Our first reading this morning is an advertiser’s nightmare. “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” (1 Tim 6:6-19) It then goes on to give us that familiar and often misquoted passage about ‘the love of money’ being ‘the root of all kinds of evil’ and ‘eagerness to be rich’ leading some to be ‘pierced… with many pains’!

This is powerful stuff. It asks questions about how much we really need. It exposes the emptiness of all the things, the possessions we use to distract ourselves from spiritual and eternal questions. It directs us to count the blessings we really do have rather than looking over the fence to those who seem to have a bigger car, more up-to-date widescreen plasma TV with recordable DVD player and integrated hi-fi system. These things can be great fun, after all I love playing with gadgets, but they are not going to bring contentment.

I suspect that it is this word ‘contentment’ and what it means to be contented that lies at the heart of what this passage is saying. So to explore this, let’s get rid of a few words first. Being contented is not the same as being smug or self-satisfied or even safe and financially secure. Smugness is actually not contented because it puffs itself up with what it has and looks down on others and anyone who looks down on someone else is not in my experience contented. They are actually very insecure deep down and not really at peace in themselves. Being self-satisfied locks us up in our own concerns and no one else’s. It ignores the plight of anyone else, even tramples on others, and people who do that hardly display behaviour we would normally describe as being content.

Neither of these fit in with the qualities that Paul commends when later in this passage he tells Timothy to “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness”. The inclusion of ‘endurance’ in that list implies that being content does not involve having all worries removed. So we can count out safety and financial security from being prerequisites for contentment, which is probably just as well!

So, contentment is not the same as being smug or self-satisfied or even to be equated with safety and financial security. And the latter, it not being equated with safety and financial security, is probably the biggest shock to the way our society thinks.

To find contentment we need to model ourselves on Jesus and that always points us to how we are reconciled with God, how we are at peace with the eternal. It is this being reconciled with who we are in the sight of God, that we are the beloved of God - created in his image, redeemed in his love and restored in his hope - that brings us to the peace which passes all understanding. It is in this sense of reconciliation and peace that we can begin to find what it means to be contented.

This takes us to the greatest treasure that there can be and to realise that in a world where we are so vulnerable that it is not going to be anything we can buy or possess in the usual sense of those words. We have been aware of the force of nature recently, with hurricanes battering the Caribbean and Florida and floods overwhelming Haiti. We have become aware of the power others can hold over us, how the innocent can become pawns in wider political struggles and conflicts. The beheading of two Americans and the plight of the English hostage Kenneth Bigley and others remind us that we are very exposed, though mercifully few will have to face this.

The world of the New Testament writers knew both of these as a very present reality. The early Church grew at a time of persecution and violent threats. It knew the power of nature in ways we forget until we cover too much of the ground with tarmac so the water can’t drain away! So contentment to Paul is not some cosy world without threats and it would be a very shallow gospel to put faith in riches that can so easily be taken away.

Contentment comes in being at peace with who we are in the sight of God, with the hope we have in Christ and living as people who have ‘Alleluia’ written in indelible ink on our hearts.

I came across a prayer last year that I have carried with me since and have used on a number of occasions. It is a prayer that seems to speak of contentment and comes from South Africa, a country which has also known its troubles and the rawness of vulnerability.

Fill our lives, Creator God.
Give us a heart for simple things:
love and laughter,
bread and wine,
tales and dreams.
Fill our lives with green and growing hope;
makes us a people of justice
whose song is Alleluia
and whose name breathes love.

There is a treasure in this which goes beyond anything that we can imagine. We are in the hands of a loving God and can have confidence in his future, because there is no other future worth being concerned with - ultimately.

That doesn’t stop me worrying about all sorts of things. I know that I go through mood swings, almost with the weather. Sometimes I feel that ‘green and growing hope’ in my bones. ‘Tales and dreams’ fill my imagination and I can reach for stars. Sometimes I wake up with a cloud that depresses me all day. I get fed up with everything and chunter away to myself. There is probably something about our temperaments that affects our sense of contentment, but I think there is a hope that if we let it go deep enough, and renew it often enough, can carry us through the mood swings and the fluctuations in blood sugar levels!

We renew it with our Alleluia songs that sing praise to God and proclaim his glory above everything else. We renew it with the bread and wine of the kingdom, the Eucharist, that affirms his presence and feeds us with his love. A simplicity of heart will do so much to nurture contentment because we keep so much in balance and can love and laugh.

“There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.” The godliness takes us to Jesus, the model of all godliness for us, and as we focus on him we become reconciled to who we are in the sight of God: created in his image, redeemed in his love and restored in his hope. This is where we find true contentment because it transcends all other possessions and fulfils ultimate hopes as nothing else can.

© Ian Black 2004

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