‘Stuff’ can weigh us down, physically and spiritually

Sunday’s church sermon was about “Jesus’ Challenges” to humankind taken from the scripture reading found in Mark 10:17-31 about the rich man who sought eternal life. 

The man asked Jesus what it would take for him to secure his place in heaven?

Jesus first mentioned the commandments. “Teacher,” the man declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

That is well and good, Jesus replied, but “one thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

That was a tall order, because the man had amassed great wealth. He balked…and backed away from Jesus.

Jesus looked around and asked his disciples: “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” He answered for them: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” That may sound harsh, but Jesus spoke the truth.

 

Letting go of earthly things is hard to do, the pastor acknowledged. Humans are possessed with accumulating “stuff,” he said. Every piece of vacant land that goes up for sale, or so it seems, becomes a storage unit facility.

 

As a people, many of us truly have more stuff than we can reasonably fit into the confines of our own residences. Perhaps, to reduce the pain, we should begin slowly to minimize and downsize, the preacher suggested.

“The fear is that our possessions, belongings and the things we collect and hold on to…our stuff…will eventually own us, becoming a golden calf in our lives,” the pastor offered.

 

“It’s time to reprioritize. Material things cannot have first place in our world – they separate us from God.”

Collecting stuff is a practice that can begin at an early age.

Much has been written by religious scholars on the subject of “stuff,” and decluttering one’s life can be a virtue.

The Rev. Daniel Sack of Cleveland Park Congregational, a United Church of Christ, in Washington, D.C., said: “There’s a lot in Christian teaching that tells us that stuff is a distraction, a stumbling block, an anchor weighing down our spiritual lives. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his disciples, ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’”

“Yet, we live in a material world, and all stuff is not inherently bad, impure or evil,” Dr. Sack commented. “In our offering, we use our money, which is only stuff in financial form, to support the mission of God’s church. Stuff can be, I believe, sacramental – it can connect us to God, it can connect us to each other, it can feed our souls.”

 

“Stuff is a handicap instead of a sacrament, though, when it makes us worry – worry about not having enough stuff, or having the wrong stuff, or not being able to maintain the stuff we do have,” he said.

“Stuff is a problem when it burdens our life instead of enriching it. Stuff is a problem when it distracts us from God’s mission. Stuff is a problem when you have to build a bigger barn to contain it. Stuff is a problem when it becomes an idol, when it becomes a god,” Dr. Sack added.

 

“When stuff is just stuff, it can be a bane rather than a blessing.”