Do you own anything? That seems like a strange question but it is important. I teach college students and when you ask many of them what they want to be when they grow up they talk about “things” to possess or a six figure salary. They almost never talk about being happy or satisfied with life. They want possessions, to own things.
I try to tell them that owning and possessing both come with a price. It is clear that getting what you want means you are “owned” by what you want. The pursuit of having leads to being a slave to the process, to that pursuit. I have written elsewhere about how much is enough and possessing things is never enough.
I don’t know who first said this but a number of minister friends of mine talk about showing them your checkbook and they will show you where you worship. In this day and age, there is not really a checkbook to show. I guess today it would be, “show me your debit card expenditures”. There is some truth to this in that where we spend our money tells what we are pursuing but not what we worship.
I grew up in a home with very little money. Now, I didn’t go without the essentials of food, clothes and shelter, but I did not get much of what I wanted, only what I needed. To get what I wanted meant I had to work for it. Coming from having very little has led me to treasure what I do have and to work for what I want. People who come from oppression, either economic or social, have literally never had even all that they need. From this sort of life, possessing something becomes paramount in life. So, for most of my students, I think I will give them a pass because that is where they come from, never even having what they need.
So, what is my point? St. Francis told his monks and all that would listen that they were to possess nothing. These very profound views from almost 800 years ago still ring true today. We do not possess the Earth, we are but stewards of the Earth. St. Francis applied this to all things we might have. When we don’t possess things, but instead see ourselves as renters of those things, we find freedom.
Our true forefathers of this land, Native Americans, knew this. They knew what God wanted, for us to be free to be one with the land, to honor it, to preserve it and to use it for the good of all. It took white men from Europe to change all of that. They not only enslaved people, they enslaved the land. Consider that white people abused the land exactly the same way as their slaves. This is because both were mere possessions to them.
When we are caught up in having what we want, in possessing as much as we can, be behave like our white forefathers, we begin to see the whole world as something to be possessed and owned. We also treat others the same way. Does Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler now make sense? “Give up all you own and follow me”.
Today, will you become a mere tenant with me? How about we truly become free and see all that we have a a gift and not a possession. I promise it will make you free.
TMM