When I first arrived in the Cape I went looking for a church to belong to.
At one of the churches I visited – having sung a lot of songs the preacher began to preach his sermon (or so I thought)… after about 15 minutes collection baskets were passed around and people poured their cash into them.
Having heard the sermon I felt a little bit bad and even put some of my own in.
After this we carried on singing and then another person got up to preach. I realised that this was now the main sermon – the first was just to get us to put cash in the plate.
* * *
Richard Foster wrote quite a helpful book, Money, Sex & Power (1985:5):
At the moment the vast majority of people in the world are suffering because of the injustice caused by greed… People – Christian and non-Christian are becoming more and more aware of economic evils.
They say money makes the world go round... that's true – but the love of money – I think, makes it go a bit pear shaped. The apostle Paul calls love of money "the root of all evil."
* * *
So what is our relationship to money?
* * *
One problem with money is that it's just so easy to love…. It fulfils so many needs in a very real way; to us it is a lot like god…
When you're sick – money can buy you healing.
When your soul is troubled – money can buy you counselling.
When there's little rain – money can even buy you water…
Money can buy you so many of the things that you need for life that it is quite easy to allow it to become a sort of mini God.
Money does miracles.
(With enough money and a cell phone, I could make a pizza appear here in about 30 minutes – and if it was cold, it would be free.)
* * *
In the Bible, because money is so 'god like' it is made personal – Jesus gives it a personal name: Mammon. He speaks of it as if it was a rival God - a master to be served: "You can not serve two masters" is Jesus challenge to us who find ourselves a little too attached to our cash.
* * *
Because money is so important to us, and a little bit intimate to us in the way it creeps into our hearts we can easily identify with the rich young man who walks away grieving when Jesus says to him:
* * *
I don't think the call of Jesus to the rich young man is for everyone – Jewish law forbade the giving to charity of more than 20% of one's possessions out of concern for people becoming a burden on others themselves… If we all gave all of our money away we might eventually do more harm than good.
But I do think it is a call for everyone to consider; a chance for us to identify the nature of our relationship to money…
* * *
How would we respond if Jesus asked us to give it all up? Who would we choose – Mammon, or Jesus?
Sometimes Mammon, money, the power and security that it promises seems to us like a better bet…
* * *
Money is personal – it isn't neutral, it has a hold on us and it can so easily creep into our hearts and become our one true love.
Richard Foster writes:
It's quite a scary idea… but from experience, we know that this idea is in a sense quite true for us.
* * *
So how do we go about changing our unhealthy relationship with money, beginning a movement that might start to transform the world and help us to see the Kingdom of God in this place?
* * *
Feelings
Foster suggests that we should try to understand our own emotional response to money. Are we fearful, insecure, do we feel guilty about having money? Are we threatened by money?
Some of our feelings about money were formed a long time ago… some stem from being wealthy, some stem from being poor – experiencing very difficult and embarrassing times… when we get in touch with these feelings we can begin to move towards having a proper 'biblical' relationship with money.
Honesty
We need to be realistic about how wealthy we are, people have a tendency to only compare themselves with those more wealthy than they are – and then claim poverty…
We are wealthy enough to have eaten something this morning – and are pretty sure we will be eating lunch later on. If you have a house to live in you are in the top 5% of the worlds wealthy… If your car has a house, that puts you up in the top 1%.
When we begin to be honest about our wealth we can start to honestly use it for God's good purposes.
Fellowship
We need to find people we can partner with in fighting our addiction to wealth, someone we can talk to who will understand our obsession with money. A friend perhaps – if you're married talk to each other as a couple about the value of money in your lives… be accountable to each other.
Encounter
Having money, especially in this country makes it very easy to avoid the poor. We don't have to drive through squatter camps very often – and if we do they are usually surrounded by fences that hide their reality.
Avoid the fantasy world that we see on programmes like Top Billing… big houses and fancy weddings like those are for people with loads of cash; they do not reflect how the other half live, they represent the other 1/1000th of a percentile.
Steward
Change your attitude to the things you claim to own – in your imagination stamp on them a sign that says: God's property, not mine. God's bank account, God's car, God's house… and ask yourself how best would God have you use these things, that ultimately belong to him… in your imaginations tack that line from Psalm 24:1 onto everything you pretend to own:
A steward is someone who looks after someone else's property… in the ways in which we manage our money and possessions we need to constantly acknowledge God's ownership…
When we buy and when we sell we need to learn to keep God in mind, asking does the way I am doing this honour God?
A difficult way to live – in some ways, but it seems like the way God would have it… are we up to the challenge?
Give
A final challenge to us is the challenge to give. In Genesis we read the first account of someone offering a tithe… Abraham, having rescued his nephew from captivity and taking some spoils in battle gives Melchizidek – the priest of God Most High, one tenth of everything.
Abraham – who existed before the law, gives freely of his wealth as a sign of his indebtedness to God.
The practise of tithing becomes part of Old Testament law – tithes are offered to celebrate God's abundance and generosity, portions are given to the Levitical priests who have no land and hence no means of income, and portions are used for celebrations. In Deuteronomy 14:26 the author writes about the tithe:
Every third year however, the tithes were stored and used to provide for widows, orphans and the poor.
* * *
By becoming a nation who give freely of what they have, the Israelites develop a system in God's honour that ensures that no one would become helplessly poor.
They ensure that everyone has a chance to celebrate God's abundant generosity.
* * *
Christians are no longer subject to the law.
Paul writes in Galatians 5:1. We give of our selves, of our resources freely to God because we are free to do so, and because we love God. We don't give in order to receive, but simply because we have received… we give because we were created to be generous.
I invite us all to practise giving, no matter how little or how much we have… Abraham's example was a tithe – but there's no reason we should not give more.
When we learn to free ourselves from money's power over us – and live a life unattached to our physical possessions – then I believe we will begin to see the Kingdom of God in this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment