Sermons for the Month
Sudden Wealth Syndrome
DATE: November 12, 2000
SERVICE: Pentecost XXII
TEXT: Mark 12:38-44“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
The same night the Maryland lottery made Robert Bronson a millionaire, his wife told him it would ruin their marriage. Seventeen months later they were divorced. Still, who wouldn't want to get his hands on the largest jackpot in U.S. history, $363 million? Chances are, however, it wouldn't make you any happier than you are now. Truth be told, people don't handle financial windfalls very well, at least not if studies of lottery winners are any indication. Troubles start to pile up, according to top winners, with big payouts serving as no guarantee of future happiness. Now comes another report. Merrill Lynch announced last spring that the number of millionaires in the United States and Canada has risen almost 40 percent since 1997. The question is no longer "Who Wants to BE a Millionaire?" - but instead, "Who Already IS a Millionaire?" Can you guess the size of the group that exists right now? Two and one-half million. Living all around us are two and a half million millionaires. That's about 40,000 for every state and province in the U.S. and Canada. But there's a downside to this exploding affluence, and a sickening side-effect to today's almost psychotic obsession with the stock market: Some of the new superwealthy are so uneasy with their fortunes that they succumb to what therapist Stephen Goldbart calls "sudden wealth syndrome." The symptoms: "excessive guilt" and "identity confusion." There was a man who died and found himself in a beautiful place, surrounded by every conceivable comfort. A white-jacketed man came to him and said, "You may have anything you choose - any food - any pleasure - any kind of entertainment." The man was delighted, and for days he sampled all the delicacies and experiences of which he had dreamed on Earth. But one day he grew bored with all of it, and calling the attendant to him, he said, "I'm tired of all this. I need something to do. What kind of work can you give me?" The attendant sadly shook his head and replied, "I'm sorry, sir. That's the one thing we can't do for you. There is no work here for you." To which the man answered, "That's a fine thing. I might as well be in hell." The attendant said softly, "Where do you think you are?" Another manifestation of this age of anxiety we live in today. All I can say to you is "Get used to it." The struggle between morality and economics is a recurring pattern of the American experience, at least according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Fogel in his new book, The Fourth Great Awakening & The Future of Egalitarianism. There's a regular cycle, he says. Changing technologies and economic conditions collide with moral values to produce spiritual crises, social reform and political upheavals. In response, people strive to impose a moral framework on new economic realities. Then economic conditions change and the cycle begins again. Following other scholars, Fogel identifies four such religious "awakenings" - beginning in roughly 1730, 1800, 1890 and 1960 - that eventually affected intellectual life and politics. Of course, none of these turning points can claim to be the very first Great Awakening. That distinction belongs to the ministry of Jesus Christ, a movement that was full of economic analysis, spiritual crisis, social reform and political upheaval. In today's text, we find Jesus in the temple, opposite the treasury, watching the crowd putting money into the donation chests. After watching a poor widow at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder, the poorest of the powerless poor, drop her two coins into the collection, he went right to the heart of his own spiritual, social, economic and political reformation: He announced that the poor widow had put in more than all the rich. She broke the bank, he claimed, with two small copper coins. But how? Simple, said Jesus. She put in everything she had. Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a dream. She told her superiors, "I have three pennies and a dream from God to build an orphanage." "Mother Teresa," her superiors chided gently, "you cannot build an orphanage with three pennies. With three pennies, you can't do anything." "I know," she said, smiling, "but with God and three pennies I can do anything!" Brothers and Sisters, the time has come for another Great Awakening - another "wake-up call" - and this new reformation is going to center around whether we are willing to "put in" everything we have. Jesus is calling us to break the bank, but not through simple monetary donations - that would be too easy (or would it?). Instead, we are called to give all we have through gifts of time, effort and spirit. Money does not lead the way. It follows. Money is not the key, you see, because we've all got bucks. Even if we're not millionaires, we're part of a class of people that is richer than most of the world. In the book The Millionaire Next Door, the point is made that if we can simply afford to buy such a book ... guess what? We are already in the top 5 percent of the world's richest people. So let's be honest: Most of us have money. Not a ton of money, but enough to pay the mortgage, put food on the table, make a car payment and take a vacation or two a year. All but the poorest of the poor live better today than all but the richest of the rich a century ago. We're simply not in the same class as the poor widow in the Gospel of Mark, even though some months we feel as if we're down to a few copper coins after paying the cable or cell phone bill, the orthodontist's bill, and the credit card bill. But look where all this prosperity's got us. Despite the fact that since 1960 we have been soaring economically, here's the harvest of the seed we've sown: *Doubled divorce rate. *Tripled teen suicide rate. *Quadrupled rate of reported violent crime. *Quintupled prison population. *Sextupled - no pun intended - sextupled percent of babies born to unmarried parents. *Sevenfold increase in cohabitation - a predictor of future divorce. When Jesus challenges us to give him everything we have, he doesn't want us to donate something as easy as money - because face it, we are all quite skilled at scrawling in a checkbook! Instead, he wants us to make the tougher sacrifice of spirit, time and effort. This is what so many of the nouveau riche are having a tough time figuring out. National Public Radio recently aired a program about a class of people who are actually ashamed of their new wealth and want to keep it a secret - not that a person needs to make $300,000 a year and be ashamed of his affluence and unhappy with his life. The problem here is not that people have money, it's that they don't feel they have anything worth giving! Contrast these folks with the poor widow in the temple. She knew what she had and she gave it, while the nouveau riche don't know what they have and don't know how to give it. Wealth seems to bring so much freedom and opportunity, but the sad fact is that it's worthless - and even shameful - if its owners don't know how to give of themselves fully and sacrificially. What's worth noting is that these social ills can be alleviated by gifts of spirit, time and effort - not by boosting our affluence, or even by increasing our charitable giving. These problems are best addressed as we put our time and talents into sacrificial work for God and neighbor. And there's a personal payoff as well: Less confusion about identity, and much lower feelings of guilt. Now that we have solved the question of how to make a living, we are left to wonder why we live - and the answer to this question is not economic. We don't need a Big Game lottery to win big. In fact, sudden affluence can suck us into self-indulgence and sometimes self-destruction. Better to put all we have - body, mind and spirit - into building a world where character and community are valued more highly than soaring stocks and bulging bank accounts. Then, and then only, will we be holding a winning ticket. AMEN