Bush Is Urged to Give Up Worldly Goods

A clergyman implored an affluent congregation, including President Bush and his family, to jettison their material possessions, gently mocking George H.W. Bush’s struggles on the golf course to drive home his point.

The Very Rev. Martin Luther Agnew preached Sunday to a packed Episcopal church just down the road from the Bush family’s seaside estate. Its oceanfront parking lot was filled with luxury cars made by Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, testament to the wealth of the summer visitors at this southeast Maine resort.

“Gated communities,” Agnew said, “tend to keep out God’s people.” But, he said, “Our material gifts do not have to be a wall.”

“They can very well be a door. Jesus says, ‘Sell your possessions and give alms,’ ” Agnew said. “I’m convinced that what we keep owns us, and what we give away sets us free.”

Agnew, a guest minister from Louisiana whose summer assignment ended Sunday, swung a golf club to get his message across to the vacationing congregation.

The sermon culminated with a joke about former President Bush’s battle to chip a golf ball out of an anthill. Swinging the club in a mock reenactment, Agnew said Bush had swung twice and whiffed, wiping out hundreds of ants.

The ants got together and agreed: “If we’re going to live, we better get on the ball!”

The former president sat stone-faced through this parable, even as his family, including the current President Bush, looked at him and smiled.

“Brothers and sisters, what God is inviting us to do is get on the ball,” Agnew said, again imploring his audience to part with their possessions.