The Prayer Book Catechism refers to the Baptismal promise to renounce not only the Devil and all his works, but also the “pomps and vanity” of the world and all the “sinful lusts of the flesh”. (1)

Happiness

You can buy most things, if you have the money.  But you cannot buy the one thing which people want more than anything else – happiness.  You can imagine what a queue there would be if there was a shop here where they were selling happiness.

Happiness is a curious thing.  It depends on the kind of person you are rather than on the kind of things you have, and you find it when you are not looking for it.  That is where most people go wrong.  They think that if only they had money, then they would be happy.  They never stop to ask themselves the obvious question, “Are the people with the most money the happiest?” because, of course, they are not.

One of the most joyful and happiest people there has ever been was St Francis of Assisi, and all he possessed in the world was a ragged coat tied round the middle with a piece of old rope which he had picked up off the roadside.  And he was so happy that he called himself and his followers “God’s Clowns”.  Now St Francis was happy, not because he had nothing, but because all he wanted was God and, having God, he had everything.

Money

People will tell you that you cannot do without money, and that is true.  But the really important thing is, not how much money you have but how you look on it.  God is the owner of his own Universe, and therefore all money belongs in the end to him.  What he does is to entrust us with a certain amount for us to use as something which is really his.  Against that there is the sin of avarice, a greedy desire for money.  People want it for themselves so that it can be their very own to spend as they like.  And remember, you do not have to have money in order to want it or love it.  There are plenty of people who may have very little, but they would love to have a lot.  So St Paul says that it is the love of money, not money itself, which is the root of all evils (Jerusalem Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10).  And it is love of money, a spirit of greed and grab, which separates people from God.  Indeed it has been said that the worst thing you can do to your enemy is to leave him or her a fortune.

Parable of the Sower

So in the Parable of the Sower, some of the seed which was sown fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it.  The meaning of this is that the seed is the Word of God and “…what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature” (NRSV, Luke 8:4-15).

St Francis of Assisi

St Francis of Assisi actually hated money because of that.  The story is told that one day he and a brother friar, as they walked along a country road, found a bulging purse such as wealthy merchants used for carrying their gold.  St Francis’ companion wanted to pick it up and give it to the poor, but even for that reason Francis would not let him touch it.  So they went along the road, but the friar couldn’t get the thought of the purse out of his head, and he pestered Francis to let him go back for it for the sake of the poor.  So, in order to teach him, Francis agreed and they retraced their steps.  When they came to where the great, fat purse was lying, St Francis knelt down to pray and told the friar to pick it up.  The friar, who was by now beginning to have second thoughts, went forward, but just as he was taking hold of it, an adder slithered from it.  “This,” said St Francis, “is what money is for the servants of God”.

Happiness hereafter

People find it very easy in this life to go on as though God did not exist.  There is so much else to keep their mind off him – television, sport, work and so on. But no one can take these things with them when they die.  “…we brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can take nothing out of it” (NRSV, 1 Timothy 6:7).  In the next world those things are all over and done with.  Our eternal happiness depends on having God and to have lost him is eternal misery, for God is the only source of true happiness that there is or ever can be.

So, to have all one wants when all does not include God, is in the end to have nothing at all.  The world thinks that is nonsense, which is why the world is discontented and unhappy.

Pomps and vanity

These things, then, such as money and pleasures, look very attractive, but if we let them become the centre of our lives they take us away from God and in the end leave us with nothing at all.  That is why the Catechism calls them worldly “pomps and vanity”.  The word pomp comes from a Greek word meaning a procession, like a carnival procession.  Vanity means emptiness.  So pomps and vanity mean things which look attractive but really have nothing in them.

Sinful lusts

Sinful lusts of the flesh are all the things that the body wants which it ought not to have.  This includes the sins of greediness (thinking too much about food), drunkenness, laziness and impurity.  Such things make a Soldier of Christ a bad soldier.

SUMMARY

1. Love of money separates people from God and so causes them in the end to lose the only lasting happiness there is, namely, God himself.

2. Pomps and vanity mean things which look very attractive but which have ‘nothing in them’.

3. Sinful lusts of the flesh mean things that the body wants which it ought not to have.

Reference

Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  A Catechism.  Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/catechism.html   (Accessed 24 August 2010) (Internet).