Sermons for the Month

Same Question, Different Answers
DATE: March 19, 2000
SERVICE: Lent II
TEXT: Mark 8:31-38
“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

Is that your final answer?
That's the question Regis Philbin is asking you. You're a contestant on the hit show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? You're trying to decide whether the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Stockholm or Oslo. You know that Alfred Nobel was Swedish. So you go with Stockholm. But Oslo has a familiar ring to it. You stay with Stockholm. It's your final answer.
You lose. The correct answer is Oslo. The Nobel prizes for Physics, Economics, Chemistry, Medicine and Literature are, in fact, awarded in Stockholm. But not the Peace Prize. It's presented by the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in the presence of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Norway and an invited audience. In Oslo.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? which debuted last August for a two-week run on ABC, is a knockoff of a similar UK version that had Brits glued to the telly for years. The effect has been much the same in the United States. When the show ran again in the fall for the November sweeps period, it attracted 26 million viewers on its first night eclipsing its largest audience during its August run.
The Fox network, sensing people's need4greed, quickly introduced a similar show in November called Greed with a $2 million jackpot. A team of six people tries to move up the "Tower of Greed," rising from $25,000 to $2 million questions. Chuck Woolery, the host, treats the cash like eye candy. Along the way they are encouraged to smell and feel the money. One wrong answer and the team loses everything. As the prize money goes up, "terminator rounds" pit contestants against each other. On the Thursday night Greed was introduced, Fox doubled its normal viewing audience.
So we've got Greed, one of the Seven Deadly Sins on the Fox network. What's next? Lust? Gluttony? Sloth? Don't be surprised.
We're suffering from millionaire angst and we're not sure what to do about it. Today we are gambling more than ever. We often know the exact amount of the Ohio lottery. U.S. consumers have racked up its largest credit card debt ever. In 1998, the latest statistics available from the Department of Justice, there were more than 1.3 million bankruptcy filings. That's 5.2 filings per thousand people! In Cleveland alone, there were over 28,000 bankruptcies filed in 1998. Ohio has the dubious honor of being the third state in the union with the most bankruptcy filings behind Florida and California but ahead of New York and Texas. And that's with a less than 5% unemployment rate.
In Oregon, six people were indicted in a "phantom cow" scheme, selling cattle that don't exist and bilking a $100 million out of investors. In San Francisco, a 15-year veteran police officer is jailed for stealing Elvis memorabilia to furnish his already crowded Elvis room. In New York, a man is shot in a dispute over Halloween candy. In Florida, a teenage boy puts bleach in some orange juice and roach poison in hamburger patties and feeds it to his 69-year-old grandmother, hoping after her death to cash in on his inheritance. Here in Akron, we had the young man last January who stole his grandmother's antiques and sold them to a dealer who himself obviously knew their true worth but was quite ready to rip off the boy.
We are trying to save our lives by building bigger barns. But Jesus says we've got it all wrong, and he poses a question contestants on Greed might find hard to answer: "For what good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" (8:36 NIV).
That's a tough one. Is that you final answer?
Jesus, rather than making the Christian life easy, seems to be making it hard. "For those who want to save their life will lose it," he says, "and those who lose their life for my sake ... will save it" (8:35).
Jesus knew what we know. We know that we're often too busy greeding each other instead of greeting each other. The Old Testament philosopher says: "The greedy person stirs up strife, but whoever trusts in the Lord will be enriched" (Proverbs 28:25). He goes on to say that "Those who are greedy for unjust gain make trouble for their households" (15:27).
We know this. We understand the selfish nature of avarice. We remember that the apostle Paul even says that the greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:10; Ephesians 5:5).
We can even agree with the lyrics of Justin Tubbs when he writes: Lost in the trap of selfish greed, I ignore my friends who are in need. I'm building my kingdom, Brick by brick. But all of my treasures Are making me sick.
"But that's not us," we say. Perhaps. It's easy to spot the face of greed on game shows or in casino parlors. But greed has a much softer look, too. Consider that goddess of domesticity, Martha Stewart.
She may not look like the goddess of greed, but after her stock went public in October, 1999, she became an instant billionaire. Her far-flung omnimedia empire includes a magazine with a circulation of 1.2 million, a syndicated column, and a TV show with an audience of 5.3 million. Being rich does not necessarily mean that one is greedy. Still, while traditional values related to homemaking suggest that we make due with less, Martha's millions have been built on Martha's motto: "Just have more."
We ought to take a cue from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? When a contestant is not sure of the correct answer, he or she has three lifelines. The 50/50 option removes two wrong answers thus improving one's chances; the "Poll the Audience" lifeline allows a contestant to ask the audience for help with the answer; the remaining lifeline is the "Call a Friend" option allowing the player to phone someone for an opinion.
It is possible that the question the gospel text poses is one we can't answer. But God has also given us three lifelines to use when we are not sure of our final answer.
Lifeline One (50/50): Scripture. When we want to have some wrong answers removed, Scripture is where we start. The word of God gives us guidance, helping us to avoid bad choices and make good ones. Lifeline Two (Poll the Audience): The church. We can poll the community of faith for support when we are facing the challenges of life. The ChristBody is there for precisely that reason: to warn when danger lurks and affirm when we're exercising our gifts.
Lifeline Three (Call a Friend): Jesus. Jesus Christ himself is our Lifeline Friend who models for us the right answers and, on his way to the cross, shows us how to live a greedless life.
The world's got the Seven Deadly Sins. The church has the Seven Fruits of the Spirit. That's why FOX and ABC are not going to produce a game show called Love, Joy or Generosity any time soon. For that show, the church is the only game in town.
AMEN