Prayer of the Consumer

Psalm 39:4-7

Lord, reveal to me the end of my life
and the number of my days.
Let me know how short-lived I am.
You, indeed, have made my days
short in length,
and my life span as nothing in Your sight. 

Yes, every mortal man is only a vapor.

Selah

Certainly, man walks about
like a mere shadow.
Indeed, they frantically rush around in vain,
gathering possessions without knowing who will get them.
Now, Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in You.

...............

Materialism. 

According to this passage, the root cause of materialism is that we think we are eternal.

We typically do not number our days. We think we are permanent, destined to live on and on, never having to say goodbye to the things and accomplishments we have accumulated. We make plans and dream dreams, assuming that tomorrow is guaranteed to us. We create hopes for doing, buying, building, traveling, saving, spending, and on and on.

We are practical materialists, even against our knowing better. If you asked a stranger to examine our lives from the outside, what would they see? Do we show by our choices and our budget line items that we believe only in the visible material world? That we have bought into the promises that this world so readily makes to us? That the next house or car or vacation or job opportunity will finally fulfill us? That we are one purchase away from knowing true peace?

Before I create any unnecessary guilt trips, it is important to note that the Bible does not endorse poverty over riches per se. In several places, Paul exhorts the rich to beware being proud and to be sure to be generous, but he never condemns the riches themselves. In the most quotable of these places, notice that money is not the root of evil, but rather the love of money:

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root  of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith  and pierced themselves with many pains. (1 Tim 6:9-10)

It is the want of riches and the love of money that leads our impressionable hearts into many other vices. We crave what we don't have and that craving ends up justifying our discontent, anger, and resentment of others who happen to have it better than us. Notice also that this heart condition could apply to the rich and poor alike. You could have very little and still be enslaved by the empty promises of riches, thinking if only I had this or that, then I could finally be happy.

Paul continues in the same passage to give a positive alternative to this craving:

Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God,  who richly provides us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good reserve for the age to come, so that they may take hold of life that is real. (1 Tim 6:17-19)

In this positive way forward, riches do not have to be a pathway to evil. They can, in fact, lead to enormous opportunities for good and glory for God. Riches can become, like in the parable of the talents, a test of our faithfulness to God and an investment that pays off for the good of others and ends in a warm welcome in heaven, where our true treasure-house grows with every act of faithfulness.

Taken together with Psalm 39, Paul's words and all of Scripture present us with a challenge, whether we are rich or poor. The challenge is to:

- examine our hearts

- number our days 

- realize the impermanence of this material world

- make God himself our greatest hope and treasure

- realize our responsibility before God who owns all things

- and start using our resources to invest in real treasure - the growing kingdom of God and its many faceted blessings. 

I am reminded of another of Paul's challenges which sums all of this up rather nicely:

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you  to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2)

God and Money

Luke 16:10-13

"One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." 

...............

You cannot serve God and money.

This statement seems simple enough. But world history and the story of our own hearts show there is much misunderstanding and distortion of this very topic. We are a species who regularly twist God's good gifts by either ignoring them or worshiping them - and both are sins. Money is no exception.

We see the worship and service of money on a daily basis. Workaholics, gluttons, Wall Street fat-cats, white collar criminals, blue collar criminals, street corner drug deals, endless commercialization - the greed of the human heart can be expressed in the overindulgence of luxurious mansions, in the bitter envy of the suburban "Jones's" next door, and even in the materially poor who may have become chronically dependent on substances and disability checks. Greed can be found in any human heart and we are all prone to it - prone to be consumed with what we want, rather than being grateful and generous with what we already have.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:10)

Here, Paul reminds us that money is a dangerous temptation that can lead us to all kinds of evil. Jesus makes the same point when he cautions that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. He also tells the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in this chapter to drive home this point. Money can easily take the place of God, luring us away from faith in him with empty promises that claim to satisfy our deepest desires. Money is so dangerous because the fantasy of limitless buying power seems to offer so much and distracts us from the (actually) limitless promises of love and life offered in the gospel.

But there is an opposite sin related to money - ignoring and devaluing it completely. Notice that Paul condemned the love of money - not money itself. Just because something is falsely worshiped does not mean it is not really a good thing created by God to be used for his glory. Sex can be worshiped too, but we know it is a good gift if enjoyed in the way He designed it to be enjoyed. Money, at its core, can be seen as not just morally neutral but actually good - a tool that was invented to make human creativity more efficient and productive. The cultural mandate of Genesis 1-2 conveys that having dominion and wise stewardship over the earth's resources is integral to what it means to bear God's image. We image him when we build, when we create, and even when we use money in wise and generous ways.

The parable of the dishonest manager in this chapter speaks to both the sin of greed and the sin of ignoring money completely. Jesus clearly calls the manager dishonest, thus highlighting his greed and sinful behavior. But his shrewdness and cleverness is commended and given as an example of wise dealing with money. He's saying "If the greedy liars of the world can manage to turn a bad situation for a profit, how much more should the sons of God be able to make wise decisions with the resources and opportunities they are given?" He says we should be faithful with money in this life so that we can be entrusted with true riches. In other words, when we keep a budget, save for retirement, invest in a business, and give generously, we are using scarce resources creatively to image God and prove our wise faithfulness before God.

We must model his wisdom in dealing with the good gift of money, while simultaneously running from the temptation to put all our hope in riches which will never satisfy the longings that only God himself can fulfill. To fail in either extreme is to sin against our Maker. Mark Driscoll sums it up this way: "Wealth is a wonderful tool and a horrible god."

Fortunately, the gospel provides the solution to our problems with riches. At the cross, Jesus gave up the riches of heaven to make us rich in eternal blessings:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

We have been given limitless wealth in being given God's own Son! Paul says we now have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm (Eph. 1:3) and if he gave us his Son, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things! (Rom. 8:32). Likewise, we are now called to use our time and money wisely and generously, fleshing out this gospel of grace in our own lives day by day. By doing so, we show that our treasure is in heaven and others may turn from the false idol of money and find riches in Christ as well.

Oil, Talents, and Mercy

Matthew 25:34-36

Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me."

................

There once was a master. He left his servants in charge of his possessions and told them what to do while he was gone. He came back one day to see what his servants had done with what he gave them. Some were not ready, so they were condemned. But, some had used what was given and had achieved incredible results.

This is a bare bones sketch of all three of these parables in Matthew 25. I don't think I've every considered the parallels between them, but right now it is almost too obvious - and quite helpful in interpreting them. Much like the parallel parables of Luke 15 (the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son), these three parables tell the story of the Last Judgment and the kinds of responses people will receive from Jesus upon his return. Some will be wise, having preserved enough oil or invested properly. But, some will be foolish, having been ill prepared and performing poorly with the blessings they were given.

What is most striking to me, if these parallels are fair to the original intent, is how the third parable sheds so much light on the first and second. Namely, that the mysterious oil and the cryptic reference to talents are both symbolic of the MERCY of God that we have received and of which we are now stewards.

We are stewards of the mercy of God.

He will return one day and he will ask each one of us how we have used the mercy we have been given. Did we use it as a license to sin, or a security blanket to insulate ourselves from the world? Or, did we share that mercy with those who are called the "least of these" - the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. I am challenged now to always look at the parable of the talents especially in reference to this parable that follows. I hope and pray that I will invest the blessing of mercy I have received so that it multiplies into blessings for all of the many needs in this world. Lord, help me to be that good and faithful servant.

"Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."