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Life that Really is Life
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| 9/30/2007 |
In the lesson from I Timothy, we hear, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” The detail to notice is that the warning is about the love of money. “Love of money” is one word in the Greek language of the writer. Philargyria is the word for love of money. In English, the word avarice is a good synonym. We can learn something here from the word Philadelphia, which we know means brotherly love, or sisterly love. It is a love of affection, care and concern. Similarly Philargyria connotes money-obsessed love. So, another translation of this well known proverb might be, “Love constrained by a life obsessed with money is the beginning of evil.”
“But those who want to be rich,” says the writer of I Timothy, “fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.”
Those words stand without argument or the need for example.
This is all part of ‘biblical economics,’ capsulated in Jesus’ words in the gospel reading last week, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” It is not that money is bad! How I want to break the commonly held myth that money is bad, or doing well by money is bad. No! Money and wealth are the tools of life, and we are to use them to serve God’s purposes. The problems arise when we want money for money’s sake—greed—such that we develop a love of money, or a money obsessed love, that we misalign ourselves with God’s love.
One of the things that we allow our government to do to us, that I believe is morally wrong, is the state lottery. Now many don’t agree with me, and I am not asking you to agree with me. This church was built by lotteries, lest I forget. Further, I am not so pure; I buy a lottery ticket from time to time. A parishioner here likes to tell me, “Each week, I buy two lottery tickets, one for me, and one for the church.” When I ask, “How do you know which one is yours, and which one is the churches?” he replies, “Don’t you trust me?”
But come with me to the smoke shop up on third, or the newsstand at Market Street, or the kiosks in the Broad Street station, and watch hard working people, and poor people, buy a hundred, two hundred dollars of lottery tickets at a time, or those myriad of scratch-off instant games that then the buyer will sit down and instantly scratch off every one and find they have just blown a lot of money, and then get up and buy some more. It is this disease, “the love of money,” that drives it all. The lottery player has the love of money, so they play. The government has a love of money, so we sell the lottery as a public good, generating necessary revenue for schools, or the elderly, but studies show that lottery revenue does not make a positive contribution to the social costs incurred, but the love of money drives us to come up with a new game. And we who have eyes to see, or are blessed financially, say nothing. We can see that the lottery is an unfair tax on the poor, but to undo it means we might get taxed ourselves. Oh, the love of money is not just a problem that affects an individual who gets caught up by avarice. The love of money corrupts all that is good in a commonwealth. We are all victims, which is why the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Evil touches not the individual as much as it touches us all.
But preacher, you might say, if the state doesn’t run the lottery, people will just blow all that money in the numbers rackets, or by illegal gambling. The lottery helps control the effects of a basic human weakness, and provides revenues for the state to address social problems that result from human weakness.
And from that logic flows, Casinos are good because they create jobs. Destroys homes and families, but creates jobs.
It is not enough, in practicing biblical economics, to say, I won’t allow myself to develop this philargyria, this love of money. “Love of money” is a community disease like the flu that can rise to the epidemic proportion that can destroy us all, even if we do not catch the disease ourselves.
So what is the Christian to do? What vaccine will protect us? What can we do to stem the epidemic?
First, we must resist the pervasive influence and persuasion of a consumerist society. In our culture, we live between the Scylla of lots of attractive goods, and the Charybdis of self-worth being defined by our possessions. We live in a overheated capitalist economy that brings us goods cheaply, and at the same time, tempts us with goods we probably don’t need. I can’t tell you how much I hear parishioners speak of killing time in shopping malls and superstores buying things they admit to not needling. And, constantly, we are bombarded with media images of bigger houses, luxury cars and vacations, and expensive clothes.
I can easily fall victim here. I went to Best Buys last week to make a small purchase, and almost walked out with a new flat screen TV on which to watch the Phillies make the playoffs.
Second, we must take seriously all the lifestyle adjustments that come under the banner of “simple living,” and “making a low carbon impact.” Now, I know for many this seems just like the latest lefty trend or environmental fad, but, simply stated, “simple living” is a resistance movement against credit card debt, clutter, waste and healthy eating.
Here is an example that is not precise but I hope illustrative. Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States; if everyone who reported that buying and selling on eBay provided the majority of their household income, then eBay would be considered the second largest employer. Mini-storage, not housing, is the largest real estate industry. Do you see the relationship between these three factoids? We buy too much stuff, store it in space we don’t have, and sell it to each other (I admit there is nothing rigorous in these conclusions, but I have gleaned it from my wife’s research).
One of the richest women in the world is Zhang Yin. In 2006, her net worth was reported at $1.5 billion. She is the founder and owner of the Nine Dragon’s Paper Company, which ships surplus and discarded cardboard from the United States to China, where it is recycled into packaging for Chinese goods to be shipped to the United States. Then, the used cardboard is shipped back again to China! Good for Zhang Yin, but what does it tell us about our consumption?
Finally, I believe that giving more money away is the surest way to counteract the love of money that is the root of all evil. The word for giving money away is “charity,” but before “charity” meant giving money away, it simply meant love—boundless, transforming, sacrificial, unconditional love. Charity is the love that in its giving imparts value rather than measures value.
Once we see that the money we have is a blessing to be shared, rather than a possession to be horded, we need less, buy less, and give more away. We live simply that others may simply live.
I wonder, on the rare occasions that I play the lottery, that if I win a big jackpot, if I give it all away. What a foolish question.
With the blessings in my life, I have already won the jackpot. Why can’t I see that? Why give even a dollar to a lottery that trades on my fantasies of more money, even if that fantasy is about giving the money away?
I need to give away what I do have, not fantasize about keeping what I have, and giving away what I don’t have.
I end by repeating the final words of the reading from I Timothy: “As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”
How I want the life that really is life. Scripture is right; money has nothing to do with it.
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