For the Love of Money

    Typically I do not write, let alone post sermons, especially in their entirety.  However, the subject matter that this sermon covers (the recent mass shootings in Las Vegas) seems especially worthy of print.  Last Sunday numerous members of my congregation found the sermon helpful and agree that it lays out a different (and more systemic) response to our country's gun control debate.  Hopefully you will find meaning in this sermon and a possible way forward if you wish to effect change...

    On October 1, 2017 Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada took aim on a crowd of over 20,000 concertgoers from a 32nd floor window.  When the carnage was over, he had killed 58 people and injured nearly 500.
    On June 12, 2016 Omar Saddiqui Mateen entered Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and opened fire.  When the carnage was over, he had killed 49 people and injured more than 50.
    On April 16, 2007 Seung-Hui Cho walked onto the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia and began shooting.  When the carnage was over, he had killed 32 people and injured numerous others.
    On December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and indiscriminately began firing.  When the carnage was over, 20 elementary school students and six adults were killed.
    On average, there are nearly 12,000 gun homicides in the United States every year.  On average, 93 people are killed with guns in the United States every day.  On average, seven children are killed with guns in the United States every day.
    On average, 50 women are shot to death by their partners in the United States each month.  Black men are 14 times more likely than white men to be shot and killed by guns.  America’s gun homicide rate is more than 25 times that of other developed countries.

    The incidence of mass shootings in the United States and the data regarding gun violence ought to leave us in a state of moral shock.  Every incident of gun violence -not only mass shootings - ought to leave us in a state of moral shock.  Indeed, they do.  Appropriately, our moral shock is accompanied by cries of outrage and demands for political action.  Unfortunately, cries of outrage and demands for political action typically come to naught.  Then, after a few weeks pass each mass shooting, every single death by firearm finds its historical place in what has become an accepted part of the American narrative.  Moral shock and awe quickly give way to helplessness and resignation.
    From a psychological point of view catastrophe has the effect of drawing people together and setting priorities in order.  I.e., when the innocent are slaughtered we remember what is most important: our common humanity and the sacredness of life.  But this remembrance does not persist.  It gives way to individual ego demands; more immediate concerns of daily living that grip our psyches and demand our attention.  After all, we must attend to life’s minutia in order to get on with it.  (But oh! what life would be like if this weren’t so, if we were able to remember our common humanity and the sacredness of life and act from that place at all times!  Such would be true moral living!)
    The Russian mystic Gurdjieff recognized the tension between the individual ego and one’s higher self; the way instinct grips us and makes us forget (on which more next week when I address the topic, "God, Mammon, Instinct, and the Balanced Life").  So he fantasized the kundabuffer as the solution to our forgetfulness.  Says Gurdjieff:
 
    "The sole means for the saving of the beings of planet Earth would be to implant into [them] a new organ [a kundabuffer]… of such properties that every one of these unfortunates… should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death, as well as the death of everyone upon whom his eyes [come to] rest.  Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can now destroy the egoism completely crystallized in them."
 
    The depth of Gurdjieff’s insight into the human propensity toward forgetfulness of our essential nature is lost on most people, precisely because he is absolutely correct.  It is hard to understand the message in a state of forgetfulness!  But I do not wish to turn this into a diatribe on Gurdjieff’s spiritual philosophy.  I only wish to raise his idea of the kundabuffer as a tool to emphasize how hard it is to stay awake; to remember and hence to act from the remembrance of our common humanity and the sacredness of all life.
    Nevertheless, this remains my moral vision and motivates a great part of my own spiritual journey; the desire to find within myself a more essential place within me from which to act, that I might affect the world with what Gandhi called “soul force.”  In my own terms, a great part of what motivates my spiritual journey is to find within myself the ability to act with spiritual audacity in the moral sphere.  Hence, a great part of what motivates my ministry is to help us all find within ourselves the ability to act with spiritual audaciously in the moral sphere.  The world desperately needs a critical mass of the spiritually audacious!
    Now let’s imagine for a moment that we achieved a critical mass of the spiritually audacious.  An immediate question comes to mind, namely, what action does the spiritually audacious take to effect the change we desire?  Do we rant about our moral positions on Facebook?  No.  That behavior creates the illusion of effective action but in reality renders us impotent regarding social matters.  The fact is that vast majority of one’s Facebook audience already resonates with one’s point of view and those who don’t will be unpersuaded.  Facebook is no means of persuasive communication.  Our time is better spent.
    Do we write letters to our political representatives?  This is incrementally better because hard copies from constituents carry much more weight than electronic signatures.  But when we consider all the political dynamics that our representatives face, from the influence of money to the lack of term limits to their own political ambitions, letter writing campaigns are rarely significantly influential.
    What about marches, such as Occupy Wall Street or the Women’s March?  Are these effective strategies for change?  I think they are important political statements but they do not carry the persuasive weight they did in the 1960s and 70s.  The unfortunate truth of this is evidenced by the continual grind of the political machine against the message of these marches.  Obama’s financial advisors were cut from the same cloth as those that created the 2008 financial meltdown in the first place and the current administration remains unaffected by the Women’s March.
    What then?  Where do the spiritually audacious turn our efforts to affect change regarding the gun culture that now runs unimpeded through our city streets, stealing away the lives of innocent children, women, and men?  I do believe that politics is the sphere for seeking change regarding this issue.  But how do we get politicians to effect the change we demand?
    The only thing that will get politicians to effect the change we demand is to force them to stop serving their own self-interests and return to serving the will of the people.  But how do we do this?  We must return to a context in which politicians are dependent upon the people for their reelection.  Now you may be thinking, “We live in a democracy.  Politicians are already dependent upon the people for their reelection, aren’t they?”  No they are not.  In the age of such absurdities as gerrymandering and Citizens United, democracy is highly suspect and the will of the people has increasingly less influence on politicians.
    Given this, how do we reverse course and get politicians once again to serve the will of the people?  It’s simple.  Follow the money!  The old biblical dictum is as true today as it ever was: “The love of money is the root of all evil.”  Do you want to understand what motivates an Originalist interpretation of our country’s constitution, e.g., the free speech defenders that tout the right to the public vulgarity to which our children are constantly subjected?  Follow the money.  Do you want to understand what really happened on 9/11 and the consequent wars it spawned?  Follow the money.  Do you want to understand the unwillingness of our politicians to set limits on the cache of arms permeating our society?  Follow the money.
    Politicians serve money interests first, i.e., big business, because money has more influence on who gets elected than does your vote.  It follows then that in order to get politicians to stop serving their own self-interests and return to serving the will of the people they must become dependent upon the people for reelection - not money.  Hence, sever the relationship between money and politics and democracy is reclaimed.  This begins by addressing the unholy trinity of Citizens United, the lobbyist plague that permeates Congress, and term limits.
    In sum, I believe that the spiritually audacious must persist to the end in our demand to rid politics of money via the elimination of this unholy trinity.  Until this happens, efforts to effect the change necessary to rid our country of the gun culture that now has is in its sights it will fall on deaf ears.  Don’t be despondent.  Don’t fall asleep.  Remember.  Be spiritually audacious!
    I will end here by reading you the entire lyrics to Tracy Chapman’s song, Bang!  Bang!  Bang!:

What you go and do
You go and give the boy a gun
Now there ain't no place to run to
Ain't no place to run
 
When he hold it in his hand
He feel mighty he feel strong
Now there ain't no place to run to
Ain't no place to run
 
One day he may come back
Repay us for what we've done
Then where you gonna run to
Where you gonna run
 
But one fine day
All our problems will be solved
Bang bang bang
We'll shoot him down
 
Give him drugs and give him candy
Anything, oh to make him think he's happy
And he won't ever come for us
He won't ever come
 
But if he does
And if there's no one else around
Bang bang bang
We'll shoot him down
 
If he preys only on his neighbors
Brothers, sisters and friends
We'll consider it a favor
We'll consider justice done
 
But if he comes for you or me
And we can place a gun in his hand
Bang bang bang
We'll shoot him dead
 
What you go and do
You go and give the boy a gun
Now there ain't no place to run to
Ain't no place to run
 
Now we'll all be at his mercy
If he decides to hunt us down
'Cause there ain't no place to run to
Ain't no place to run
 
If he wants the chances that you took from him
Oh, and nothing that you own
Then there'll be no place to run to
There'll be no place to run
 
And if he finds himself to be
A reflection of us all
Bang bang bang
He'll shoot us down
 
Before you can raise your eyes to read
The writing on the wall
Bang bang bang
He'll shoot you down
 
Before you can bridge the gulf between
And embrace him in your arms
Bang bang bang
He'll shoot you down