Money Makes the World Go 'Round

"Money makes the world go around
The world go around
The world go around
Money makes the world go around
It makes the world go 'round"

Lyrics from the award winning musical "Cabaret" speak a truth that most of us would prefer not to recognize. Many of us would prefer to think that love makes the world go 'round, or at least some similarly "noble" value.  But the plain truth is that it is money: not the dollar or the yen or the Deutschmark, or the pound, but the notion that somewhere, we have a store of power that can change our lives and the lives of those we encounter for good or ill. In the words of the Clinton campaign committee, "It's the economy, stupid!"

This is a fact.

Even Jesus recognizes the same.

I think that is why Jesus spoke so frequently about money and our attitudes toward it.

Let's look at ourselves for a moment. For most people, truth-telling about their monetary worth is a taboo subject. In my own family, it has been considered rude to ask about "how much someone is worth." Even more so, we were trained not to give a direct answer to such questions like, "How much did you pay for that house/car/suit . . .?" much less answer a question like how much is in the bank or in one's paycheck.  This all despite the fact that most of this information is easily accessible if someone really wants to know. For example, my salary is a matter of public record for the parish (annual meeting must approved the budget); the value of our home is available on websites like zilo.com; and anyone who purchases a car, or a suit, for that matter, knows the ballpark figure of how much it is worth.

What strikes me about all this is the relationship between generosity and truth-telling.  It seems that we guard our financial secrets so that others will not know whether or not we are authentically generous. The gospel calls us to a preferential option for the poor (or another way, solidarity with the poor), so to admit that I may not actually be poor may call into question just how generous I have been with what I have. By extension, we may see how the Church falls short of its gospel call when we add up all that it owns, has and provides for. If we are totally transparent about money in the Church, we may end up seeing that we nearly miss answering the call to a preference for poverty. We have so often seen the call to poverty as an ideal - as something ascribed to those capable of sainthood - rather than as something that each and every believer is called to live. It would do us well to tell some truths about what we have and what we think we control so that we can honestly respond to the needs of the poor, whom we will "have with us always."

Is it wrong to criticize?

Is it wrong for Christians to criticize? How often we have heard or have said ourselves, "Don't judge." It's as if using our critical faculties (the ability to observe and assess) is not friendly to the Christian Way. I don't think this is the case. A friend recently shared with me the following quote:

"Many Western Buddhists believe that judging runs counter to insight and unconditional compassion, that passing judgment automatically implies a troubling duality, a delusional moral hierarchy. The Buddha, however, warned not against judging, but against being judgmental. The former implies clear comprehension of appropriate action and the latter implies bias and misconception." --Mary Talbot, “No Justice, No Peace" This is a really helpful distinction. In studying Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth in which he is most critical of the believers there, I found that he had a unique and similar approach. Before he upbraids the believers for their shortcomings, he makes sure they understand who(se) they are. As believers baptized into Christ, he intimates that it is not their spirit that is false. Rather, it is their failures that are untrue. He tells them essentially not that they have failed to measure up to an ideal that they have yet to attain, but that they are not fulfilling the character with which they have already been gifted. In other words, they are not failing to attain something outside of themselves, but that they are not exploiting what already exists inside them-life in Christ Jesus.  In this way, Paul sets for us an example: that godly, Christian critique (criticism) must always take the form of an exhortation to fully receive what we have already been given! (Alan Gregory)

Blessing begets blessing

Increasingly, we live in an age that finds it hard to trust. Cynical and unsure, suspicious and pessimistic, unable to enjoy the gifts we have when they are right in front of our eyes, we vote reluctantly or not at all, despair of our political choices (“They’re all crooks anyway”), assume the moral bankruptcy of every institution on our society (“Government does not have a problem, government is the problem”). Facts don’t seem to matter; weird conspiracy theories emerge at every turn. We live in an age that finds it easy to suspect and increasingly difficult to trust.

That is not just too bad. It creates an environment where faith becomes more and more difficult. The spiritual life is all about trust. We grown spiritually when we trust in God and not by covering our flank and greeting every new opportunity with suspicion and mistrust. We simply don’t grow when we think that way. Rather, we shrink from a full and active life.

The abundant healing of Christ readily washes over us but only the heart that is open can avail itself of it. Those who have open hearts know how possible life seems when one dares to believe and acts on that faith. It is the at the root of a confident life.

It becomes, in a way, a self-fulfilling prophecy – this trust. The more I trust in the goodness of God and its action in my world, the more evidence I have for it and I am able to see more opportunities for its impact. It is this way that I become one who builds up rather than one who tears down.

This is how blessing begets blessing in the economy of God.

When will it trickle down?

In looking over the statistics for November in Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, part of the Jubilee Ministry Center at St. Mark’s, it came to my attention that in November alone we were able to serve 97 families for a total of 270 persons. What is amazing is that of these 17 families or 37 people were NEW clients of the Cupboard. That means that 17% of the families served had not been in the Cupboard before.

To me this is more evidence that the economic “recovery” is not trickling down to the lower strata of our economic structure. In other words, the problem is getting worse, not better.

In 2011 Church Finance Today reported, "68% of churches in the West-South Central U.S., and 64% of churches in the East-South Central U.S. have expenses exceeding income. These are the best regions in the country." This poses an interesting question: how are churches that can’t even pay their own bills with current income provide the safety net that is necessary for our own society in the long term? This is one of the fallacies that plague our current political debates over care for the poor: that “private sector” organizations (i.e. churches and non-profits) are the proper purview for this kind of work – that it is not part of government’s responsibility.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but this leads me to a question I shudder to ask. Is this a way to accelerate the decline of main-line protestant churches, I mean the ones that are traditionally identified as “liberal” in their social justice stance? The logic is there: if these churches feel compelled to take care of the poor, let them. Soon enough they will spend their way out of existence and the social consciousness that they espouse will go with them.

Honestly, I do not think that there is any such conspiracy. However, the logic is inescapable and if we continue to ignore the proper role of government in providing a social safety net for those who are unable to care for themselves, we will in fact lose part of our national soul.

Meanwhile, the Jubilee Ministry Center at St. Mark’s will continue to feed those who seek assistance motivated by the love of Christ. Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard and Parishioners’ Outreach will continue to touch and change lives just when individuals felt that they were at the end of their fiscal rope. We will do so even as the parish struggles to keep its fiscal head above water because it is not about our institutional survival – it is about our fundamental commitment to the Gospel to care for the least and the lost in our community. 

Chicken & Egg: Self-Esteem and Accomplishment

I recently read a quote that said something to this effect: Great accomplishments are the result of a healthy self-esteem, not the cause of it. I apologize to the sage who authored this thought but I can’t remember where I read it or who said it. Its truth nonetheless remains.

So often in our culture, we measure an individual’s worth by what they have accomplished. While this may at time be legitimate (as in a “value-added” approach to organizational life), it should never be the measure of the self.  Forgetting this truth undermines the inherent dignity that is the inalienable possession of every human being, and violates the covenant we profess in our baptism to “respect the dignity of every human being.”

It is necessary for us in Christian community, then, to work first and foremost to affirm and help individuals build self-esteem and self-respect.  This is not self-centered. Rather, it is the requisite for fulfilling one of the great commandments, “to love one’s neighbor as one’s self.”

Inwardly rooted self-esteem has its origin in the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of the Creator. To develop this kind of self-esteem requires not external affirmation (though that doesn’t hurt) but the discipline of spiritual practice. This practice requires that we live ever more consciously and intentionally as children of God. It will require us to accept ourselves as God sees us – redeemed and restored by his grace. This is the beginning.  

God has no express lane.

Advent is the liturgical season of vigilance or, to put it more commonly, a season of waiting. During the weeks before Christmas, we light the candles of our Advent wreaths and put ourselves in the spiritual space of the people of Israel who, through many long centuries, waited for the coming of the Messiah.

From beginning to end of scripture we discover stories of people who are forced to wait. The patriarch Abraham received a promise that he would become, despite his old age, the father of a son. But the fulfillment of that promise was a long time in coming. Through many years, as he and his wife grew older and older, as the likelihood of their parenthood became increasingly remote, Abraham waited. Did he doubt? Did he wonder whether he had misunderstood God’s promise? Did his faith falter? Probably. But he waited, and in time the promise came true.

In the course of the Christian tradition, there is much evidence of this spirituality of waiting. Many of the saints realized they were being called by God to do great things. But before they found their path they often passed through a wide variety of experiences over many years: often with times of stark asceticism and prayer, sometimes living hand-to-mouth and sleeping in doorways. Only at the end of this long journey is the will of God made clear-showing the saints the great things God called them to do.

All of this, I believe, is very hard for most of us. I suppose we humans have always been in a hurry, but modern people seem especially to want what they want when they want it. We are driven, determined, goal-oriented, fast-moving. I, for one, have difficulty waiting for just about anything.

For some reason, this year is a bit different. Although the responsibilities are plentiful and time seems short, there is an inner patience that has grown out of – I don’t know where. I credit God’s dealing with me for this. More and more, I see God as standing outside of space and time. More and more, I see the plan of God being worked out not by me but by God’s people – in God’s good time. My task is to wait – to do what I am called to do when I am called to do it.

While I am still not ready to be a devotee of jigsaw puzzles (and the time it takes to complete them), I find that such things come into mind I do not reject them out of hand so quickly. I actually see myself entering into that experience – creating true leisure – the time it takes to wait.

Perhaps as this Advent unfolds, I will let what eighteenth century spiritual writer Jean-Pierre de Caussade said sink in: "Whatever happens to you in the course of a day, for good or ill, is an expression of God's will." 

-- thanks in part to Rev Robert Barron for the core idea for this post.

Whatever happened to Thanksgiving?

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

-- William Arthur Ward

What ever happened to Thanksgiving? Over the last few years, the day set by presidential decree of Abraham Lincoln “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens” has transformed itself into the beginning of the Christmas Shopping Season. Sorry. I just need to get this off my chest.


As a child, I was always focused on the family television set (we had only one and Black and White at that!) qatching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Of course, at the END of the parade was the jolly old elf himself with sleigh full of toys and reindeer, too. It was doubly special for us because Santa was portrayed by Charlie Howard, a resident of the small canal town in Western New York where I grew up. There, he had established a Santa Claus School to teach individuals how to dress and act the part of the revered Christmas figure (but I digress).

The key notion here was that Santa came AT THE END of the parade – signifying that AFTER Thanksgiving, we turned the attention of hearth and home toward Christmas. It provides a great distinction: after we have followed the lead of the 16th president to give praise and thanksgiving to God, we can get about the business of the hustle and bustle of commercial Christmas. Regrettably, the last several years has seen Thanksgiving blended into the generic “holiday season” without a purpose of its own. This year came the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. This year, the isn’t even digested before the shopping rush is on.

Social covenants depend upon a common understanding and wiling participation of members of a society. ‘Till now, it was part of our social covenant (I believe), that we celebrated Thanksgiving in the spirit in which it was established: a day to stop and think, a day for families to gather (natural families and families of the heart), a day to express genuine gratitude for what we have received in the bounty of this earth, “our island home.”

Interestingly the God part of this holiday has taken a back seat (as with just about all other religious holidays). Churches and ecumenical communities are forced by social circumstance to celebrate Thanksgiving not on the day, nor even the eve, but on the Sunday of choice (before of after) the Thursday holiday. Some of this is because of the retail mania that has overtaken what stood for over a hundred years as a provision in our social compact – no Christmas until after Thanksgiving.

We have crossed that threshold, and as with all such realities, the genie will never be put back into the bottle. I lament this loss, deeply.

However, it does not stop me from celebrating the day as it was intended. I, for one, will join with my family and friends to celebrate the bountiful grace of God that has blessed us in so many ways in the year now passing. And I urge you to so the same. Keep the “Thanks” in Thanksgiving!