Dealing With Stuff

DEALING WITH “STUFF”

“Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and olive orchards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen…?” (2 Kings 5:26)

            Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, could not bear to see Naaman depart with his gifts of silver, gold, and changes of garments.  “As the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something from him.” But Elisha went with him in spirit and, upon his servant’s return, immediately exposed the covetous act. The prophet’s rebuke came in the form of a question: “Is this a time to receive money, clothing, lands, possessions…”

            I’m told that my Italian grandmother from the old country owned two garments.  When one was in the wash, she wore the other.  Simplicity is a beautiful thing.  My wife and I are in the midst of an effort to simplify our family life. At the outset, it became clear that we must address two things; the attic and our wardrobes.  I wish I could describe the satisfied feeling I enjoyed as we looked at that very long line of “stuff” out on the street, and waited for the township dump truck.  It seems that we can actually come to believe that our life is somehow bound together with that trash we’ve been carrying around for years!

            Brothers and sisters, I believe these are the last days before our Lord’s return—I have been convinced of this since early childhood.  And I am also convinced that Elisha would pose the very same question to the Church today—“Is this a time to be occupied with ‘stuff’?”  No indeed, it is not a time to accumulate, and tend to our possessions.  Material possessions can be a great distraction from doing the will of God and the work of the Kingdom.  The world lives for the next purchase—the Church must not be of this mind.  It is not a time to be focused on our own comfort, prosperity, and security.  I am extremely bothered by any teaching in the church that might be characterized as “prosperity  teaching.”  Jesus did not come to make us prosperous and comfortable!

            The Church will never know victorious Christian living until we deal the death-blow to that coveteous spirit of Gehazi which is so prevalent in our culture and in our churches. Peter Cardillo serves as the Director of Food Service at America’s Keswick

Team YOU: Deuteronomy 19-21; Proverbs 13; Mark 13:21-37

Motivations: If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant to the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. C. S. Lewis

Practice to Remember: Level 1: Ephesians 4:1; Level 2: Ephesians 3:14-21

Powered Up:  Pray for the highest of all gifts, for the gift of divine love. It is a never-ending love, for it is the chief attribute of God and therefore imperishable like God Himself. This love is to be yours. Basilea Schlink