8 Pentecost, Cp13 July 31, 2022
Ecclesiastes 1:2,12-14;2:18-23 Psalm 107:1-9,43
Col. 3:1-11 Luke 12:13-21
Why are there so many different kinds of 12 step programs today? Probably because impulse control can be difficult.
Impulse control is perhaps the chief task of human life. Some might think that the reason people like to be intelligent, wealthy, and powerful is because then you don’t need impulse control since you can get away with anything that you do. That is the life of a dictator. It is also the attempted lifestyle of a very petulant child.
How does one have wealth, intelligence, and power? The book of Ecclesiastes is wisdom writing about one who had a grand experiment in wealth, intelligence, and power. He had everything which his heart desired. And he concluded, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” He is perhaps the chief skeptic found in biblical writings. He realized after all that he had, knew, and did was time dated. He could not take it with into the afterlife. He would have to leave everything to people who perhaps were not worthy to receive it. His conclusion was this: Fear God, that is come to know God as the Awesome One, who has duration on all us, and outlives us all to retain final ownership of everything.
Twelve step programs revolve around the controlled use of basic life force or power, differently named. Desire, libido, lust, wrath, or greed. What is the etymology of misdirected life force? It is what not fearing God is, namely, idolatry. Idolatry is trying to treat and respect something in life which cannot live up to the profound uniqueness of a holy God. It is being devoted to something with continuous repetitive behaviors which is not and can never be the only great God truly worthy of worship. In behaviors, extreme idolatry is what is called addiction. Addiction involves ingrained habitual behaviors which involve trying to make something be what it cannot be, namely, the one and awesome holy God.
Have you noticed that in public sentiment, not all addictions are equal in how they are regarded? We consider things like alcohol and substance abuse as being socially and personally destructive behaviors. But what serious addiction is seen as publicly celebrated? The idolatry known as greed. Forbes magazine celebrates those who have attained the most in money and possession in their list of the wealthiest. Greed is one of the so-called deadly sins, but in fact those who have been greediest are sometimes the most celebrated people in society. We don’t greed shame the wealthiest people, even as people often “fat shame” the gluttons of life.
And yet greed is perhaps the most harmful idolatry of the human community. The biggest problem in our world is that not everyone in our world has enough because a very few people have taken so much and have not learned to fear God enough so as to make sure that everyone has enough.
Karl Marx saw this and came to believe that was only through the power of revolt the power of greed could overcome; unfortunately, all the members of society were not angelic, and the party bosses became the new greedy. Capitalism is kind of based upon the acceptance of the sin of each person being self-interestedly greedy. So, what does one do in capitalism? One tries to legislate and trick the greedy impulse for publicly redeeming outcomes. And how successful has that been? Well, the top one percent own 60 to 70 percent of the overall wealth of society.
Now what does St. Paul recommend regarding evil desire and the greed of idolatry? If sin comes to all people, Jews, Gentile, men, and women, is there a cure which is available for evil desire, greed, and all the froward human impulses? St. Paul had been a good religious man, Saul of Tarsus, but his religious fervor included the desire to punish and even kill the followers of Jesus Christ who were not religious in that way that he was. His behaviors were interdicted in the event of his famous conversion. He came to recommend a program of transformation which he called identity with the life of Jesus Christ. In this spiritual program, one accepted the power of the death of Jesus on the cross to die to the evil control center of desire and one’s life forces. But not just die; he recommended identity with the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, whereby one received the Holy Spirit of God as the new regulating center of life. The Holy Spirit is the one who can make evil and harmful desire into good desire, the kind of desire which allows us to enjoy all things with joyful pleasure without being addicted.
With the Holy Spirit as our higher power, we are able to let all things be transparent, and not opaque idols. With the Holy Spirit we can let our life energy pass through things with beneficial enjoyment? Why? Because we are letting our life force and desire return to the one and only worshipful God. This is why we are here today.
We are here today to remind our selves, to die with Christ to our selfish selves, so that we and others can come under the high power of the Holy Spirit. This is the secret, not to just over power and trick wrong desire, but to transform it for creative community endeavors.
The goal of St. Paul was to know Christ as all and in all, for in this identity with Christ Paul found the way of transforming.
We too can enter this identity with Christ and know ourselves to be on the path of transformation. Let us transform our desire to good desire, as we seek to find Chrst as all, and in all. Amern
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