BEING RICH

Sometimes when we read the Gospels, we can easily get the impression – and perhaps secretly want to get that impression – that Jesus thinks being rich is bad and that rich people are inherently selfish because that is how they became rich in the first place: they made their fortunes on the backs of others. But we would be misreading the Gospels and Jesus’ belief as well.

There is nothing inherently wrong, sinful, in being rich with material blessings, for that is what riches are: a blessing. At least that is what they are supposed to be. They can also become a curse. Just read the stories of those who has won big bucks in a lottery and ask if they thought that a blessing ensued after they hit the jackpot. When they purchased the ticket, they had dreams of all that their winnings would bring/buy. And it did buy much. It also brought many, many headaches and perhaps even some heartaches as well. Riches, an abundance of them, can be a curse.

Riches can also be a blessing and they are meant to be a blessing not only for the one who is rich but also for others who are not so blessed. Riches, material wealth and all that it brings, are a real blessing from God, the giver of all blessings. How we come about our riches may or may not matter as long as we come about them honestly. We may inherit our wealth. We may obtain it through sheer luck. We may work very hard for it. We are, in a word, rich.

Riches are deceptive. We often do not realize just how blessed we are. They are also delusional in that they somehow seduce us into believing that we somehow deserve to be so blessed, especially if we came by our material wealth by the sweat of our brow and not through family ties or lucky bounces of the lottery ball. We worked for it. We earned it. We deserve it. So we say. What we forget is that if it were not for God having first blessed us with whatever talent and ability it would take to accumulate so much, we would never have what we have.

Now what? First of all, we must be thankful to God whose gift of our life has given us the opportunity to be so materially blessed. Second, we must be aware that the main reason why we have been so blessed is that we have been chosen to share some of our blessings with those who are less blessed. It is in doing so, it is in sharing, that we are able to fulfill the requirements of the first part. We give thanks by giving, giving of our abundant blessings to those who are not so blessed.

Realizing all that, we must pause regularly to examine how well or how poorly we are using our material resources. Are we using them to help build up God’s kingdom here on earth or are we hoarding them for ourselves, forgetting why we are so blessed and, even more, forgetting that we can’t take them with us? What, indeed, are we doing with all that God has graciously and lovingly given us?

We need to constantly be thankful for our many, many blessings and to share them more and more with others so that they and we can serve God more fully and faithfully.

THE LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

If we want to know how we will react should a real crisis occur in our lives, all we have to do is reflect on how we handle the little problems that come our way each day. If our normal response is to get right at them and tackle them as they happen, if we get on top of them before they get out of hand, more often than not we will be able to deal with the larger issues when they loom. That does not mean that it will be easy to deal with them. It simply means that we will.

On the other hand, if we procrastinate when those little problems arise, hoping they will go away all on their own or believing that they are not all that important, at least for the moment, we will likely do the same when the situation is in a crisis mode. As a result we will become so overwhelmed that we will not be able to function let alone adequately respond to the crisis at hand, if we can respond at all.

Little things do mean a lot especially when it comes to the manner in which we handle the little things in this life. Thus, if we are honest in small matters, matters of little account for which we may never be held responsible, we will be honest when it comes to larger and more important matters, matters where others do the reckoning and for which we are held accountable.

Of course, the real question to ask if there anything that is truly of little account. Everything that happens in our life, no matter how small, insignificant or seemingly inconsequential is important. Everything happens for a reason even if we cannot understand what that reason is at the moment it happens. And even then, we still have to deal with it.

Not only is it important how we respond to the issues and crises that occur in our lives, it is just as important, no, even more important, whom we choose to serve, who comes first in our lives, who or what drives us. That will truly determine, in the end, how we deal with any issue that arises. If we put ourselves first, our wants and desires, we will make choices that will benefit us often at the detriment and expense of others. But if we choose to put God first, while our wants and desires may not always be fulfilled, our needs certainly will.

We make choices every day, often without thinking much about them ahead of time. We simply react to what has happened. We want those reactions to be what our actions would have been had we given ourselves or been given enough time to ponder the right response. But for that to happen, immediately responding to little matters and making the right choices in small decisions has to be habitual.

The Christian life is to be a habit that becomes us. It is who we are. We don the habit slowly, thoughtfully, carefully. It takes time and practice and entails many mistakes. We do not wear it all at once. We have to learn how to become comfortable in it and that comes from attending to the small things when they occur and doing the small things well each time.

THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

Remember the short parable about the woman loses one of her ten silver coins? She is frantic. She searches the house, sweeps it down, in search of the coin. The when she finds it, she calls her friends together and then, would you believe it, throws a party to celebrate the recovery of the lost coin and probably spends half the value of the coin in the cost of throwing the party!

One has to shake one’s head, scratch it even, trying to understand what is going on here. I do not ever remember being invited to a party by a friend who lost something valuable and then found it again and now wants to celebrate his good fortune but in doing so has to spend a great part of the cost of that once-lost item in order to do so.

It happens, I am sure, and I understand – once the details are understood. It was the custom for Palestinian women to receive ten silver coins as a wedding present. The coins may not have had much monetary value, but they were invaluable to those who received them. If a wife lost one of those coins, it was like losing part of herself. It was more symbolic than anything.

But we all understand do we not? We all have personal treasures that we cherish that mean everything to us but would have little or no meaning to anyone else, perhaps even to our spouse. Even more, we cannot explain why these treasures are so important. They just are and that is all that matters.

Thus, as with all Jesus’ parables, we should not get bogged down in the details when we try to understand his point. But we must understand those details if we want to understand that point. In this parable that point is quite obvious. In God’s eyes each and every one of us is like that lost coin. We are of infinite value. God does not take our being lost from God lightly. God will look for us until God finds us. And when we return to God, God rejoices.

That is Jesus’ point. But that is not his only point. Yes, we are infinitely valuable in God’s eyes. But at the same time we must never lose sight of the fact, no pun intended, that we should be of infinite value in our own eyes. Sometimes, sadly, we do. Sometimes we do things, sin in such a way, that we are embarrassed to even look at ourselves in the mirror. We can’t believe we did what we did. We can hardly forgive ourselves for it. And if we can’t forgive ourselves, we wonder how God could. Then in our self-loathing we begin to pull away from God.

That’s the devil, if you will, at work trying to convince us that God abandons us when we abandon God. Of course that is a lie. The saving grace, as this parable points out, is that God never pulls away from us and never allows the devil to win us over. While we may try to move away from God, God never moves away from us, thanks be to God. In the end and throughout it all, it is God’s grace and never-ending love that is the reason we can finally come to our senses, return to God by asking for forgiveness, accepting that forgiveness and then forgiving ourselves.

EXCUSES DON’T EXCUSE

If we are ever hauled into court for breaking a law and the only excuse we can come up with is that we did not know that what we did was against the law, we are going to be met with a stony indifference by the judge. Ignorance of the law is no excuse and neither is any misunderstanding of the law. Society presumes we know the laws of the land and metes out punishment based on that presumption.

The same is true when it come to the laws, the requirements, the commandments of our faith. Were we to stand before God right now, if this would be our judgment day, and try to excuse our sinful behavior by claiming we did not know or understand the laws and commandments we broke, God would certainly be a more understanding judge but would also kindly remind us that ignorance is no excuse.

It is our responsibility both as citizens and as Christians to know right from wrong, to know what the law allows and what it does not. That is a standard of all societies from time immemorial. Some societies, cultures and institutions may be more lenient or forgiving than others, but none condone irresponsible behavior, namely one’s deliberate ignorance of right and wrong.

That is not the whole point at issue here even as we often use it as the underlying excuse when we do not do what we know we should do or do what we know we should not do. There are times when we deliberately do not do what the law demands because we engage in endless disputes about the meaning of the law. We even take pleasure in taking part in such arguments. It made us look good in the eyes of our peers. It makes us seem important because we are acting as if we really know what we are talking about when we truly do not.

Yes, we need to know and understand the law, but, more importantly, we need to live it and we cannot live it if we spend all our time talking about and around it. Yes, there are those who must engage in serious discussions about the law and the commandments to determine how they apply to each generation and to changing times and knowledge and circumstances. But even those professional scholars must live out their faith each moment of each day.

None of this may seem shocking or even debatable. That is true. What is also true is that there are times in the lives of each and every one of us when we get into arguments about what our faith requires because we want to delay fulfilling those requirements. We may not think this to be a big deal until we remember that our delay may result in another person’s being hurt or not ministered to.

That, I think, is what we need to be constantly in mind of. We can always find an excuse why we cannot or should not do what our faith demands of us and try to convince ourselves that we are in the right. But we know better. We were taught better. There really is never any excuse for not doing what we need to and must do. Excuses don’t excuse no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that they do.

UNCERTAINTY NEVER ENDS

Alan Ecclestone in The Night Sky of the Lord: "It is a function of the Spirit…to enter searchingly into a man's house, and there to put questions, now like a breath, and now like a wind, to try all things that it finds there, to question their fitness to endure. The process in our own night sky is one of near gale-force winds. It is a delusion to suppose that the disturbing questions will, if ignored, go away, if suppressed, be forgotten, or that by hiding ourselves like naked Adam we escape them. It is no less delusive to expect that we shall get comforting answers to our questionings. To live with our uncertainties is not simply a necessary part of our education at all levels: it is the very truth of faith. To endure the sifting process of interrogation is the hallmark of discipleship."

           

In other words, just because we are people of faith does not mean that we have all the answers, or, if having the answer, understand that answer. We never know for sure, not in this life anyway. As Ecclestone says, it is the Holy Spirit's responsibility, thus a process of our faith, to put the question to us, whatever the question. And for people of faith, the question, the questions, tend to be God-questions.

           

We wonder why, for instance, a good God allows so much evil. We wonder why we have and can have so many choices, so much diversity, so much never-knowing-for-sure, so much uncertainty when what we want as believers is certainty. We want to know for sure, not just believe: know. We want answers here and now.

Perhaps a quote from Michel de Montaigne might help here: "Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say? He must know how to use them together and blend them. And so we must do with good and evil, which are consubstantial with our life. Our existence is impossible without this mixture, and one element is no less necessary for it than the other."

           

Maybe the problem of evil, THE God-problem, is really no problem. Maybe it is simply a fact of existence. To know the good we must know the opposite, at least in this life anyway. That does not mean that the bad, doing the bad, is justified. It simply means that the bad does and always will, in this life, exist, and it is one way that we can appreciate and want to do the good. Maybe, I'm not sure, am rather uncertain.

           

Perhaps one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to sweep us of off our feet, get our attention, so that we ask those God-questions which, in essence, become people-questions: not why does God allow so much evil but rather why do people allow and do so much evil; not why are there so many choices but, rather, why do we make the choices that we do make.

           

The Holy Spirit forces us to ask questions that we would rather not, forces us to confront problems we would rather avoid, take stock of our personal responsibility which we would rather pass off on to someone else. That may not be very comforting, but it is true. But, then, the Holy Spirit also does not leave us once we are bowled over: the Spirit remains to give us the strength to ask, to answer, to respond, in all our uncertainty