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God's Intent For Our "Treasure"
by Jan Sullivan, Ministry of Money Co-Director
Jesuit priest Fr. John Haughey, has written,
"We read the Gospel as if we have no money,
and we spend money as if there is no Gospel."
That strikes me as true, both for myself and from my experience with others. There is a huge polarity between the cultural messages we hear about money, wealth and possessions and what scripture says about them.
For example: "more and bigger is better" vs. "live simply, be content with what you have." "You are what you possess" vs. "you are a child of God made in God's image" "Take care of #1" vs. "love and serve others." "Get all you can while you can" vs. "give yourself away."
What messages do you hear more often? What do you listen to more often? What might your checkbook log or credit card statement say about which one you pay more attention to?
This is not to say that we're bad people or bad Christians or that we don't want to follow Jesus. We believe in charity, in sharing with those who have less, in loving our neighbor as ourselves as an expression of our love for God. But believing in Jesus and following Jesus can be very different things -- especially when it comes to money.
I believe that we receive far more when we generously share what we have. I've seen it to be true, most especially among the poor living in the developing world. The 'wealth' and 'prosperity' promised in scripture is not necessarily more money, more possessions, or more power and influence over others as defined by our cultural messages. But the riches of community, relationship, hospitality, integrity, peace, gratitude, connectedness and grace far exceed those of a new car, designer shoes or a bigger house. God's gifts to us are always grander and more magnificent than the superficial ones our culture entices us with. And they are everlasting.
We First-World people of God need to talk about money, really talk about it -- to take it out of the closet and expose it to light, expose it to the economic realities 2/3rds of the world's population already knows. We need to explore and better understand Jesus' teachings about it, and begin to follow Jesus with our wallets too. It is an amazing, life-changing and open-hearted journey that I invite you to begin or, if you've already begun, to travel further along the path with others by your side. Together, with commitment and courage, and by the grace of God, we can begin a new way of living that benefits and cares for all God's people and not just a few.
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