Rev Andy Braunston
Background
Before
my holidays we had just one Madonna sermon left to do and here it is! Madonna
has spent over 20 years in the limelight. As an artist she has seen highs and
lows, but at no point has her substantial personal fortune been in question.
Unlike some of her contemporaries, she is not known for being frivolous with
money.
Nonetheless Madonna claims
to have woken up from the “American dream” and doesn’t like what she sees. The
message on her album “American Life” is serious throughout. She wants everyone
to wake up and realise that the physical world and the illusions of the material
are simply traps. A surprisingly spiritual insight.
In the
pop world Madonna is regarded as a particularly astute business woman. Madonna
does appear to be a product of the belief that you can have anything you want so
long as you work hard to get it, although she has come to realise that happiness
is not found in fashion, fast cars or money.
Her
song Material Girl which we have just heard and watched appears to lap up the
material consequences of her success as a singer, and it extols the virtues of a
materialistic lifestyle. However, the video hints at the artist finding love
with a poor person, someone of no account. As Madonna has got older she has
realised that money doesn’t buy happiness – something we know all too well as
Christians.
The
Reading
Our
reading from Ecclesiastes deals with similar themes. The writer states that
“whoever loves money will never be satisfied.” It seems that the constant
pursuit of money in our culture doesn’t bring lasting happiness. We dream of a
better job, promotion, and earning more money. Some people I know, possibly from
the desperation of poverty, are always trying to come up with ever more
inventive schemes to make a bit more money. Yet for all those who seek more
money they end up spending it – a bigger house (and larger mortgage), new
clothes, holidays, the better designer lifestyle. Those who don’t have these
things or can’t afford them are increasingly disenfranchised from our material
world. It seems, however, that these things don’t bring happiness.
But at
the same time we can’t ignore the world and its economic system! We need money
in order to live, to pay for our housing, food, clothing and the necessities of
life. The writer of our reading realises this and continues: “Then I realized
that it is good and proper for a person to eat and drink, and to find
satisfaction in toilsome labour under the sun during the few days of life God
has given us — for this is our lot.”
We
can’t escape the economic realities of our world, but it is good and proper for
us to “find satisfaction” in our toil or work. This here can also be a
challenge. Many of us work in jobs we hate or find demanding. Many of us don’t
get satisfaction from our work but work in order to live. I think the key to the
happiness that the writer of Ecclesiastes seeks and the antidote to the
materialism portrayed in Madonna’s song lies in finding meaning and purpose in
our work and using our money wisely.
Meaning and
Purpose
Some of
us are lucky enough to work in areas we love. We find meaning and value because
of the work we do. I am amazed by the staff at the Immigration Aid Unit who get
paid rather less than they would in other types of legal practice but find their
work so meaningful and important that they are happy. I met a lawyer on my
French class who hates her job – she probably earns a lot more than the folks at
the Immigration Unit – but she finds her work meaningless. Many of us are lucky
in that we have or have had meaningful jobs which we loved. Others aren’t so
lucky, those of us who don’t enjoy our jobs need either to change them or find
meaning and purpose in other areas of life. I hated teaching but had to do it
for years because there wasn’t money to pay for ministry. I found my skills were
used and developed more in my pastoral ministry which for a long time was done
as a volunteer – than ever they were in my paid work. For many of us the drive
for meaning will happen through what we do outside our work. The important thing
is for something in our lives to give us these chances to develop and blossom.
It helps us to have meaning and purpose in more than the pursuit of money,
fashion and style.
But
then all of us have to find a right relationship with money. We need money but
the love of it is, as Paul teaches, the root of all evil. Money is like a
necessary poison. We need it but too much of it can poison our souls, blunt our
conscience and insulate us from the harsh realities of our world. Money is good
for us, if we give a little of it away. It’s like a chemical that is great, if
diluted but rather dangerous if taken at full strength. I believe that giving
away 10% of our money helps us use the rest more wisely, and helps us resist the
forces of materialism that surround us in our society. We can get too bound up
with money – love it and find that like an elusive lover money never satisfies.
Giving some of it away does satisfy us.
What gives you
meaning?
As we
look at our lives what gives us meaning and purpose? What can we boast about in
our lives? How have we helped change our bit of the world? How can we make a
difference? We can find many ways of doing this – getting involved with our
social action campaigns and writing letters on behalf of Amnesty, giving money
to particular projects which help change the world – next week for example we
are going to take a second collection for the new MCC church to be planted in
Glasgow – what can we get involved in as volunteers which help change our world?
What can we do within our work to help those around us – even making the world a
better place for our colleagues can help. How do we make our homes places of
hospitality and welcome – showing the Christian values of love and care in
action? How do we help our church grow so that more people come to realise that
God loves not discriminates?
Conclusion
Madonna’s song shows a
world which strives, yearns and works for material wealth thinking that these
things bring happiness. We know as Christians that happiness is not ultimately
found in wealth, and material success – just look at the drug and alcohol
problems amongst the rich to see the truth of this. We do need money and some
measure of material security, but we find that our meaning in life is more
dependant on how we seek to follow God’s will for us, not in how much money we
earn. We are called to strive and yearn for a better world and to play our part
in creating such a world – in large or in small ways. Making a colleague a
coffee and listening to her problems, writing a letter to Amnesty, donating some
foodstuffs to a homelessness shelter, giving money to a worthwhile charity,
chatting and welcoming a newcomer to church all help, in small but definite
ways, to change our world, and ourselves, so that we are more in tune with the
spiritual and less dependant on the material.
Amen.
(Rev Andy
Braunston)