In typical stewardship messages, I’d invariably relate that illustration to Paul’s admonition in I Timothy 6:10 about how “the love of money is the root of evil.” Mind you, I’d point out, it is not money per se that is the root of evil and our entrapment – no, more than it is the nut which captures the monkey! No, it’s the love of – the addiction to – these things that is the basis of the downfall of many a human… and monkey!
Scott’s words in mind, the illustration is about a lot more than money, isn’t it? Or, perhaps we might say, Christian stewardship goes well beyond the financial and the material, doesn’t it?! (Christian stewardship, I have emphasized through the years, is our co-management, with God, of all that God has entrusted to us for a season – and that goes well beyond cash-ews!)
Father Thomas Keating reduced the temptations – Christ and ours – to three fundamental programs of human happiness: what I have, what I do, and what people think of me. To be sure, “what I have” – including money – is there in the mix. But, let’s not belittle the mix of “nuts” we seek to grasp — things like looks and health and image and status…
Detachment would appear to be a part of what Rohr and others call “The Perennial Tradition” – the spiritual stream with courses through all the world’s religious systems. Grasping and controlling have a way of enslaving. It’s in the relinquishment and the letting go that we are most free to live and to receive what Life has to offer.
“Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it,” Jesus said,
“and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” (Luke 17:33)
It’s certainly a message at the heart of Lent, is it not?
Yes, don’t get caught with your hand in the monkey jar!