Meditations

“Let the lovers of this world keep their possessions, though they be as great as they desire; for me, my God alone is sufficient.”

Joseph Cafasso of Turin (1811-1860) as recounted in The Quotable Saint ed. Rosemary Ellen Guiley (New York: Visionary Living, 2002) 204.

Once we think we own possessions, they own us. They also promise to satisfy our desires, but they cannot (cf. Psalm 49). All this is why we must be careful to treasure our triune God, who alone is sufficient for us.

The call in Scripture to love God and not the world (cf. 1 John 2:15) is not intended to make life miserable for us, empty, or even boring. It’s actually the pathway to freedom, satisfaction, and life.

Yesterday, we flew to Newark, checked into a hotel in Times Square thanks to Hilton points, and we enjoyed dinner and a show. What struck us here is the billboards and jumbo TV’s. They shout messages in this epicenter of commercialism about what you need.

We made a priceless memory together as a family, while not buying into the world’s messages to us. Today we head to family camp at Camp Spofford in Spofford, NH, where I will speak this next week on “Life in the Economy of God” and I’d appreciate your prayers.

“Your God is gentile and mild. He does not command that while you are a pilgrim on earth you must utterly forgo creaturely consolations; indeed, He created all things to serve you. But he did command that you use them with moderation, sobriety, temperance, that you share them cheerfully with the needy, and that your possessions not be your master but you theirs.”

Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) scholar and lecturer, in The Mind’s Ascent to God by the Ladder of Created Things as recounted in The Quotable Saint ed. Rosemary Ellen Guiley (New York: Visionary Living, 2002) 204.

Downsizing helps put things in perspective. We use this. We don’t use that. Throw this away. Share that with someone who can use it. The process is simultaneously freeing and exhausting.

How do we accumulate so much stuff? God provides the resources to buy stuff, and we are attentive to enjoyment. We are not always as sober on the sharing side. We tend to be intoxicated by and attached to stuff or we fear for the future and stockpile it, hence the charge to master, rather than be mastered by, possessions.

Bellarmine offers instruction here that echoes Jesus and Paul: use creaturely consolations with sobriety and share them cheerfully. Jesus enjoyed life in community and lived as simply as anyone; He did not even have a place to lay his head. Paul enjoyed fellowship with the saints too, and he traveled lightly and missionally through life.

For the rest of us, the sober use and cheerful sharing of creaturely consolations requires intentionality. We must daily choose this lifestyle. When we do, we build community, reflect Christ’s love, and our decision helps us remain detached from the destructive power of consumerism.

“I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one more thing I wish I could give them, and that is faith in Jesus Christ. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich; and if I had not given them that, and had given them all the world, they would be poor indeed.”

Patrick Henry as recounted by Ross Campbell and Gary Chapman in How to Really Love Your Adult Child: Building a Healthy Relationship in a Changing World (Chicago: Northfield, 2011) 184.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever wants to lose his life for me and for the Gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Mark 8:35-36

Campbell and Chapman add this comment with this quote: “The heart of your legacy to your adult children is not financial but spiritual. Praying for your children daily is a living legacy that can influence their behavior now and for years to come. The praying parent not only becomes a wiser person but is forever an influential parent.”

Make it so Lord Jesus as we (and many others we know) seek to launch our adult children in the days to come in a crazy world.

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away. 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

“All Christians should therefore sense an urgency to serving the Lord, caused by the uncertainty of the time of the end, after which point it will no longer be possible to win any more people to Christ or to disciple them to maturity. Paul is well aware that distractions of marriage may temper this urgency. So those who choose to web must not become so preoccupied with their families that they can no longer effectively serve Christ (v. 29b). The same is true with other normal human activities–celebrations and wakes, commerce and shopping (vv. 30-31). All are legitimate endeavors, but all remain fleeting. The Christian should therefore be less involved in the affairs of this world than the non-Christian. The balance Paul seeks to achieve leads one writer to label him a “worldly ascetic.”

Craig Blomberg in 1 Corinthians (NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 152. Blomberg credits Vincent Wimbish for coining the term “worldly ascetic” linked to the Apostle Paul.

People ask me how simplicity, detachment, and generosity look in the context of marriage. Thankfully Paul addresses that here, as does Blomberg with these comments, at least by saying essentially that marriage commitments should not hinder missional engagement. Likewise, possessions may be used, but they must not be things with which we are engrossed.

The label “worldly ascetic” is a creative one. Paul calls the Corinthians (and other believers like us) to a lifestyle that avoids self-indulgence, specifically pertaining to the things of this world (cf. Galatians 5:13-14) while enjoying marriage and using things. The balance he seeks for them (and us) is maintaining a missional focus in our relationships and stewardship of stuff.

“Do not fix your heart on anything that passes away…One clear sign of detachment is genuinely not to consider anything as own’s own.” Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer (1902-1975) in The Forge (New York: Scepter, 1988) 703.

In recent days we have been exploring attachment to God and detachment from things as a basis for generosity. Josemaría Escrivá gives us both an exhortation and a sign related to this. The exhortation is not to attach to anything that will pass away. That makes sense. The sign that we are on track is a non-possessive willingness to share. Sounds just like the early church.

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. Acts 4:32-35

May God’s grace, which was so powerfully at work in the early church, be poured out on us and our congregations in abundance, so that our hearts remain fixed on Him and our hands open to those who are in need among us as we testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

“I cannot understand how humility exists, or can exist without love, or love without humility, and it is impossible for these two virtues to exist save where there is great detachment from all created things.”

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) in The Way of Perfection as recounted in The Quotable Saint ed. Rosemary Ellen Guiley (New York: Visionary Living, 2002) 61.

Detachment from things is the only way to come to the point of ever enjoying and sharing them in a manner that exhibits love and humility. I have learned this from wife, Jenni, whose birthday I celebrate today. I honor her today because her life reflects this truth.

Don’t misinterpret it. Teresa is not saying we must detach from things because they are bad. She’s saying that when we are attached to created things, which demand our time, attention, allegiance, etc…it hinders our ability to attach to the uncreated One (that would be God) who is love and humility.

Conversely, when we are attached to God, who is love and humility, the Holy Spirit conforms us to His image and we are free to share His abundant love and humility with others. That’s generosity. I see all this in my wife. Happy birthday Jenni!

Why is there so little generosity in the world today? I think it is because far too many people are attached to created things. What about you? Are you attached to created things or the uncreated One?

“For we fast by abstaining from wine and flesh, not because we abhor them as abominations, but because we look for reward; that having scorned things sensible, we may enjoy a spiritual and intellectual feast, and that having sown in tears we may reap in joy…disregard [good things] for the sake of better spiritual things set before thee.”

Cyril of Jerusalem (c.315-c.386) as recounted in Catecheses, a series of 18 instructional addresses for Lent, IV.27.

Why fast? If there is nothing inherently holy or praiseworthy in fasting, then why do it. Early church father, Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, clarifies “the why” for us. The reward of fasting from good or sensible things is not gold stars in heaven, but rather, to discern spiritual things.

So what does fasting have to do with attachments and generosity? Once we think we “need” something, we have become attached to it, and subsequently, we commit our attention and resources and allegiance to having and keeping it. Where this complicates matters, or to put it more plainly, where attachments complicate life, is we think we need this, this, this, this, this, and this to be content.

No wonder our culture has become so discontent. We have everything, and yet nothing. What’s the bottom line on this Lord’s Day? Detaching from things positions us to attach to God, and two fruits of such attachment are contentment and generosity. If we remain attached to things, then discontentment and abysmal generosity prevail. May God help us detach or fast from things (cf. Matthew 6:25-34) for the reward of fasting is attachment to Him.

“It is not that prestige and worldly pleasure and other people are evil in themselves; what is evil is our attachment to them when by such attachment we disregard the sweet commandment of God.”

Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) as recounted in The Quotable Saint ed. Rosemary Ellen Guiley (New York: Visionary Living, 2002) 13.

Catherine offers a keen insight here. Attachments lead us to ignore, not care about, and consequently, disregard God’s instructions. God forgive us for attaching to anything but You. How do we determine what we are attached to?

In the coming days I want to explore further the function of fasting linked to attachments. I believe attachments are a key reason we often ignore biblical teaching linked to generosity. Other things have our attention and allegiance.

“Whatever you give to the poor, you do without a doubt put out at interest. This interest will yield you its returns later on when the labors of every man will be evaluated and multiplied honor conferred.”

Valerian of Cimiez, 5th century monk of Lerins and bishop of Cimiez in one of his homilies discovered in the 16th century, as recounted in The Quotable Saint ed. Rosemary Ellen Guiley (New York: Visionary Living, 2002) 94.

I love this reminder today from a sermon from a monk named Valerian that echoes a favorite proverb of Solomon. I appreciate how he raises our sights to consider the earthly and eternal implications of our generosity to the needy.

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. Proverbs 19:17

As the July draws to a close, if you have more than enough money to make it to next month, ask the LORD if there is someone in need around you in your church, network of friends, or neighborhood, with whom He might lead you to share.

This is a regular rhythm in our home that has resulted in rich blessings back to us and, in the words of Valerian, “interest” in our heavenly account.

“Do we not see people every day, endowed with vast estates, who keep on joining field to field, dreaming of wider boundaries for their lands? Those who dwell in palaces are ever adding house to house, continually building up and tearing down, remodeling and changing…

Nothing should content a man’s desires but the very best…Is it not, then, mad folly, always to be craving for things which can never quiet our longings, much less satisfy them? No matter how much such things one has, he is always lusting after what he has not; never at peace, he sighs for new possessions.

Discontented, he spends himself in fruitless toil; and finds only weariness in the evanescent and unreal pleasures of the world. In his greediness, he counts all that he has clutched as nothing in comparison with what is beyond his grasp, and loses all pleasure in his actual possessions by longing after what he has not…”

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) in “Of love toward God not without reward: and how the hunger of man’s heart cannot be satisfied with earthly things” Chapter VII in On Loving God.

Downsizing stirs within us the desire to have the best possessions money can buy for our townhouse, and we don’t even move in until 12 August 2014! What should we do. The decision making process requires discipline to consider repeatedly “What do we need?” rather than “What do we want?” as the desires of the flesh are insatiable. On our journey we are finding that the only thing that satisfies us is God, so we resolve daily to set our affections on Him. Care to join us?