1INTRO
We are in Stewardship season, and lucky you – you’ve chosen to attend another service on money! Yay! Fear not, though, because if you’ve heard the previous two, you know that something unexpected is coming. Today, I want us to wander through the woods a bit, discussing philosophy and trees.
1 Timothy 6:6-10
6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
This is a very famous passage, with a very pointed message in the final verse: if you love money, you’ll inevitably leave your faith and create tons of pain for yourself. That’s pretty tough news for those of us living in the richest country in history. The average person in the world today makes somewhere between $11-$18 a day, and I’d guess most of us are exceeding that. That does not mean we feel rich, of course, but that also does not mean we aren’t rich relative to the world. It’s a tricky topic!
This is not at all my meditation today, but I want to share a major frustrating with you. We can find it in 1 Timothy 6:1-3, “Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed. 2 Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful to them on the ground that they are brothers and sisters; rather, they must serve them all the more, since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these duties. 3 Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Do you know how often verses like these have been evoked to maintain abusive systems designed to enslave people? There is a pastor in this very state who has argued on social media that his fellow Christian nationalists should defend their right to enslave people because it isn’t condemned in the Bible.
If our use of the Bible is not Good News for everyone, particularly the poor and oppressed, then what in the world are we doing? In Catholic social teachings, this is called the “preferential option for the poor and vulnerable.” This is the heart of Liberation theology, where our faith is not measured in our individual morality but rather in how the most marginalized in our community are cared for and loved.
Jesus didn’t mince words when he said that what we do for those around us considered the least, we do for Jesus. Either that means something or it doesn’t.
2TIMOTHY
The Bible is a funny book that is filled with historical details that are often lost on us modern readers. 1 & 2 Timothy are attributed to the Apostle Paul, but based on language and general tone, those books are almost certainly written by later believers in the spirit of Paul.
Here in Timothy, we have Christ followers who likely had access to Paul’s previous letters who were trying to keep this new Jesus movement going. Paul and all the disciples were dead, and local Christian communities were creating new practices and structures that did not align with the Pauline model outlined in his letters. Thus, 1 & 2 Timothy were written to churches around Ephesus, encouraging them to listen to Timothy who was presumably sent by Paul.
And the best way to keep the church in line was to create a hierarchy, which is what these two books attempt to do.
I’ve mentioned many times how funny I find the Bible, and the opening of 1 Timothy is a great example. You’d expect some awe-inspiring words from the author to Timothy, encouraging Timothy in his new ministry adventure. Wow, what a great way to bestow confidence in this new colleague helping to form an exciting new, growing community.
Our author goes in a slightly different direction, saying, “I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach different teachings and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith” (3-4).
I love this so much because it’s so uninspiring. Timothy is being commissioned to stay in Ephesus to keep people from doing things. Wow, what fun! And his mission is so vague, as he’s being told to instruct “certain people” not to teach “different teachings.” Could you be a little bit more specific?!?
3PHILOSOPHY
There’s another important thread woven into our short text today that is easily missed in our context. The author says in 1 Timothy 6:6 that it is great to combine godliness with contentment. This seems very benign on the surface, even though it is a helpful lesson. But the author is actually tapping into the philosophical conversations of their day. Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca were still extremely influential, and our author seems to step into one of the major topics of the time: what we often translate as “contentment” or “self-sufficiency” comes from the Greek word autarkeia (ow-tar’-kee-ah), a very important term in philosophy at the time.
Let’s begin with Plato, the most confusing philosopher for children who love playdough. I’ll admit that in my experience, both Plato and playdough can be quite salty. I thought that was a pretty good joke.
In the Republic, Plato constructs a vision of the ideal society. Being a philosopher, you might be surprised to discover that Plato thought the best leaders for society are, in fact, philosophers. That worked out well!
He picks up this important idea of contentment and self-sufficiency by saying that a person cannot find contentment alone, which is why he was a proponent of cities. The Creator, however defined, for Plato is the only truly self-sufficient Reality.
Aristotle is a little more optimistic, but he’s also not convinced complete self-sufficiency is possible. In Nicomachean (nik-oh-mu-kee-uhn) Ethics, he says that the chief or highest good is contentment or self-sufficiency because it lacks nothing. The problem with money, according to Aristotle, is that it inherently deficient because it isn’t an end but rather a means to another end. Consequently, we are always dissatisfied with money because money was never our true desire – it is merely a way to get to something we believe to be better.
Our Stoic, Seneca, says something similar, arguing that it is completely fine for a person to welcome money and wealth into their home. The problem comes when they welcome money into their heart. When we pursue money, Seneca says it’s like a fever. We don’t have a fever; rather, the fever has us. In other words, we no longer have money – money has or controls us. And there is no limit to money’s hold on us. With every financial gain, we gain desire for more.
The author of 1 Timothy is using these specific philosophical ideas in our reading, which is why just a few verses later, pulling from Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and countless others, our author says that the love of money is the root of all evil. The readers would have recognized this philosophical value, which now our author is tying to the Jesus movement.
In short, the problem isn’t money. In fact, money doesn’t really exist outside our socially constructed world! Notice that cash is just paper, but if you’re like me and never have cash, look up your bank statement online. It’s just numbers. It isn’t any-thing. It has no actual substance of its own.
Thus, money doesn’t create evil and nothing is evil about money. What is evil is when money is made a means to something we feel like we are lacking. Unfortunately, regardless of how much money we obtain, that void remains, convincing us that just a little more will finally fill the hole in our lives, creating all kinds of evil in and around us.
4TREES
There was a tree on campus at Georgetown University that our family loved. It is a huge Green Ash with enormous branches that could hold whatever weight we were carrying. You can find it in the bulletin. Our kids played in that tree’s sprawling aboveground roots while students used the branches to relax in hammocks. I love that tree, and I thought, you know what, I think I’d be willing to put my life on the line to save that tree if someone tried to hurt it. Has anyone ever felt that way about a tree?
There’s something mystical about trees. It’s like looking at an ancient relative, or maybe it’s more like looking at our future self. Besides the changing seasons, one thing I missed most about the east coast was listening to the wind blow through the trees. I find it inherently numinous, speaking something much deeper and more True than words.
And our author seems to pick up on that, albeit only in passing. Notice that they don’t say that money is the root of evil but rather it is when our LOVE – the depth of who we are – is forfeited to an object, any object, but in this case, and in ours today, the object of money.
The Greek word used for “love of money” a compound word, combining Phileo, or love for a friend, with money. In other words, our deepest friendship – which requires mutuality and shared compassion – slowly forms with money. But of course, money has no ability to reciprocate and provide supportive care because it doesn’t exist in any sort of Real way.
Our deep need for friendship goes unmet, creating greater despair within. The tragedy is that everything around us tells us that our pain can be quickly remedied with one more purchase or one more promotion or one more zero on our paycheck. But that friendship is lifeless, which is why we often feel lifeless ourselves.
Over the past 20 years, amazing research has been done on how trees communicate with one another, providing nutrients and care through a vast network of roots and mycelium. Diseased trees can alert their neighboring trees of a threat, displaying what can only be described as a deep – both figuratively and literally – friendship.
Scientists have observed that there are often elder trees, which they call “Mother Trees,” that teach the trees around them how to grow and survive during droughts and fires. Mother Trees’ serve as a hub for their region, sharing nutrients, alerting other trees of danger, and expand their reach beyond their area, helping other plants and, of course, humans through their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
We are only now realizing that trees aren’t individuals but rather are tied together under the surface, caring for one another through underground networks of compassion. The trees above ground take different shapes and forms, but underneath, friendship and mutuality make the ecosystem Live.
5CONCLUSION
In truth, the issue has never been with money. In one story, Jesus attempts to show just how arbitrary money is. He’s asked about paying taxes and he explains that God does not require taxes. But hey, taxes still exist, so he tells Peter to go down to the water and fish. When he catches a fish, he’ll find a coin inside. Pay their taxes with that.
In other words, money is so meaningless that you can find it in the guts of a fish, the very thing fishermen and women cast aside as worthless.
Seneca’s statement is important: we need money in our house, that’s just the nature of the world, but we must keep it from our heart. Said differently, we must keep it from our roots. That is much easier said than done.
Our only way to discover Love is through interconnection with Real relationships that are ends in themselves. No person, plant, or animal is a means to something else. We inter-are with every living thing. Moreover, the depth of our community, the depth of our Love, comes when we support those most in need – the vulnerable, the weak, and the hurting.
Money is useful because it can be used to that relational end – helping those in need. But it can never give us the Love that we so desperately desire. There is an infinite abyss within us all that money cannot fill. The invitation is actually not to fill it but rather to jump in it, releasing our individuality for mutual care and Love.
So, may we, as the COS community, be a “Mother Tree” to Knoxville, sharing our resources with those in need. May we recognize that all those around us, including plants and animals, are the end in themselves, and all else is merely a means to loving others. And may we have deep, interconnected roots, nourished by the Spirit of Life. Amen.