Money Can Buy Happiness - and Other Lies We Believe : Mark 10:17-31
When Martin Hebold won the $600 million Florida State lottery a couple of years ago he was the happiest man on earth.
Martin worked as a municipal engineer, and on the day he won, he remembers kissing every financial worry goodbye - and saying ‘hello' to opportunities that were beyond his wildest dreams.
Martin says this is what he thought about when he went on a walk that day, right after hearing the news, strolling around the block where he lived, imagining what his new life was going to look like: Martin was walking on cloud nine.
Researchers say Martin was engaging in an activity called prospection. It's when our minds do the work of imagining future scenarios. We conjure up these events and condense days, weeks, and months of future living into minutes of imaginative thought. It's something we all do. But, unfortunately, for all it's benefits, prospection is seriously flawed.
After all, when you and I think of winning the lottery, we think of sitting in a bathtub full of $100 bills, paging through catalogs or scrolling through web page after page of previously unaffordable luxuries.
And as helpful and needful and fun as prospection is, we have to understand its limits if we don't want to get burned, which is what happened to Martin.
Within days of winning that huge amount of money, and the news spreading among family, friends, and to his community, Martin began to learn things about his newfound wealth that he had never imagined.
For all his prospection, Martin had neglected to consider the downside of winning the lottery - like the amount of friends and family members who were in financial distress and now coming out of the woodwork contacting him for help.
Or what happened a few months later when he joined the local country club. Martin didn't expect to be snubbed by members because he had not acquired his wealth the 'right' way.
And Martin never estimated how much stress he was going to feel about his new and old relationships: did people like him because of who he was, or because of his money?
While there is no question that money makes us happy, Martin's story reminds us that money has its limits.
Here's another reminder...
Shortly after he cashed his first lottery winnings check, Martin went out to the car dealership and bought his dream car. It was perfect. The right color, the right style, the right feeling that he had always imagined while driving that dream car. But six months later, he didn't feel the same way.
After those few months, Martin realized that the car was a gas guzzler. It was hard to get in and out of. He was always worried about scratching it. And he no longer got the same euphoric feeling while driving it.
Martin was experiencing something called the hedonic effect. This is what happens when we finally get something we've had our eye on, enjoy it, but then after a period of time get used to it, or maybe even get bored with it. This is what keeps us on gerbil wheels of production, to set our eyes unceasingly on the next desired item.
And this didn't just happen with Martin's car, but with his house, with his relationships, with all of his possessions. The luster eventually burnished, and he discovered what that great theologian Yogi Berra once said, "No matter where you go, there you are."
This is why happiness researchers say that happiness is best thought of as a vacation spot, one that we can visit, but never stay permanently.
And that while money can certainly make us happy, it is not the most effective or reliable way to find contentment in this life.
This is where Jesus comes in.
-----
Welcome to fall, or as church leaders like to call it, Stewardship Season, the occasion of our annual beg-a -thon. And it's always interesting to me to see how our lectionary readings, the prescribed Bible readings we use on Sundays, always seem to talk about money at this time of year.
But in all fairness, it's not as much about subtle suggestions by the church hierarchy, as it is a reflection of just how much Jesus talked about money. Next to the kingdom of God, Jesus talked about money more than anything else. This subject is unavoidable in scriptures just as it is unavoidable in our lives.
Jesus talked about it so much because of the long-standing notion that is as pervasive as it is false, that money offers us lasting contentment - that money can buy us happiness.
And so we get this story about a young man in our Gospel today.
He seems somewhat dramatic as he approaches Jesus and hits his knees! And asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life.
Jesus rattles off six of the ten commandments and the young man says he is kept them all - as if he had never sinned in his entire life.
The text then tells us that Jesus looked at him a lovingly, like a mother looks at her young child with cookie crumbs all over his face, as he swears up and down that he did not go into that cookie jar.
Jesus then tells this allegedly sinless, holy, and perfect young man that if he wants to keep his streak going, all he needs to do is something that should come so easy for such a devout and godly person, and that is to sell everything he owns, give it to the poor, and follow him.
This is when the truth comes out.
This is when we begin to see the depth of illusion this young man had been entertaining, not only was he inept at seeing who he was, but equally clueless, was he, at figuring out what he wanted, what might make him happy.
So off he went, maybe to invest, or a party, or bask in his further delusions, not knowing that he had passed up an opportunity to be eternally fulfilled.
Because that's what Jesus was inviting him to do, to put money in its place, to do what money does, and then to put God in God's place, to do what God does, which is nothing less than fulfilling our very souls by allowing the best parts of us to come out, which is always giving, and helping, and playing our part in fixing the world. This is the path to contentment, fulfillment, peace, and harmony.
It’s a misunderstanding of how things really work - writer Seth Godin puts it this way: The conventional wisdom is that success makes you happy and happy people are more likely to be generous.
The truth is that generous people tend to be happy - and happy people tend to be successful.
The world gets it wrong: it’s our generosity, our self-giving, that predicates out happiness and successfulness - not the other way around.
--------
Earlier this week a whistleblower who used to work for the social media company Facebook testified in front of Congress that executives at her company, driven by greed, allowed incendiary content to go unchecked on its platform because, although that content was false, misleading, and fanned the flames of hatred that led to the January 6th Capitol Hill uprising, it kept more users engaged, and more eyeballs on advertisements - The whistleblower alleged that Facebook put profits before public safety, and that the company is more interested in making money than anything else.
These allegations surprised no one.
Our society's obsession with making, accumulating, and hoarding money is as well-known as it is dangerous, because unless we find a healthier way to live with money, our greed may be the death of us.
This is why Jesus was so concerned about money!
On a societal basis, and on an individual basis the elevation of money, of possessions, of riches is nothing less than idolatry, a violation of the very first commandment.
When we put anything above human relationships, it saps are potential, robs us of our dignity, and lessens our humanity.
Studies show that the richer people become, the worse they do on exercises that test their empathy, their sympathy, their care for other people. And that the richer we are, the less we give away to the poor, as a percentage of our wealth.
We know this about money, and we want to be free from this. Here's a quote from writer Daniel Pink: "For most of human history, our lives were defined by scarcity.
Today, the defining feature of social, economic, and cultural life, is abundance.
Abundance has brought beautiful things into our lives, but that bevy of material goods has not necessarily made us happier. The paradox of prosperity is that while living standards have risen steadily, decade after decade, personal, family, and life satisfaction, haven't budged.
That's why more people, liberated by prosperity but not fulfilled by it, are resolving the paradox by searching for meaning."
And that's why you and I are here. We know that money and possessions are fickle Gods - we've had enough of our stuff - of the very best of what the world can offer, and so we come to Jesus.
And Jesus is trying to do with us what he did with this rich young man - he’s trying to convince us to give our ‘all’ to follow Jesus - to stop lying to ourselves about who we are and what the world looks like, and to seek after the truth that is in our hearts, that love is the answer, that the way of love is our fulfillment, that the way of Jesus is the hope of the world.
What this means is seeking to live as Jesus lived, to make prayer, scripture, and community central to our lives.
It means being as disciplined about our spiritual lives as we are about our work lives, our hobbies, and our family responsibilities.
What does that look like for you and me?
As you may know, the only person Jesus invited who did not come, is this guy - the rich young man.
Money has that big a grip on us.
And so we fight back by reminding ourselves that while money can certainly make us happy, it is not the most effective or reliable way to find contentment in this life.
That the conventional wisdom, that success makes you happy and happy people are more likely to be generous - is wrong - And that it’s generous people who tend to be happy - and happy people who tend to be successful.
Lord God, renew in us spirits that are set upon following you - with our hearts, souls, minds,
and bodies. Help us see wealth and possessions as the poor substitutes for contentment that they are - and help us see our wealth and possessions as signposts that point to you - whose love and care for us never disappoints –
Amen.