Madonna 4 - Materialism
Scripture - Ecclesiastes 5:10, 18-20
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)