Abundance

 This is the prosperity gospel golden story right here! You know what the prosperity gospel is, right? It is the promise of Jesus that once you believe in God, get saved, that you will prosper! You also have to buy the preacher's books and send lots of 'seed' money to the church so the pastor can buy that second private jet, but God is here to be your genie and makes all your dreams come true. Bad credit, bankrupt, homeless, don't have a Gucci watch, Jimmy Shu shoes, and a house with a 5-stall garage; then just believe and God will provide. The perfect life is here waiting for you, it's the American dream!

Don't believe them, just look at this story. Simon, who is also called Peter, went out fishing all night and caught nothing, nothing! Then comes Jesus and he preaches, he preaches the gospel of prosperity, using Peter's boat because of the large crowd that want to have the good life. After he preaches, he tells Peter, go out and fish and put your nets out and you will receive abundance. So Peter, believes! He goes out and throws his nets on the side where Jesus tells him and the nets are filled. So full, in fact, they have to call out James and John to bring their boat and it still wasn't enough, almost, because both boats were in danger of sinking! Abundance is theirs! Prosperity is theirs! Because they listened to Jesus and believe. And the prosperity gospel peddled in our country and now around the world promises you the same! "Just say this prayer with me! Just buy my book! Just send in your seed money, your tithe now!" Prosperity preachers will promise you!

And that is where those preachers will stop. It's all about the money! They will gloss over the next part of the story, which is the real gospel. As soon as Peter and James and John bring that amazing, miraculous catch to the shore. Jesus tells them to follow him and leave it all behind. And they do, they walk away. They don't help to clean the fish, sell the fish, clean the boats and nets, they just walk away from the biggest catch of their lives, the biggest pay-day of their lives. Doesn't make sense that they would do this. I think, I think that the reason that Jesus 'helped' them have such a large catch is that he knew that he was taking away their sons, their husbands, their workers, those who helped to feed the families and the community. So this large catch was a present to them until they worked out how to continue to fish and provide for themselves while Peter, James, and John were now off to preach the gospel and become fishers of humans, disciples, apostles, and begin a new way of life. 

It's not in the Bible, but early church tradition tells that 10 of the 12 disciples died either at the hands of the Roman government or other religious authorities. Judas took his own life, and James is supposed to be in the cathedral at Santiago, Spain after a long life of preaching. But the rest were martyred. A fact we rarely talk about in our church and history, and a fact never preached about in those churches who proclaim the good news is all about the money!

Jesus did say, "Follow me, and I will give you abundant life!" but what type of abundance was Jesus talking about. Let's go back to the first creation story. Let's listen to God speaking the world into creation, God calling all that God creates and sees saying all is good. God telling the animals and all life, not just humans to be fruitful and multiply. Where God sees humans and the world as one creation and blesses the world, and proclaims it, "Very Good!" We are studying the book of Isaiah and there is a lot of judgment and predicted wars and disasters. What is causing this? Some of it has to do with idols and adultery. But the repeat of the sins of the people is the neglect of the poor, the widows, the orphans, the stranger, and the foreigner. It is the bribes and the accumulation of wealth, the adding of land unto land so that the wealth of the nation is in just the hands of the few!

There are 66 books in the Bible, each one has a little different view of the God, the world, and who we are and what we should be doing. But there are some consistencies: we are loved by God, the world is God's creation, we are to care for the world and each other, those who are wealthy do not have the best seats in God's kingdom, we are to care for the least of these, we are to care for God's planet and all life, for they tell the glory of God, and it's not about our individual prosperity, but always rooted in the community, the people, and the those who don't have.

As long as our bank accounts, what we wear, and what we have is more important that people, this world will continue to suffer. As long as our view of the world is IT is a resource, for our use, this world will continue to suffer. As long as we can separate ourselves from the world, believing we can prosper, we can have abundant life, while the planet and all other life slowly dies, the world, including us, will continue to suffer.

God saw all of creation, loved it, and proclaimed that it is good! We must, we have to, we can see the world in no other way. We have to love the world and all life like we do our own bodies, our own families, our own lives. It is the only way we will stave off this global climate crisis, protect life, and find the true abundance that we are promised and is inherent in this world.