Untitled Sermon

Attachment to the World

Last week I spent a few days in Canaan Valley with Andersons and the Emersons (we’d planned a backpacking trip that got curtailed). One evening, as we were sitting around the dinner table talking, we started sharing some of our family stories, those of our parents and grandparents.

Marcia shared story of her Dad and his company who had trained as paratroopers to fight during World War II as part of the Allied European campaign. Her father had to return home due to family tragedy. Meanwhile, his entire company parachuted into the fighting…none of them survived.

John’s Dad was stationed at several Army bases throughout the United States in order to help work as a flight instructor. As he was sharing his story, it made me think of reading the book (which became a movie), “Unbroken,” describing the exploits of Louie Zamperini, part of a bomber crew in WW II, who ended up as a POW in Japan. I remember being astounded at how many American soldiers who died - not in actual combat, but in the training exercises for engaging in air combat.

And yet, in spite of all these grave dangers, they displayed a remarkable willingness to give their lives for a greater cause

Young men regularly lied about their age in order to enlist, Marcia’s Dad included.

We do well to remember and honor them this Memorial Day weekend.

I shared the experience of my mother, which was very much on the other side of the war. She spent much of her childhood and young teen years endured the difficulties of living in what became a war-torn country, Austria.

She tells stories of living on an old family farm, having to walk up and down mountain in snow to get to and from school. Of walking as a child to go to a dental appointment or a doctor’s appointment on her own. Not just her, but even her younger brother, at six years old!

It’s almost unimaginable today! And it’s not that there weren’t dangers back then.

In fact, it was more dangerous! We are far safer today in every possible way imaginable!

Remember story from last week, Horatio and Anna Spafford (Horatio the man who wrote “It Is Well with My Soul)? Anna gave birth to eight children, only two lived to adulthood - two died as a result of pneumonia, four from the tragic shipwreck that claimed the lives of 226 people.

Children today rarely die of pneumonia or people from shipwrecks.

I point out all these examples to say that we are far safer, physically healthier, we have access to much greater medical care, we live much longer lives, on average.

And that’s not just true for us here in the United States, that’s globally. Let me ask you a question: What do you think the global life expectancy was in 2019, worldwide average?

According to the United Nations. 72.6 years. That’s higher than any single nation’s average in 1950.

Just to give you a sense of how rapidly that number has improved - in 1800, the global life expectancy was 29 years (no part of world had higher average than 35 years). By 1950, global life expectancy had risen to 46 years. Over the last 70 years, the global life expectancy has risen 27 more years, to our current rate of almost 73 years. That’s amazing.

And yet, I would argue, we are more depressed, more anxious, more angry, and more fearful than previous generations. Our problem is not physical…it is spiritual. It is not well with our souls.

Dan Wooding, as a young reporter had an opportunity to interview Mother Teresa in 1975. He was surprised to hear her express pity for the “poverty-stricken West.”

Mother Teresa: “The spiritual poverty of the West is much greater than the physical poverty of our people…You, in the West, have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness. They feel unloved and unwanted. These people are not hungry in the physical sense, but they are in another way. They know they need something more than money, yet they don’t know what it is. What they are missing, really, is a living relationship with God.”

Mother Teresa is expressing what we began talking about last week, the question, Is It Well with our Souls? (she would say no!).

If you remember, last week we talked about our souls as our essential personhood. It is the deepest place of our life and power. And it is the place where, as Ruth Haley Barton says, God is present to us. Or, as Mother Teresa puts it, where we experience a living relationship with God.

And that was our main point last week, that a soul is healthy, it is well, when we are open and connected to God.

Over the next several weeks, we want to dig deeper into specific ways that our soul is well / unwell, and how we can nurture a greater openness and connection to God.

Today, we want to start by talking about our attachments. That one of the grave dangers of living longer, of prosperity, is that of the attachments it nurtures within us. C.S. Lewis expresses it well (Screwtape Letters, from perspective of demons):

Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels he is ‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of really being at home in earth, which is just what we want. You will note that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle-aged and the old.

Danger of prosperity is that it knits us to the world. We get attached.

Danger not just for those of us who are well into middle-age, but I think of our culture at large - especially as we grow in overall wealth, and we grow more accustomed to living longer lives - it’s our expectation.

We have become more knit to this world. And because of this, we are spiritually impoverished. Our souls are not well.

Thankfully, Jesus teaches us what we must do - how we have to take care of our souls.

Here’s our main point this morning: A “well” soul is freed from the attachments of the world. One essential way to care for our souls is to detach from things of this world in order to be connected and open to God.

Let’s look at how Jesus puts it: Mark 8:34-38

Word used throughout this passage is the Greek word, psyche. Here it’s translated “life”, but it’s often translated in some versions of this passage as soul. Jesus is talking about losing or gaining our souls.

Two parts to what Jesus is teaching here, a prescription. In other words, what’s being prescribed, what Jesus is telling us to do. And a description, what Jesus is describing, the results of doing what he’s teaching (or what happens if we don’t put his teaching into practice).

Prescription is this: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Jesus is teaching us here what it looks like to be his disciple, what’s essential in following him.

He’s not laying this out as an option. He’s saying, this is the way. It doesn’t happen in any other way.

If we are to follow Jesus, or at least follow him well, live in way he does, that means we will deny ourselves and take up our crosses. To deny ourselves and take up our crosses is process of detachment from things of world.

Description is what follows. Jesus is simply describing what happens as we chose one or the other - either to deny ourselves and take up our crosses, or we don’t.

If we don’t, if we try to hang on to our lives and save them, we will lose the very thing we’re trying to hang onto.

Scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - search for the Holy Grail, cup from last Supper Jesus had with his disciples? Belief is that the cup offers immortality.

Recover cup, they try to leave the cave they find it in - but there are great spiritual forces at work, earth starts shattering beneath their feet as they try to cross a certain boundary. Drop cup, it rolls into crevice, woman goes after it, Indiana Jones pleads with her to let it go so he can lift her to safety, they can escape with her lives. But she won’t let it go. She keeps reaching for it until he loses his grip on her and she plunges to her death.

Her inability to let go of the thing she thought would bring her life causes her to lose her life.

This is what Jesus is trying to tell us here: If we gain the whole world, if we are knit to the world, we will lose our soul.

And the reverse is true - if we lose our life, our soul, to Jesus, we will save it. If we want to be with and be like Jesus, that requires giving ourselves over to Jesus.

Jesus isn’t laying this out as a punishment, he is simply speaking spiritual truths, this is way we are made, this is what happens to our souls as we are either knit - attached - to the world, or knit - attached - to Jesus.

We can see this in how Jesus himself lived…or specifically, in how he died.

We’ve all heard the same saying, you can’t take it with you. But, as it turns out, there are certainly some people who’ve tried.

Frank Sinatra was buried with a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey (same thing he had on stage with him every night)

One wealthy woman, Sandra West, upon her death, was buried sitting in her blue 1964 Ferrari sports car.

Tony Curtis had a whole list of things he was buried with: Stetson hat, iPhone (2010, came out in 2007), 7 packets of Splenda sweetener and his Navy medals

Whitney Houston, was buried in a gold-lined coffin wearing over $400,000 worth of jewelry and clothing

These stories are revealing. Out of all the ways they could have been buried, they chose these things. Things they were attached to in life.

Contrast that with Jesus at his burial - Jesus literally had nothing when he died.

The only clothes he had were stripped away, split among the soldiers, who cast lots for them. He didn’t have a penny to his name. The tomb he was buried in was borrowed.

But it wasn’t just his material possessions…we can be attached to our reputations, our “place” in world. Jesus’ reputation was ruined. He was mocked for being a failed Messiah, a fake prophet, suffering the ignoble death of a common criminal. Even criminals on either side of him were mocking him.

He lost his friendships - betrayed by one, abandoned by his closest followers.

And, of course, most of all, his life. Jesus did not even cling to his own life. That, too, he willingly laid down.

It’s interesting to contrast that with those around him, who were unwilling to let go...

The reason the Jewish leaders could put political pressure on Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Jerusalem, to condemn Jesus even though he knew Jesus was innocent was because Pilate feared losing his status with Caesar. If a riot broke out, he would get blame.

Jesus was such a challenge to Jewish leaders themselves because they had privilege, position, status…Jesus would constantly call them out on it. But they were unwilling to give it up to follow him. They saw him perform miracle after miracle, all these signs…but they wouldn’t give up their earthly status. Too attached.

Even disciples of Jesus - this would change later on - but in gospels, when he is arrested, they scatter. They feared for their lives. They were knit to the world

Why Jesus tells rich young ruler, go, sell everything you have and give the money to the poor - and then come follow me. He knew that rich young ruler was bound to his stuff. Why Jesus says it’s so hard for rich to enter the Kingdom of God, because, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, prosperity knits us to the world.

The whole arc of Jesus’ time on earth was one of detachment - Philippians 2 tells us that though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God at thing to be grasped, hung on to. Instead, he let it go, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant to be with us.

And if we want it to be well with our souls, we must learn to do the same thing. Experience the freedom of detachment. Letting go.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

Things that Paul mentions here are good things…marriage, materials things, being happy…these are all things we can so easily be attached to. There are so many more: desire or dream, a cause or goal, our success, our appearance, security, comfort, leisure.

Hear the essence of what Paul is saying…this world is passing away. Don’t hang on to it. Hold these things loosely.

Peter Scazzero - “Detachment is the great secret of interior peace. Along the way, in this journey with Christ, we get attached to (literally, ‘nailed to’) behaviors, habits, things, and people in an unhealthy way. For example, I love my home, my car, my books, Geri (wife), our four daughters, our church, our comforts, and my good health. Like you, I rarely realize how attached I am to something until God removes it. Then the power struggle begins. I say, ‘God I must have that second car for convenience.’ God answers, ‘No, you don’t need that. You need me!’

That’s the whole point. When we are overly attached to the things of the world - things that cannot feed or sustain or satisfy our souls - that deep part of life and power within us, our souls become unwell. We must learn to detach so that we can knit ourselves to God. So we are freed to be connected and open to him.

So let me offer you some ways to put that into practice this week:

One way is to engage in Fasting. Fasting is voluntary detachment, I willingly give something up for the sake of Jesus.

Fasting is a way of saying, I have no master but you, Jesus! You are Lord. My stomach won’t be master. My desire for comfort won’t be my master. My need to control my schedule or how things go won’t be my master.

Consider fasting from food for a day - or a partial fast (skip two meals). Technology fast - put the cell phone down for a day (you will soon discover how attached you are!). Give up watching TV for week. Social media. News. I remember a man who would leave worship if service ran too long - he was overly attached to his schedule.

It’s not just detaching, but attaching - use that time to be with Jesus. Take a prayer walk. Time of silence.

Another way to detach is Spiritual Discipline of Simplicity. Central idea of simplicity is putting first things first. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

In a culture that seeks wealth and status and comfort and success, it’s easy to seek those things first.

So, engage in simplicity as a way to care for your soul. Detach from things of this world -

Richard Foster offers some suggestions on how to do this: Buy things for their usefulness, not for their status. De-accumulate (spend several hours this week going through a closet or your garage or attic, give those things away). Learning to enjoy things without having to own them - he says owning things is an obsession in our culture (it’s about control). Develop a greater appreciation for nature.

Challenge you to find one way this week to engage in caring for your soul by detaching from things of this world.

Let me finish with this…I’ve heard some great wisdom, that it’s not change in life that we fear, but loss.

We’re afraid that when changes happen what we’ll lose as a result.

That’s whole basis of what Jesus is trying to make clear here in this passage - it’s really a choice of what we might gain and what we’ll lose.

You can gain the whole world. You can pursue comfort and prosperity and success and things. But there’s a cost. See extreme of that - hoarders, miserly, controlling, anxiousness, self-centeredness - those are all symptoms of a soul overly attached to things.

Scazzero: “When we put our claws into something and we don’t want to take them out, we are beyond enjoying. We now must have them.”

You’ll lose something far more valuable. Your very self. Your true self. Your very soul.

That’s what Jesus wants us to have. He wants us to be well in soul. To experience the freedom and peace and life in him. Because we don’t have to hang on to things. We’re free to be generous, to serve, to share, to enjoy, to be.

And that’s when truly is well with our souls.