Even though I walk through the valley----you know the verse, say it with me----even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. For thou art with me.
I’ve rewritten the verse. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of home maintenance and repair I will fear no evil for I have many lesbian friends with good tools who know everything there is to know.
Actually, I know one or two things myself, thank you very much, and----and my tool chest isn’t too bad either. In fact, my tool chest just got better with the addition of two new tools which I added a few weeks ago. Well, actually they aren’t new. They are new to me but they were my father’s tools, a small screwdriver and a tiny pair of pliers. Aren’t they cute!
Last month we a contract to buy my parents’ house was signed and we closed on it August 14 and the Ayers boys, the Ayers brothers have had to deal with Mom and Dad’s stuff, their possessions. It’s been quite a job even though most of their stuff was sold at an auction seven years ago before they headed off to the Sunshine State, to be specific, Daytona Beach.
I know it sounds stupid but I unexpectedly, out of blue, start crying like a baby as I left that auction. I mean, the chest that they hid my Christmas gifts in the year I got suspicious and figured out the Santa thing----that chest got auctioned off. And the piano I played for years----auctioned off. Horseshoes we threw in the great play in the huge backyard auctioned off. Ice cream maker with hand turn---gosh I’d love to have some of that homemade peach ice cream we made----auctioned off.
You know what they say, you can’t take it with you.
Mom and Dad couldn’t take all that stuff to their Florida condo and----and they couldn’t take anything with them when they died.
When I was a Pastor in Chapel Hill I learned of a local woman who tried to take it with her, that is, she tried to take a chocolate cake with her. Yes, she did. She loved chocolate cake so much she had one put in her casket but you know as well as I do that she sadly didn’t get to take it with her. Although, I’m seriously considering having a Mary Lou Coconut Cake put in my casket just in case.
No, you can’t take it with you. Someone say amen.------We need to remember that. You can kill yourself trying to accumulate stuff. You can work hard to get more and more and more. You can build your castle, stock your cupboards, fill your barns, but one day-----but one day you will die, you will kick the bucket, and all that stuff you worked so hard to get, to obtain, to possess will not be going with you, contrary to that chocoholic in Chapel Hill and contrary to those Egyptian pharaohs who tried to take their worldly goods with them.
You can’t take it with you. Believe me, my parents didn’t take it with them. They left it behind for us to sell and get rid of. And it’s been quite a job.
Then there’s this story. A man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” “Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be complete, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Are you getting the picture on possessions?
Maybe this will help.
Jesus said, "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and riches." ( Luke 16:13)
And finally there’s this. I thought I’d throw this one in since it has to do with inheritance.
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:13-21) I say all that to say that I’m very aware of the danger of possessions. And for the record, I agree with Jesus. And I concur with the New Jersey pastor who in his Sunday sermon was focused on our attitudes towards our possessions and the title that was mistakenly listed in the bulletin was, "Where Is Your Treasurer?"
Well, you need to know where your Church Treasurer is but you also need to know where is your treasure and what is it you treasure.
And listen, I’m with Erma Bombeck when it comes to the pain and headache of protecting your possessions. Emra writes: "I used to spend hours hiding things I valued so the kids wouldn't find them, and then use up precious time trying to find them myself. Now I simply put anything I don't want to be discovered under the dish towel. In 28 years, no one has ever touched it but me."
You see that’s the problem with acquiring things, you have to protect what you acquire, and you may hide it and you end up worrying about others finding it and you may forget where you hid it. If you know what I mean hold up your hand.
So-----so I want to go on record that I am fully aware of the danger of possessions, cognizant of the perils of stuff but having said that, I want to add a footnote. Going through my parents’ stuff the last couple of months has made me keenly aware of the importance of stuff.
In this regard I agree with Phillip Gulley. Gulley writes, “People say happiness can’t be found in possessions. That depends on the possession. Having a new pocketknife can boost a man’s spirits like nothing else.”
Any Wedgewoodians in attendance who have a thing for pocketknives? My father always had a pocketknife. We had this wood cook stove in the house I grew up in and Dad would get a potatoe----actually he got a tater-----he got a tater and he would pull out his pocket knife and slice that tater thin and place the slices on the top of the wood cook stove and he would salt and pepper them and flip them with his pocketknife and we, the Ayers boys, would stand in line to gobble them up. Man they were good.
And I remember when we would go to Cana, Virginia to where Dad grew up and we would be in his family’s orchard and he would pick an apple and pull out that pocket knife and slice it.
A few weeks ago while we were going through the stuff we came across three pocket knives. I’m not much of a pocket knife person, I guess, because I don’t trust myself and am afraid I might cut myself being the dork I am, and so when they said there’s three pocket knives we can all have one I said no thanks.
I now wish I had gotten one.
I know what Jesus said about possessions. I know but I also know some possessions are more than possessions and some stuff is more than stuff.
I bet Moses never got rid of that rod he used to open the Red Sea with.
I bet one of Joseph’s kids held on to his coat of many colors. I bet that wedding couple, the couple who had the wedding and Jesus turned the water into wine----I bet that couple never got rid of the jars that held that water that was turned into wine.
My oldest brother, Steve, yes, Steve the preacher, Steve got a fairly large clear glass mixing bowl. Steve said he didn’t need another mixing bowl. They had plenty including several stainless steel mixing bowls that don’t break like glass bowls do, but he got this particular mixing bowl because this was the bowl Mom used to make the cookie dough for the world’s best razor thin sugar cookies and it was this bowl that Mom used when she taught Steve how to make a cake.
Ken, brother number 2, got all of Dad’s elephants. Ken wanted the elephants and Dad had a herd. 2 elephant lamps. Elephant stand from Thailand. Glass elephants. Elephant tie. Toy elephants. Decorative elephants. Everywhere you turn a dad gum elephant because my father was the biggest Republican this side of the Mississippi. Ken got all the herd because Dad’s other two liberals son didn’t want any elephants. You might say Steve and I had elephantitis, irritation by elephants.
But maybe I should have not only gotten a pocketknife, maybe I should have even gotten an elephant.
I tell you what I did get. I got a Confederate Fifty dollar bill. I got that because my mother had an interest in collecting old coins and I followed in her footsteps. I’m not an avid coin collector but I’ve got a pretty good collection due in large part to my mother giving me old coins for my birthday and for Christmas gifts.
I know what Jesus said about possessions but…………
I know material things can’t provide lasting happiness but……….
I know my father and mother are dead, gone, no longer here, and I am aware they have left behind far more than stuff. I am who I am to a great degree because of them.
I can’t touch my mother or my father but I can touch Dad’s tools and Mom’s Confederate Fifty dollar bill.
The Ayers clan has just about wrapped up all we have to do in light of my parents’ death. There is, however, one more big job we have to do. This Christmas we are going through all the photos and distribute those.
I have a prayer for you. My prayer is not that you will have possessions that are valuable because of what society says they are worth but I pray you will have possessions that are valuable because of the meaning they have for you, because they are reminders that on a certain day, at a certain time you were loved, someone cared, someone perhaps gave you something tangible that got you through a very rough stretch of road. I pray you will have possessions that are precious because the person whose stuff it used to be treated you like you were precious.
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