sun, moon and stars in their courses above join with all nature in manifold witness, to (God’s) great faithfulness, mercy and love.”  (Thomas O. Chisholm, “Great is Thy Faithfulness)  There may be more to this than we allow.  We spend so much of our time walled in by steel and concrete and increasingly sealing ourselves off in ever more artificial environments where everything we want or need is piped into us.  Birds and lilies, Jesus said.  Feathers and leaves.  The ancient Celtic people, who lived close to nature, reflected a deep sense of God’s providential care in their worship, in their hymns, readings and prayers.  Many modern people, walled off from nature by steel and concrete, are seeking out their liturgies for guidance in worshipping a God who is artificially removed from their every day existence and discovering God in new and fresh ways.  Maybe a walk in the woods would be a good place to start in obeying Jesus’ command to stop worrying and start trusting.

You don’t hear me say much about Beau, my dog.  But, Beau is one of my very best friends.  I tell people that he’s the only son I have who actually does what I tell him.  On more than one occasion, I’ve marveled at his simple trust in me.  That I’m going to love him and feed him and take care of him.  Sometimes, at the end of a long or difficult day, when I’m holding Beau and he’s looking up at me with his big brown eyes, I would be willing to swear I hear God saying to me, “Glen, I wish you could trust me as much as Beau trusts you.”  You make think it silly.  But, sometimes, when I need to get closer to God, I hold my dog.  Jesus said, look around.  Even nature tells its own story of simple trust in a loving Creator.

Look back.  “‘Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’  For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things.’”  Gentiles were non-Jewish people.  Unlike the Jews, they had no recorded spiritual history whose pivotal points were specific incidents of God’s providential care.  Jesus was saying, look back at history.  Look back at the exodus from Egypt, at the Passover at deliverance from slavery and the teaching of the Prophets.  Your own history is evidence of how God cares and provides.

George Mason tells of a man in his church who took some friends and family to dinner and spent quite a bit of money, as he said, sharing communion liberally in a non-Baptist way.  When he awoke the next morning he realized that he had badly miscalculated the bill and under-tipped the wait staff.  So, he made his way back to the restaurant to make up difference.  When he walked in, the manager saw him coming and said, “Oh, the 5% guy.  What are you doing here (George Mason, “Playing the Percentages,” The Wilshire Pulpit, Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, TX, November 17, 2002)?”    Mason used the story to ask his congregation to think about whether they’re simply playing the percentages with God in the way they give or not and whether, when God sees them coming into heaven someday he might have to shout, “Oh, the 5% guy!”  I couldn’t help think of it another way. 

When we look back on our history with God, is there any evidence we’re dealing with a 5% God?  I can only speak for myself.  But, even when I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay rent, my own history is evidence that God was still there, 100%.  He never let me down.  I can tell you stories of money coming to me, unsolicited, from places I never expected and when I hadn’t done one thing to earn it.  I can also tell you of a mysterious comfort and peace that enveloped me on dark and scary nights when there wasn’t enough money for the next day.  God never abandoned me.  In fact, it was often in the times that faith was hardest that God seemed most real.  I have to confess that I sometimes miss those days.  Something about living on the raw edge of material uncertainty kept me more certain of God’s presence.  I sometimes miss that. 

Abraham Lincoln officially designated the fourth Thursday of November as a national day of Thanksgiving, in the fall of 1863.  The Civil War was still raging.  The summer before in places like Gettysburg, Americans had killed more Americans than any foreign enemy before or since.  The future of the Union still hung in the balance.  And, Lincoln chose then to call the people to Thanksgiving?!  He had good history from Plymouth, Massachusetts, 242 years before.  The winter before had decimated the pilgrim numbers by half.  Yet, those still alive chose to be more grateful for what God had provided than what nature had taken.  Grateful people aren’t necessarily people who have everything going for them.  They are people who are more aware of what God has given than what life has taken.  It’s all a matter of what you choose to see, by looking around, looking back and, also, looking up.

“‘Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,’”  Jesus said.  It is the highest discipline of faith, to look for God in everything and every moment.  To look beyond, behind and through everything for God.  Last week, our church received its Fall Thank Offering.  You gave over $102,000 on one Sunday!  Not one person said to me, “We didn’t make our goal!”  Several said to me, “Look at what God has provided!  Even in a diminished economy, especially in a diminished economy, look what God has done!”  You see, our real goal was not to make money but to give thanks.  Did we reach our goal?  Did you? 

There is something about living on the raw edge of material uncertainty that always heightens our spiritual awareness.  God made us so vulnerable so that we would never get to the place where that raw edge where we are most likely to meet him was further away than the next step we take. 

Greed or fear?  Is that all that’s left to drive us to take that next step.  Look around, look back, look up.  There is more.  Far more.  Trust, gratitude, faith and genuine worship that consumes us from head to toe, heart and soul, mind and body.  Don’t worry about your life, Jesus said.  Look for God.