"Leggo Your Ego"

Sermon by The Rev. Charles Youngson

September 25, 2022

I’ve been watching a show this summer that I can’t in good conscience recommend from

the pulpit. Because the show should be titled, “How to be a horrible person.” Then again, if

you want to learn about the Kingdom of God by seeing people behave in ways opposite to its

values, then it may be the show for you. I’m referring to HBO’s Succession. Now three seasons

in, the show explores the lives of a billionaire media mogul named Logan Roy and his four

children who are each striving to take over the family empire when their father dies. The Roys

are constantly insulting each other and stabbing each other in the back. But that’s nothing

compared to the way they treat “regular” people.

A memorable scene from the pilot episode illustrates this well. The family and their

staff fly from Manhattan in a flock of helicopters to some beautiful, green setting for a family

baseball game. When Kendall, one of the sons, has to leave the game early on business, they invite a boy who is watching the game with his parents nearby to take Kendall’s place. Then another son, Roman, gets an idea. He offers the boy a million dollars if he can hit a homerun. He even writes out the check there on the ballfield. The boy gives it his best but gets tagged out. At that point Roman begins to taunt him and tears up the check in his face. The onlookers are so horrified by Roman’s behavior that the Roys’ lawyer has to offer the boy’s parents an expensive watch for their trouble and, of course, has them sign a non-disclosure agreement. It’s an early example of how removed and callous the family can be to the feelings of others. Later episodes focus on the family’s attempt to cover up reports of sexual exploitation and murder involving the staff of their cruise line. That’s when we’re introduced to a company acronym: N.R.P.I.—no real person involved. It’s not that the workers on the cruise line are considered less important, they aren’t even considered real people in the eyes of company executives.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from

you and me.” Ernest Hemingway famously retorted, “Yes, the rich are different. They have

more money.” In the time of Jesus, in the time of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and in our own

time, we see that wealth can be a blessing, but just as often wealth becomes a curse. It can

bring us ease and comfort and enjoyment, but it can also make us unhappy. That’s because its very ability to shield us from pain also separates us from one another. It can blind us to the needs of the world and even the needs of the neighbor outside our gate. That’s the case in the story that Jesus tells to the self-important scribes and Pharisees in the reading from Luke’s Gospel today. This is one of my favorite parables because of how oblivious the rich man is. For this rich man, Lazarus is not a real person. He is invisible. My inner English major also loves the parallelism with which Jesus contrasts the condition of the rich man to that of the poor man:

dressed in purple and fine linen

covered with sores

feasted sumptuously every day

longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table

died and was buried

died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham

In Hades, where he was being tormented

At Abraham’s side

When both men die, there is a great reversal. Lazarus is given a place next to Abraham,

the father of the Jewish people, the example of righteousness and faithfulness. The rich man is in torment in Hades and condemned to watch Lazarus celebrating and feasting with Father

Abraham. Even in Hades, though, his spiritual blindness persists. He still thinks that Lazarus is his servant. So he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to give him a drink of water. When he finds out that is impossible, he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers. At least he’s starting to think about someone other than himself, but he still hasn’t figured out that Lazarus is not going to be running any errands for him. Things have changed. And what does Abraham say? “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” In other words, the Scriptures are clear enough: we should look after those less fortunate, especially when they are right at our doorstep, and especially when we have been blessed with material abundance. But of course, the rich man is not used to being told, “no.” And so he argues, “If someone goes to my brothers from the dead, then they will repent.” But Abraham sticks to his guns and simply replies: “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” In saying this, Jesus underlines the fact that what he has been teaching and what Moses and the prophets taught long ago are in agreement. He foreshadows his own death and resurrection. And finally he reveals that there will be some who still won’t believe even after they have seen him raised from the dead.

This story, like the many stories on the show Succession, is a story of the power of the

human ego to obscure reality. I often think of the ego as the suit of armor we put on to survive out there in the so-called “real world.” It’s all the external stuff that we surround ourselves with, from the house we live in, to the car we drive, to the accomplishments we love to tell others about. It’s not wrong to have nice things. It’s not wrong to have a healthy sense of ambition. The problem comes when we confuse the suit of armor with who we really are. Armor may protect us, but it also weighs us down. We can never put on enough armor

to protect ourselves from every vulnerability. And I assume it’s hard to see out of that helmet. In the same way, the ego can never be fully satisfied. The Roy family demonstrates this in every episode of Succession. They’re so busy getting what they want that they become blind to what they really need. What they want is power and prestige. What they need is what every human being needs--to be known, loved, and accepted for who they truly are. The only reason the show is watchable is that we occasionally we get glimpse of the vulnerable human being beneath all the selfishness and cynicism. We get to see that there is a real person buried beneath all those layers of ego.

We live in a time when the possession of money is considered by many to be a virtue in

itself. Jesus encountered a similar worldview in his time. Many of his religious opponents

considered wealth a sign of God’s favor. But the reality is that having money has a lot more to do with where you were born and to whom than it does to any special virtues one possesses. Sure, it may be an indication of hard work, ingenuity, and financial smarts. The tech billionaires we read about do have those qualities, but so do a lot of other people. If the tech billionaires are being honest, then they must admit they were in the right place at the right time. You and I are different from the Roy family. We don’t fly private jets to our mother’s wedding at a vineyard in Tuscany. If that is your world, I’d like to talk to you about our upcoming stewardship campaign. But all of us are rich in comparison to the people Jesus

associated with. What do we do with the worldly resources we have? Our readings today don’t condemn having wealth in and of itself. The rich man is condemned for his indifference to the needs of his neighbor. And in 1 Timothy, Paul does not say, “Money is the root of all evil,” though it is often misquoted that way. He says, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Like any form of power, wealth can be dangerous and destructive. It’s what we do with it that matters.

We can watch a show like Succession and think, “Hey, at least I’m not like those people.”

But from a spiritual standpoint, it’s probably better if we consider how we are like them. We all carry a vulnerable child within us who has been wounded by the world’s lack of love. And we all try without success to make ourselves lovable by striving to look a certain way in the eyes of others. But Jesus invites us to lay aside that failed project and focus our efforts on a different project, not building up the ego, but building up the soul. The good news is this project requires no money.

Thankfully, God views things differently from Logan Roy. From God’s perspective, every

person is a real person. For every person was made in the image of God. And for that reason,

every person is of infinite value to God and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

You and I are real persons and we have been given real power in this world, whether that be in the form of money, brains, time, talent, physical strength, charisma, or many other forms. It does us no good to compare ourselves with our neighbors. They have different worldly

resources with which to address a different set of worldly problems. Whatever our gifts in this world are, the reality is they are transitory. As Paul reminds us, we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it. But during our brief stay on this earth, we can use our resources to show love for others. So let us fight the good fight as we pursue not wealth, but the real virtues that make the world a better place: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. These are things that money can’t buy. These are the things the world desperately needs.