Pack rats

On the sin of spiritual hoarding

Jennifer Jill Schwirzer is the manager of a health-food store in Manhattan, New York.

Mr. Moore walked with a shuffle. Cataracts had turned his eyes into blue clouds. His lower lip trembled as he spoke. I wondered if he was one of the hordes of the Manhattan homeless. I wondered if he was just another of the sad, pathetic figures haunting these cold, dead streets. I wondered if he was just one more of this heartless city's seemingly endless human refuse . . . that is, until I saw his spread in posh Englewood, New Jersey, and learned that his office address was One Wall Street.

Though tottering on the threshold of death, Mr. Moore sat on a hoarded fortune. I once rode with him to his home. He went 20 minutes out of his way to buy a loaf of bread on sale and another 20 minutes out of his way to get a free newspaper from the YMCA lobby. He spent more money on gas than he saved on the bread and the newspaper combined. When we arrived at his house, I saw that the evidences of obsession littered his life: Mr. Moore was a pack rat. The floor was covered with browned, warped piles of Wall Street Journals from 1940 on; drawers were full of pill bottles, empty but too precious to be thrown away; dull razors, plastic bags, boxes, and every mundane item that normally passes through a garbage can were all over the house.

He was drawn into the Seventh-day Adventist health-food store and restaurant that I managed because John Harvey Kellogg had saved his mother's life when the doctor had introduced her to soy milk to treat a rare condition. Drawn by our health message, he soon found that we were of the same religion as his beloved Kellogg. He came in every day, not to buy a meal but to pilfer fruit and whatever else he could get away with.

His stinginess was clinical, his greed neurotic. We gasp, roll our eyes, laugh—but we don't realize that he acted out in the material realm what we all are by nature. We hoard, in less obvious ways, whatever we can. We grab, cling, clutch because we're innately insecure. Fear-driven, we obtain, if not wealth, then education, knowledge, influence, popularity, and accomplishment, attempting to steel ourselves against that supreme fear— death, utter, ultimate, total loss.

But the most criminal of all hoarding must be the hoarding of truth. Isn't that what ancient Israel did? "Unto them were committed the oracles of God" (Rom. 3:2), yet they hoarded the treasure. They allowed the "oracles" to become objects of pride and in so doing made them unavailable to the world for whom they were meant to share what they had been given.

In the Jerusalem temple a low wall surrounded the court. Upon the wall was written the warning: Gentiles are forbidden to enter, upon the penalty of death. Thus they portrayed an unspoken picture of a sacrifice unavailable to any but themselves.

Then the sacrifice Himself came, living out the reality that He had "broken down the middle wall of partition ... and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh" (Eph. 2:14). From His pulpit-tree, His death cry ripped through the barriers of culture and privilege and declared Him to be "the Savior of all" (1 Tim. 4:10).

It's human nature

Snobbery is a universal human problem. We love to hoard. When we "have" the truth, our natural impulse is to hoard it, then lord it over those who have not. Sometimes we even call it witnessing, but it only makes the truth seem repulsive to the unbeliever. We're spiritual pack rats, the worst kind of all.

The clutter in Mr. Moore's home was a health hazard. One spark to the foot-deep newspapers and he and his lovely home would have gone up in smoke. We organized a crew to visit one day, and while some of us distracted him with conversation, others walked out with loads of worthless junk.

These snapshots of his life remind me, years later, that selfishness is ever ready to invade my religion. The devil would love Seventh-day Adventist Christians, including me, to hoard the gospel. Fortunately, the gospel itself declares a solution.

Tearing down the middle wall of partition

Justification by faith is Paul's topic of choice, but interwoven with that theme we find the idea that the "wall" between Jew and Gentile was torn down at the Cross. Applied to today, we could say that we have a wall between Adventists and non-Adventists. The Jews had the truth, the Gentiles didn't. Most Seventh-day Adventists believe that God has entrusted them with what are the modern-day oracles of God; the prophetic gift, special light on the Sabbath, prophecy, etc. So, if human nature hasn't changed, which it hasn't, there is a wall between the Jews and the Gentiles today.

Paul pinpoints what destroys the wall, the understanding that "a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Rom. 3:28). The text then asks, "Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith (Rom. 3: 29,30).

A few verses later Paul explains how a righteousness-by-works religion causes the dreaded wall. "For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory.... Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt" (Rom. 4:2,4).

As soon as we believe that our works have contributed to our salvation, we glory. We get conceited. We think that God is in debt to us. It's the ultimate ego trip— playing god with God.

The only thing that can humble our hearts is the realization that we don't deserve God's gift of salvation. That is why Paul hammered on justification by faith almost to the point of being obnoxious. We are so prone to find some way to fit righteousness by works into the picture. We find it tough to accept the simple truth that justification is through faith alone, and we have no part in it except to accept it.

The doctrine that produces loving people

Once grasped, justification by faith produces obedient people, not presumptuous ones, as many have feared. Paul is all the proof we need of that. Did Paul believe in justification by faith alone? Yes, of course. Did Paul bear fruits of obedience? Yes, again.

You can't fit love into a proud heart, but humility and love are twin sisters. The best study we can make in preparation for evangelistic effort is the cross of Christ and the doctrine of justification by faith. We have never, as a people, lacked cutting-edge scholars and well substantiated arguments, but we have lacked a Christ-centered focus and the humility and love that naturally accompany that focus.

Mr. Moore battled city hall because of neighbors' complaints that his garage was raccoon infested. The junk piled up there drew the animals. This prince of pack rats could well have piled his belongings into a wall of Jericho. Perhaps that wall would shield him from the world, but it would never save him from death. He could have blessed so many with his treasure, but he was too afraid of letting go.

We stand atop a mountain of truth that will one day turn the world upside down. May we search our hearts to discover any legalism that would impede its progress. May we proclaim the gospel without stingy fear, for "God our Savior ... will have all men to be saved, and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4).

It's something that Mr. Moore would have never understood.


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Jennifer Jill Schwirzer is the manager of a health-food store in Manhattan, New York.

February 1998

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