All the small things

There was a band, back in the day, called Blink 182.  You probably don't remember them, but it case you do, they had a brief yet memorable time in the spotlight, where they were the coolest gig in town.

 That was based, in part, on the funny videos they made.  Remember when Much Music showed music videos?  Yeah, those were the days.

Anyhow, one of the songs that they had was called 'all the small things,' and it had basically nothing to do with the Gospel reading today.  Or did it?

You see, the Gospel reading had a lot to do with cash, and investments, and debts, and all that.  And, as I said at great length on Sunday, debt and financial ruin doesn't usually happen overnight.  It happens because bad decisions get made every day, and they add up quickly.  It's never a matter of just buying a boat, or buying a car, or a motorcycle, but it's almost always about the little shopping trips.  That's what adds up.  It's always what adds up. Now, I mentioned a show on Sunday, and I'd like to show you a relevant clip from it now, the show being called 'til debt do us part.'  Now, this shouldn't surprise anyone, but the number one reason that families get into trouble and fight is based on financial stuff.  If the money is gone, the relationship tends to hit rocky patches pretty darn quickly.  Here, enjoy this clip of Gail Vaz-Oxlade ripping into people, and then we'll discuss.

Right, so you get the idea.  The nice young gentleman who is featured doesn't earn enough money to satisfy their rich tastes in stuff.  But the problem isn't that.  It's not just that he doesn't earn a lot of money.  The problems are bigger than that, and they're close to what Jesus was talking about in the Gospel reading.  'Til debt do us part deals not just with the poor, it deals with the very very rich as well.  People who have massive earnings, people who have all kinds of disposable income, people who have no end of cash, and they still seem to run out of money every month.  How on earth do they do it?

Simply enough, it's about being bad at the small things.  It's perpetually the small things that get you into trouble.  If you are bad at the small things with a small income, it'll just snowball the more money you have.  The more you have, the more you'll spend, and just earning more money isn't a solution if you haven't learned how to manage a small amount.

This is a basic, and it applies to all aspects of life, too.  If you are faithless in a little, that won't be improved if we have a lot to deal with.  Think about your lives, and how you operate.  Now, you and I may very well from our comfortable spaces disparage Hitler and Mao and Stalin, we may tut-tut about the various dictators and gun runners, the drug lords and captains of malice.  We may even glower at our politicians and police, and insist that they have a long way to go before they get up to our standards.  Well, that may be true, but here's the problem, is that many of us, too many of us, are trusted with very little.  How do you think wars and devastation and poverty get started?  It's just the way of things?  Why do you think that after the Arab spring, the situation in Egypt went right back to the way things were?  Why do you think that things haven't improved significantly in Afghanistan in the twelve years that our forces have been stationed there?  Why do you think that there is always widespread corruption in places like Haiti that never seems to change no matter who is in charge?  I'll tell you why - because if you can't be trusted with a little, you can't be trusted with a lot.

Understanding this is key to understanding the larger message of the Gospel reading from Sunday: When Jesus says 'One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.'  You and I, we look at the drug lords and war lords, and tut tut at them from a position of smug superiority, while all the while being involved in countless little tiny

indiscretions in our own lives that seem less damaging, but ultimately are leading in a similar direction.  Honestly, it's almost always the little things that turn us into disasters.  None of us are going to turn into Satan worshipers overnight, but it's the small things.

Have you ever wondered why the Bible ,why God himself, seems to care so much about what you think?  He does.  He really does.  Everything from coveting to lust, God seems to care about.  He cares about hate, he cares about anger, he cares about words exchanged and thoughts thinked.  He cares about it all, because God knows that your problems start in your mind, and increase from there.  It's so small, and yet that's where all the large stuff comes from.  This is the reason why Jesus talked about the purity laws, and told people that it's not what you eat that makes you unclean, it's what you think and say that makes you unclean.

So you and I, average Christians, need to think about this principle.  Gil-Scott Heron once famously said that if everyone wanted peace as much as they say they want peace, we'd have peace.  All of us want world peace, a solution to world hunger, pollution to go away, health for every human being, all
that, and we're inevitably stumbled when none of it happens.  But here's the deal with the Christian faith: World peace is not your job as a Christian.  Peace in your neighborhood and family and workplace is.  World hunger is not your job as a Christian, but feeding your family, the poor in your city, that is your job.  Your job is the small things.  Caring for those who are around us, those who are near to us, those who have been placed in our path.  We have got to be faithful in the small things.

Why?

Because then the big things will take care of themselves.

It's the old adage of pinching the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves.  It works for all sorts of things too.  If your sin is out of control, and really whose isn't, then the best way to go about things isn't to make a pledge to keep the commandments, because you'll fail drastically.  But if you confess your sins when they occur, the small ones, the words spoken in anger, the thoughts that shouldn't have been thinked, if you confess those to Jesus as the problem that they actually are, then he'll forgive them.  And the more you're concerned about your small sins, then likely the fewer big issues will come up.  And this holds for the overall picture of the world as well.  If you, instead of concentrating on the big issues of world poverty work to aleviate poverty in your community, then hopefully there will be less poverty.  This is how it's supposed to work, and work properly.  This is what Jesus places before us, saying to us 'care for the smaller things.  Worry about that.  Let me take away your small sins, let me work on your small stuff, and that should take care of the big stuff.'

Jesus is really concerned with all the small things.