C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for September 28, 2008 Namaste. I celebrate the joy of Being. No possession can add to it, and no loss can take away from it. When you rest in the joy of Being, there is nothing to fear and nothing to lose. Rest in the joy of Being, and all else will fall into proper perspective. What a roller coaster this week has been? The rise and fall of the share market has mirrored the rise and fall of the hopes of people everywhere. It seems that amidst all the fear and insecurity, there are a number of opportunities for spiritual awareness and growth. It is these opportunities I want to focus on. What is Real in your Life? The ultimate question this crisis is asking you is what is real in your life. I was amused by an interview with Michael Douglas, aka Gordon Gecko in the 1980s movie Wall Street. You will remember his famous line, “Greed is good.” Douglas was being interviewed about one of his latest projects, unrelated to the economic crisis. The interviewer called Michael Douglas, “Gordon” and asked for his comments on the economy. Douglas replied, “My name is not Gordon. He is a character I played in a movie 20 years ago.” I love the directness and realism of his answer. Gordon Gecko is not a real person, and in fact part of the point of the movie is how hard it is to retain a sense of reality in the ever changing world of Wall Street finance. Are you retaining your sense of reality amidst all the fear and media hype? From one perspective, everything you own is solid, real and worthwhile. You worked hard for it. You planned for it. You have every right to enjoy your possessions. From another perspective, and taking a broader view, the way your possessions make you feel is not solid or real. It’s constantly changing. I feel satisfied by one acquisition. I feel diminished by another loss. I want more. I feel proud of an achievement. I feel diminished by another perceived failure. I feel pleasure from one possession. I eventually bore of it and seek another, better toy. I’m encouraged by a growing economy. I’m discouraged by a recession. Building your self image based on your possessions is dangerous because they are just things and the way they make you feel is so fleeting and impermanent. I can only imagine that the many people who lost their homes and all their possessions in the recent storms in the south are asking these hard questions about what is real and essential in their lives. You are so much more than what you think you own and you are so much more than what your possessions make you feel about yourself. What is real in your life? Where Will you Invest Your Energy? I wonder how much energy you have invested in the economic crisis. I wonder if you have been able to separate out the necessary planning of your future and finances from the sensationalism of the media and political hype. If you are anything like me, then you have been glued to the television as if you are watching a car wreck. Why? Why do we have such morbid fascination with drama and carnage? I’m sure that when the news is certain, I’ll hear about it. So why invest so much energy into every twist and turn in the unfolding drama? Next time you find yourself investing a whole lot of nervous energy into the economy, ask yourself the questions- Is there anything I can do about it right now? Does it improve my life, right now, to be glued to the television getting more and more anxious by the second? Maybe you might even drop your attachment to the identity of being anxious, which is a very self important, but ultimately unreal identity. Try singing out loud the wonderful line from the REM song, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” It’s very liberating. Of course, what is happening is significant, but it doesn’t have ultimate consequences. It might even be the end of the world as we know it. Isn’t every moment like that? Isn’t it part of the delusion of ownership, the unreality of impermanence that expects the world to remain the same? It is indeed the end of the economy as you know it, but you are fine in this moment and this moment is the only one you need to live. Ownership is Transient at Best When Leviticus 25 records God saying to Moses, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, because the land is mine” don’t think of God like the banker in a game of monopoly giving and taking property at God’s divine whim. I expect the spirit of this statement is that ownership is transient and possessions should be held onto only lightly. “The land is God’s” indicates that the land belongs to life; to those who came before you, those who will come after you, to the earth and in service of people everywhere. The housing crisis, while tragic for many, also presents an opportunity for reprioritizing. The Center for Responsible Lending projects 6.5 million foreclosures in the next several years. That’s bad enough, but its actually even worse. These foreclosures will cause a $356 billion decline in surrounding property values for the 46 million families that live next to foreclosed homes. Over the next few years, your home, your castle will most likely lose some of its value. Will it be any less of a refuge, a mansion full of meal time memories, and a palace for the people that matter most to you? If your home loses some of its value, what will that mean for your psyche? Or else, consider the federal government’s so called “bailout” of the economy. Your tax dollar will be used, effectively making you a part owner in some very large corporations. Will that satisfy your desire to own things? How much will you really own? More importantly, what ultimate difference will it make to your Being? A few months ago there was a series of commercials about ordinary people being mistaken for "the owner" of a large corporation. For a few minutes they would receive royal treatment, until it was realized that their "ownership" was limited to a few insignificant shares of a company’s huge total stock. The commercials were pulled off the air very quickly. Why was that? Perhaps they made viewers realize the opposite of what the advertisers intended. We are supposed to aspire to being "owners..." but in reality the actual power is miniscule. To the extent that the bailout increases the number of people who own tiny amounts of stock in large but fragile companies, it may solve a short term problem, but it most certainly wont fill the deeper gap in anyone’s life. Do not fall for the illusion? Make plans. Invest wisely. Plan carefully. But make no mistake. The ownership society is an illusion that makes the rich get richer while the poor get the picture, and it feeds the collective ego that possessions will satisfy your deeper craving for peace and intimacy. The Judeo Christian Jubilee What do the Bible and Judeo Christian tradition have to offer this current economic crisis? Let’s not be mindless in the way we approach the Bible. It had no understanding of our globalized economy, or modern day market forces. We shouldn’t expect the Bible to offer a blueprint for the economy. Some will argue that the description of the early Christian communities provides a biblical mandate for socialism, with everyone sharing all their possessions equally. But Acts is descriptive, and not prescriptive. That is, it describes the frail attempts of a frightened group of people, huddling together after the loss of their leader, trying to block out the real world. It doesn’t prescribe that all communities should live the same way. Having said that, the Bible does offer principles that could guide attitudes towards ownership and the economic bailout.
This is certainly not the case in the world today where the gap between the haves and have nots is widening. NPR business correspondent, Adam Davidson told the story of two events he attended in May this year. The first was a black tie event at the Ritz Carlton in Manhattan. It was a Financial Securities award event, where the very leaders who contributed to the sub prime mortgage disaster gathered to give each other awards for their efforts. Apparently, they recognized the irony of the occasion. They nearly cancelled the event but decided they needed to be cheered up after a tough year. He gathered with “the haves”. A few days earlier, Davidson gathered with “the have nots”. This was a very different event across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was run by a neighborhood assistance group. They gathered people suffering at the other end of the sub prime mortgage crisis, those facing foreclosures and bankruptcies. There were no black ties at this event. He met people at this event who had been given half million dollar NINA loans. NINA stands for no income, no asset assessment. Some of them were defaulting on their very first repayments and very soon many of them were in dire straights. The bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn is a tangled web of greed and ignorance. In the six years from 2000 to 2006, the global pool of money grew from 36 trillion to 70 trillion dollars. That’s a huge amount of new money looking for new ways to grow. They found it in residential mortgages. But the desire for growth outran common sense, property values and the ability to service the loans. The whole system came apart.
It is doubtful the Jubilee was ever practiced legally. It was more of an ideal held out for a more forgiving spirit. Did you know that Handel’s Messiah was composed in the 18th century at a time when Handel was under pressure to make money to stay out of debtor’s prison? Handel went to Ireland for the first performance of the Messiah, both to keep his own creditors at bay, but also to raise money to support those suffering in debtor’s prison in Ireland. It seems so profound that the Messiah would be the instrument for restoring justice. Recall that Jesus’ first sermon was a retelling of the spirit of the Jubilee. He proclaimed good news for the poor, the captive, the blind, and oppressed, a year of Jubilee in which the poor were given a totally new beginning through a dramatic equalizing of wealth. The jubilee was a radical reordering of structures and hierarchies. Whatever the details of the current bailout, it must surely be a way to minimize foreclosures and give people a way to make a fresh start. I’m not suggesting that people who got in over their heads are blameless, and I’m not suggesting a utopian forgiveness of debt. I am suggesting that the bailout should assist homeowners more than Wall Street executives, and in so doing create am abundant, trickle down and bubble up restoration of the economy. Balancing Natural Rhythm With Regulation I want to end with a parable from the movie, Being There. Peter Sellers plays the simple gardener, Chauncy Gardner. Chauncy’s only experience comes from his gardening and from the television. There is a beautiful scene where he pulls his remote control out after being confronted by a street gang, hoping he can switch channels. Chauncy unwittingly ends up advising the President. I offer this for your reflection. President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives? Chauncy was an accidental hero. He offered profound wisdom from nature; growth is not always beneficial. There was a recession in Australia in the early 1990s after a period of rapid growth in the 1980s. The Prime Minister of the time coined a phrase that is known by most Australians. He said it was a recession we had to have. It was a recession that led to the growth period that only just recently began slowing down. I’m not an economist and I’m not suggesting that the bailout would be a mistake. However, it seems right to pause and reflect whether this is a recession that the nation needs to have, or whether some short terms stimulants will add stability to the economy that allows it to prosper. Either way, and far more importantly from the perspective of Being, what will you learn from the crisis and from your reactions to it? What are the seasons of your psyche? As we move into fall and winter, and a likely recession, how will your identity survive? How will you live your own inner jubilee, forgiving yourself the mistakes of your past and allowing yourself a fresh start? What is real in your life, and where will you invest your energy? Celebrate the joy of being that no possession can add to, and no loss can diminish.
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