You may have seen the story this week.  One typical headline read, “Millennials Expect to be Millionaires Who Retire in Their 50s, Survey Shows.”  The less kind stories about the report described the famous 18-37 year old generation as “delusional.”

The sense of the stories and of the survey questions as best we can tell is that the Millennials questioned are thinking millionaire as in “really rich,” not as is “my balance sheet including house, retirement accounts, paid-up life insurance, and the like.”  And they were thinking of a retirement, the guys at age 53, of the “I don’t need to add to the common good” sort – going back to spending all the day long at the video game console.

The poor Millennials. Picking on Millennials has become a bit of a cottage industry. Especially among Baby Boomers, who until recently held the record for most indulged and self-serving generation.

So they want to be really rich and quit working really early, this generation with a trillion dollars in student debt, and nearly 20% of whom are still living in their parents’ houses.  Yeah, the word “delusional” seems to stick.

But wait, shouldn’t we allow a young person some dreams, delusional as they may be?  Life will make them realists soon enough.

My biggest concern for my children’s generation is not so much that they will be disappointed in their drive to become really rich.  It is that they may succeed. Pity the poor Millennial who makes a million dollars of the really rich sort.

Also this week, a long interview with New York Times columnist David Brooks. Among the many fascinating observations on life and culture is this: I would say that one of the things that’s noticeable about affluent people — and this has happened to me — is, as soon as people make money, they seem to purchase loneliness. 

Brooks has the data to substantiate his hunch.  Money doesn’t buy happiness. It buys loneliness.  And by all accounts, our affluent culture has been hit by an epidemic of loneliness. We’ve never been more unhappy.

My word to my Millennial children and friends – and their older brothers and sisters, their parents and aunts and uncles:  If someone offers you a chance to be a millionaire (of the really rich sort), run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. If someone tells you to quit working, to quit adding to the common good, at the halfway point of your adult years, look them in the eyes and quote the Bible, “Get behind me, Satan.”

As always, the Gospel offers a wise word.  Jesus had the Millennials and every other generation in mind when he told us that soon enough money morphs into the false god Mammon who will destroy our lives. The Apostle Paul wasn’t concerned about the size of our 401k accounts when he told us to make the most of the time God gives us.  Time, too, is a gift given to be used for common good.

LPC folks, I am pretty sure Dr. John Cropsey could have been well on his way to a million dollars. He’s not.  Instead he dreams of a world made a little better in Jesus’ name.  I really hope to see you Sunday!