‘Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.’
BEN FRANKLIN (one of the founding fathers of the USA)
We live in a culture obsessed with money. Despite the fact that we all know how consumerism only ever delivers a temporary buzz, we keep on getting caught up in a set of values that simply fail to deliver on the freedom they promise. In other words, we know it won’t do us any good, but we keep on coming back for more.
While the slogans tell us that we are ‘born to shop’, that we should ‘obey your thirst’ simply ‘because you’re worth it’, something’s not quite right. As Henry Ward Beecher put it, we are ‘rich or poor according to what we are, not according to what we have.’ All the cars, houses, holidays, designer clothes, trainers, mobile phones, iPods, entertainment systems, computers etc… simply cannot give us the security and significance we all need.
Yet consumerism continually pulls us along, continually barks in our face, getting under our feet like a yappy dog. Like all yappy dogs, consumerism never goes away, never gives up until it finally realises you have nothing left to give. Then the pooch goes off in search of a new victim.
Before we move on, take a little time to consider the following questions:
Who do you consider to be rich people in our world?
Are they rich because they are richer than you?
Are you rich?
What criteria do we use to define how rich someone is?
How much is enough?
GOD'S ATTITUDE TO MONEY
We know exactly what to do when someone threatens to take our money, but when it comes to God’s agenda for our finances the shift in values becomes clear. We see the same conflict illustrated in the Bible when in Mark 10:21 a Rich Young Man asks Jesus what he must do to get eternal life. The reply – ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ - was simple, yet overwhelming. In fact, Jesus’ words get to the heart of the matter. What He offered was the opportunity for the man to be part of the team, to join in on a relationship with Jesus and His mission to transform people’s lives and the world. But he cared more about his wealth than Jesus or the poor, which meant that he wasn’t able to follow Jesus, which meant that he missed out on the greatest treasure of them all.
How do we compare? Do we allow possessions to get in the way of relationship with Jesus? How would we respond if we were called to sell up all we had? Are we giving ourselves the best possible chance of a life that focuses on God by stripping back the unnecessary rubbish?
Having money does not necessarily mean we turn into some Gollum-like creature. King David got the balance right in the Old Testament, recognising everything comes from God. All we do is give it back. We are merely caretakers, stewards of God’s good stuff. Because of this, we have a responsibility to use it wisely, to make sure that the way we use it reflects the values of God, our wealth’s ultimate owner. In other words, if our spending patterns go against God’s grain, then we contradict all our fine words and passionate worship.
Despite the onslaught of hardcore advertising, God’s not changed His position on money throughout the history of mankind. As the story of Jesus and the Rich Young Man illustrates so well, money has a massive pull on us. If we’re not careful we can all find ourselves sucked in, struggling to escape. We become slaves to our desires, and instead of using it to do God’s work it becomes our master, defining us and shaping our desires. As Keith Tondeur says in his book ‘Your Money and Your Life’: ‘If we put materialism before Jesus, we are left powerless to confront the powers of materialism in our society. Our voice cannot challenge the injustices of poverty if it is undistinguishable from the voices of our materialistic peers.’
MONEY AND THE POOR
‘We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the cruel words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.’
Martin Luther King, Jr.
By not speaking up about the importance of how we use our money, by following the crowd down to the sales, spending money we don’t have on the latest games console or pair of trainers, and living from one week to the next in our relationship with money, we become part of the problem. As well as us losing out on our relationship with God, by not getting our wallets under control we make life worse for our global brothers and sisters.
Many of the poorest people in the world produce the food we buy in the supermarket and stitch the clothes we buy on the high street. Global trade rules favour rich nations like ours enabling large companies to force food producers from developing countries to sell their produce for far less than its real value, and garment factories to pay workers way below a living wage or even a minimum one.
But there’s more to the story too: our responsibility for our money isn’t limited to what we buy, how we choose to invest it is also hugely important. Our choice of bank, for example, can have just as much of an impact on the lives of the poor as our decision whether or not to buy a pair of trainers made in a sweatshop. Some of our high street banks play a part in creating and sustaining a world that falls way short of God’s standards. Banks lend and invest our money in businesses whose core activities may be harmful to the environment, exploitative of human rights, ignore international labour standards for workers in poor countries, pursue harmful practices on animals and support oppressive regimes. Our choice of bank can link us up with some pretty un-Godly activities. Just as it is with food and fashion we cannot ignore the consequences of our actions.
SO, WHAT'S THE SOLUTION?
‘Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.’
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian writer who was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis for speaking out against them.
We have to get ready for the challenge of changing a system that not only leaves people unfulfilled, but one that also ultimately is responsible for some outrageous abuses. In a world where 30,000 children die every day from poverty and preventable diseases you have to admit that there’s a desperate need for change.
Much of the work can be done by people like you and me waking up to the need to make ethical choices. By choosing how you bank, invest, spend, donate, and borrow you send signals about whether or not you approve of the activities of the bank or company that you are giving your money to. By talking to your bank and asking them questions about how they choose to invest your money, you can challenge them to make your money count for the poor.
Because God’s heart beats for the poor constantly, our lifestyle choices need to beat in time with His kingdom values regarding money. If we make sure that our spending patterns send out the right messages we can make a massive difference.
This article is taken from a resource by Tearfund ‘Lift the Label on Finance’.
The picture above is from Flickr user seanmcenemy and is here used under a Creative Commons lisence. The original photo is here...
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