“God Provides” by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

Experts estimate that as many as 2% of the American population suffers from this disorder, or chronic illness. There is usually a lot of shame around this problem so people go to great lengths to keep the situation a secret. In the room today, we have about 50 people so the odds are there is one person who suffers from this disorder; or if not one of us, there is certainly someone in our family that does.

 I’m talking about hoarding. Perhaps you have seen the television show on A & E about hoarders called Hoarders. Yes, we may laugh because of course, they show the worst of the worse situations on that show. But it’s no laughing matter if it is your mother, or daughter your husband or son who has the problem with rotting food, we heard about rotting food in our Bible story this morning, and piles of possessions so high that they block doorways and fill up bathtubs. It is a health hazard. Children of hoarders suffer emotional trauma. I learned in researching this, there are organization specialists who focus their work on helping families who have a hoarder. Because you can’t just go in and clean up the house; it will just happened again. And it does no good to judge; you have to carefully help them learn how to live in a new way. 

An article in the Wall Street Journal said: “To gradually cure compulsive shopping habits, the doctors suggest that the hoarder and a friend practice driving by and eventually going into a shopping mall or yard sale without buying anything, until the allure gradually fades. Some of us would find this difficult to do.

"We also have them generate a list of questions to ask themselves: Do I have enough money for this? Do I have space for it? Will buying it contribute to my problem or to the stress on my family?  Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500604574483480666149034.html).

Now on a continuum, with the hoarders, next along the way, there are the pack rats. These are those of us, myself included, who never want to throw anything away, because we think that somehow someday we will find a use for it. So we save the one glove without a mate. We have a drawer full of socks without partners. We have piles and piles, or file cabinets full, of paper that we just can’t part with. College papers, and every paper our kid brings home from school, and an attic full of dioramas. I think I need a support group for this.

There is an A & E TV show for us too: Storage Wars. People rent storage units for the stuff they don’t have room for in their houses. I wish Kurt & I had invested in storage units for our retirement.  Then we abandon them and people go and bid on them sight unseen in the hopes of finding treasure. Seriously?  In the stuff people have cleaned out of their houses and put into storage units, treasure.  Treasure in our abandoned storage units? I don’t think so.

One step along the continuum from the hoarders and the packrats are the compulsive shoppers. Now often the hoarders and compulsive shoppers are one and the same. It just depends upon how much access they have to money and credit cards. 

On an episode of hoarders that I saw, the organizational expert had hauled out all the clothes and said, “You have 2000 items of clothing here.” It takes a lot of shopping to buy 2000 items. There were 30 pairs of boots, and 22 pairs of black shoes. I’m not going to tell you how many black shoes I found of mine when I looked one time at mine.  The consultant on the show said, when you keep acquiring more things you are  “distracting against emotional pain.” (ibid).

George Carlin has a classic comedy routine about the “Stuff” we have in our lives.  And no, I couldn’t show it in worship due to the language in it.  But the routine is dead on. The meaning of life is trying to find a place for your stuff. Your house is place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. When you travel you have to pack some of your favorite stuff to take with you so that wherever you are you feel at home because just enough of your stuff is there. But then while we are there, wherever we are, we shop and buy more stuff. 

We are a nation of materialism. We know this. There has never been a time or a nation of more excess than the United States of America in the 21^st century. The spiritual question for today is: why? Why do we hoard? Why do we over-consume? Why do we shop till we drop? Why do we spend more than we make? Why do we never feel like we have enough? What emptiness are we trying to fill?

What emptiness are we trying to fill? That is the heart of the matter – what emptiness are we trying to fill? Wayne Muller, in his book Sabbath, has a chapter called “The Way of Enough.” This is one of my favorite chapters in the whole book. In fact, if you don’t read any other chapter, I encourage you to read this one. It starts with a quote by Thoreau: “I make myself rich by making my wants few.” 

He begins by telling the story from Exodus (Chapter 16 for those following along from afar) about the manna from God. This is from the forty years that the Hebrew people spent wandering in the Wilderness as God led them to the Promised Land. First Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt. They had to put their trust in Moses, and in God. But the journey, quite quickly, got difficult. 

They got tired, hungry and thirsty and began to complain and say it would be better to go back to slavery in Egypt. So God promised to send food every night. And on the sixth day God would send extra food for the Sabbath. The people were supposed to gather just what they needed. They were not to be greedy – not hoard or over-shop. Just trust God to supply their needs. But of course, some of the people wanted more. They thought there would not be enough. They gathered more than they needed. They hoarded. And you know what happened. That food spoiled. Lesson learned. God provides, God provides enough. Don’t mess around with God. Don’t take more than your share or the whole system will get out of balance. And boy our system is out of balance right now. They spent forty years in the Wilderness learning how to be God’s people. Some say that they had to have a whole generation grow up and learn how to be the people of God before they would be allowed to enter the Promised Land to live as God’s chosen people. 

What if God told us that we could have a deep intimate community with God, but we would have to learn how to do that over the next forty years? Would you do that? Perhaps that is just what God is asking us to do! Day by day, in putting our trust in God, and pausing for our Sabbath rest. To spend some time in the wilderness.  To spend some time knowing we don’t have anything unless we trust in God.  

Well Wayne Muller explains that we have lost the biblical concept of enough. We are searching for abundance. But the search for abundance is “fed by a lingering belief in scarcity. We are afraid there is not enough for us, we will grab for abundance – which is actually more than we need.” We are grabbing for way more than we need.

There is a difference between abundance and sufficiency. Sufficiency is a sense of satisfaction and well-being. It is that moment when we have enough. What is enough?

·         When our craving for food dissolves, but stopping before you are stuffed.

·         After we have arrived at our destination and we no longer need our GPS ot map.

·         After we have taken a drink of water (not the latest and greatest sports drink) from a fountain and we are no longer thirsty after a long walk

·         In prayer it is when we don’t focus on what we want, but we are grateful.

·         We have a sense of quiet satisfaction; a sense of enough. (201-202 of Mueller’s book)

Mueller writes that “when we are trapped in seeking, nothing is enough. In Sabbath time, we bless what is, for being.” (Page 202).  We are not seeking, we are not thinking it’s not enough. 

So, how about you? What does this mean for you? Where are you on the continuum? Are you hungry and thirsty all the time? Are you buried in your stuff, as George Carlin might say? There is no shame here, we are all in good company. We have all been there. We all have an emptiness we are trying to fill. It does not matter how rich or poor you are. I have seen people all across the spectrum caught in the trap of an insatiable hunger for more.   People who always want more, who feel empty.

But what if we could make a shift today? What if, rather than being on a never ending search, we could choose to be satisfied. Let’s just do this. Let’s just stop and say: “God provides and it is enough.”  God provides and it is enough. 

Trying praying this prayer with me: “This moment, this life, my life, right now, is enough.” “I am loved by God.” “I have these blessings – (and name your blessings) .” And let it be enough. Amen.