Thursday, October 19, 2023 | Trey Comstock
During my trip to Turkey, a man tried to sell me a rug. More specifically, we ended up at a Turkish carpet sales pitch disguised as a demonstration of traditional craft. The proprietor, who made the pitch, could best be described as Turkish Russel Crow. Originally from Turkey, he grew up in Australia and from that experienced gained the accent, gestures, and general look of Russel Crow to an uncanny degree. I now know what it be like if Mr. Crow got into carpet and not acting and music. I was the wrong person for this man’s pitch. Turkish carpets require an incredible amount of hand labor, and thus, their cost matches the hour count. For a modest room sized carpet, the amount comes to the several thousands to many thousands, and I’m more of a few hundred bucks kind of impulse buyer.
My growing lower middle class sensibilities notwithstanding, the part of this experience that I still fail to shake was the pitched of the rugs as investments. In part, their construction gives them incredible longevity. The way the crafts people weave the rugs means that the core knots of the weave get stronger, not weaker, each time one steps on them. So, a century old rug may lack the sheen of newness but has greater strength than one just manufactured. I found that fascinating. However, he parleyed that objectively interesting factoid into an argument that one should buy these rugs as investments that will only increase in monetary value over time. To buy these admittedly amazing pieces of craftsmanship, not only gives you and your descendants a nice object but an investment in the future – a stored up treasure.
Unfortunately, I regret to report that he may know carpets, but he doesn’t represent the state of the United States’s secondhand rug market. Servants of Christ received two giant and antique Persian carpets as a donation over a decade ago. We dutifully insured them for their purchase price of over $10,000, each. If our friend, Turkish Russel Crow, is to be believed, these assets should have increased in value. We came to a season, as a church, where our financial need outweighed our need for high end carpets, and we hoped to unlock the value. Now, Turkish Russel Crow will gladly tell you why Turkish rugs beat Persian rugs, and maybe that explains our issue. Still, our rug experts here in Houston warned us to only expect a couple thousand dollars per rug – far less than their purchase or insurance price. Those rugs may be stronger than at the time of their manufacture, but as an asset, they declined in value.
Hence, Jesus’s words here in Luke 12 constitute not only sound spiritual advice but sound financial advice. I’ve walked through too many thrift stores full of wedding dresses, fancy dish wear, and solid wood furniture, to fully buy the argument that the nice stuff you buy in this life will only grow in value. Certainly, our progeny may find some of our stuff useful. My bench top toolbox belonged to Sidney’s grandfather. My best workbench and a good chunk of my shop tools came from my paternal grandfather. Our drinking glasses belonged to my grandmother. Our son’s dresser belonged to Sidney’s grandmother. The armchair where I read comic books came to us from my great grandparents by way of my parents. We replaced one couch in our living room, a hand me down from my best friend, with a nicer couch, a hand me down from my parents. The rest of our furniture that didn’t come from Ikea came from thrift stores or estate sales. Nice stuff can be enjoyed in this life and may have a use after we no longer require it.
The increasing in value piece is what’s fickle at best. The 17th century Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer, painted some of the most valuable pieces of canvas in the world. The record sales price for a Vermeer, set in 1998, was over $30 million. Yet, until the 19th century, he received little attention, and himself died in poverty and obscurity. Another Dutchmen, the 19th century painter, Vincent Van Gough, similarly now has works that sell in the many tens of millions but died in depression and poverty. His works only increased in value after his death. For every Vermeer and Van Gogh, there are hundreds of sad Dutch painters who never rose to prominence and who’s work may only be of passing value. One of the refrains on any of the shows where people bring in their treasurers or the treasurer that they inherit is that more often we overvalue what we have rather than undervalue it. For every person on Antique’s Roadshow or Pawn Stars who has something unexpectedly worth a lifechanging amount of money, there are dozens who thought they had something that turned out to be nothing. One can never know what will become weirdly valuable to future generations, what will increase in value, or what will be just another painting in attic.
Instead, we should follow Christ’s sound financial advice – invest in God’s Kingdom as our legacy. When I die, I don’t want my funeral to be about all the weird stuff that I’ve accumulated. I don’t want a vintage video game, Lego, and typewriter themed funeral. Rather, I pray that they will be able to tell of how I made a difference in the world or in the lives of people or in raising my family. The saddest funeral that I ever officiated started with a call from the funeral home asking for me to do a service for someone that I didn’t know. I went through my normal routine of trying to get to know the person, but all that anyone could tell me was that he liked John Deer tractors, watched a lot of television, and liked to gamble. I like a fair amount of TV, am sure that John Deer tractors deserve admiration, and feel that if you can afford to lose the money, go ahead and lose it at a casino. Who am I to judge? The really sad part came from the fact that even his family only had that to say. I got nothing about him as an amazing grandfather, a good father who imparted advice, or even as a strong but silent source of strength. He seemed to have invested very little in relationships, helping others, or making a difference. The sadness, for me, in that funeral service came from how few people cared that he’d gone.
We all by now have internalized that we cannot take it all with us, but the Parable of the Rich Fool pushes us beyond that. In it, Jesus asks the deeper, more probing question, about our legacy and where our most important investments lie. God’s voice comes directly to our protagonist, “But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20 NRSV) Our carpets or paintings by sad Dutchmen may end up at thrift stores, but our work for God’s Kingdom, particularly the people that we’ve invested in, live well beyond us