“I knew this was going to happen” I thought darkly as I slumped on my couch glancing at the scoreboard which stated the Yankees were up by a run. It was October of 2004 and the Red Sox were in the bottom of the 9^th inning in Game 4 of the seven game American League Championship Series. They were down in the series by three games and faced elimination in a mere three outs. I knew, along with the rest of the Red Sox faithful, that it was over. “I should just turn off the TV and give up, they’ll never win a World Series” I whined to Angela. Bob Ryan, a writer for the Boston Globe had summed it up perfectly “[The Red Sox] are down, 3-0, after last night's 19-8 rout, and, in this sport, that is an official death sentence. Soon it will be over, and we will spend another dreary winter lamenting.”[1] And yet even in the 9^th inning down by a run Angela, a recent convert to the Red Sox Nation, convinced me to keep the TV on. She told me to stop flipping out—it was only a game. What happened next has gone down in sports history. The Red Sox won game 4 in twelve innings. They then won the next three games against the Yankees and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals ending the 86 year long “Curse of the Bambino”. I could hardly believe it. I, along with so many in the Red Sox Nation, was convinced it was over, I had been filled with a gloomy anxiety and fear, convinced that the Red Sox were doomed. Now that I look back on it, up until Angela’s words, much of my love for baseball had been replaced by pessimism. Each year the Red Sox would be doing well but I say to a friend “They’ll fall apart after All Star Break—trust me.” My enjoyment of baseball had been swallowed up by a dark cynicism which ate away all the joy from the game, leaving me unhappy, and, no fun to watch baseball with.

Baseball, even Red Sox baseball, is only a game. And yet, there was something in the way I felt, something in the way I looked at the Red Sox that October evening that reflected the way I looked at the rest of life. My gloom and doom attitude represented more than simply a frustrated baseball fan. This attitude stemmed from a sense that others, their performance and their opinion, actually defined me, it could give me joy or sadness, others’ opinion could make me feel valuable or worthless.

The despair or joy that can so quickly wash over us from a sports event, an economic report, a disagreement with a friend, co-worker, or family member may well not be a good thing. That emotional neediness, the impact that these temporal things have on us, points to a disconnect within our being as humans made in the image of God. Our value is not dependant on temporal things, it is not dependant on what we do, who we know or what we know. Thus that sort of response that leads to feelings of value and worthlessness, that sort of reactivity, points to a brokenness inside us.

The Apostle Paul speaks to this reality today as he talks about popular opinion and his value as a church leader. He reminds the Church in Corinth, and the Church in Plymouth, that the opinions and judgments of others do not matter one bit and should not define us. He puts it this way in The Message, a Bible translation by Eugene Peterson, “It matters very little what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion… Comparisons in these matters are pointless…The Master [--God] makes the judgment.” Paul reminds us that in human life it is God who defines us, it is God who gives us value not the petty opinions of others, not the prestige and prowess of our sports teams, not our bank accounts, not our popularity, not what we drive. It is God who gives us our value and thus it is in God that we should search for our value and our meaning. Paul is all too aware that in our human brokenness we have forgotten this basic truth.

This brokenness, this human inclination to be defined and controlled by other things and by others, is what Jesus is looking at when he talks about wealth and our fear and frustration around this issue. If there is one part of our society that we are the most out of control of in the US, it is our relationship with money. At the time I wrote this sentence on Friday the national debt stood at 9.4 trillion dollars, and by the time I give this sermon today that debt is 3.1 billion dollars higher.  Think about it, credit card offers abound even as mortgages are defaulted on in rising numbers. Advertisers tell us that with a new shiny thing we will find ourselves happy, fulfilled, and healthier even when countless studies state just the opposite. News from the Federal Reserve about interest rate changes lead to bleak predictions or glowing reports, massive market fluctuation, and talking heads on every major network. America is controlled by, even possibly defined by, things and money.

Jesus is not telling us that money or possessions are evil. Instead Jesus is pointing to the fact that all too often humanity fools itself into thinking that money, that a thing, impacts our value, impacts our worth, and defines who we are. Thus, humanity puts its trust in these things, in wealth, making an idol out of them knowingly or unknowingly. Jesus is telling us that such a manner of living and understanding is ridiculous, just as ridiculous as me going into a dark, glowering mood because the Red Sox loose or because the Pistons beat the Celtics in Game 2 last Thursday. Jesus is telling us that our anxiety, produced by the power of wealth and possessions, is in fact misplaced trust and only leads to more worry.

Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the great Christian theologians of the 20^th century put it this way, “There is no life which does not violate the injunction [of Christ which says] ‘Be not anxious.’ That is the tragedy of human sin. It is the tragedy of [hu]man[ity, which] is dependant upon God, but seeks to make [them]self independent and self-sufficient.”[2] Niebuhr is saying that all of us look for our value, look for our well-being, look for our safety outside of a relationship with the loving God who made us, taught us, died for us and redeemed us. And yet, as we look for our safety in other places, in money and possessions we will, sadly, find only brokenness.

But Christ is calling out to us in the midst of that tragedy and brokenness, reminding us that it is God that gives us value, it is God that cares for us, it is God for which our very beings long. Christ calls out to us reminding us that it is God who is in control, not humanity. It is the love of God, made known to us in Christ, that can fill us with life and purpose, not cars, not wealth, not status, not even the Red Sox or the Tigers… And with this knowledge, with these words of Christ within us we are offered a new way of living.  

Stanley Hauerwas, one of the greatest living Christian ethicists, speaks of this true way of living—finding your value and being in God— in this way, “because we have learned to live as a forgiven people, as a people no longer in control, [a people who find their value in God and not in things] we also find we can become a whole people, we find that we can rest within ourselves.”[3] In finding our value in the One who made us, we find that we are made whole, we find that we have purpose and meaning that far surpasses anything the world and its wealth could ever offer us.

Today, I pray that all of us, you and me, can hear the words of Christ the Savior. We cannot serve money and God. In serving money, in serving possessions we give them a power which they do not deserve over us. We must choose where we will look for our value and our self worth…in others, in things, in wealth, in ability and knowledge or in the living God who formed us and loved us from before time and forever. Finding our value in God is not easy, that is the reason why Jesus talks about it so much to his disciples, to you and me. That is the reason the faithful have developed tools to be reminded where our true value lies. These ancient Christian tools are called disciplines which can be practiced within our everyday lives. These disciplines remind us who we are and where our value lies even in the midst of the world’s plethora of competing views. Through prayer, through proportional giving, through volunteering, through small groups and sharing, through consistent attendance at worship, through Bible study, we are reminded time and again that our value comes from God, not ourselves, not others, not wealth, not things. Our value, our being, is a free gift from the God of life. Christian practices help us remember this truth. These practices enable us to become whole people and find rest within ourselves.

My friends, today Christ calls out to us reminding us that our calling is to “strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” May we have the courage to do just that.