Living Consciously: money

Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Matthew 22:21

Money is really convenient. Having it makes life so much easier. Arguably, it’s essential to live (though I’m going to argue that it’s not). It’s certainly essential for a lot of things in American society. I’d have to say that it’s not as important as many people would like to believe though. Money isn’t entirely evil or anything like that, but it’s from human minds, not from God’s. Jesus wasn’t opposed to money, but if we live consciously we have to question our use and treatment of money.

(Though this is the first section I’ve written in this series, I’m sure we’ve encountered a major theme already: decisions made on the basis of “convenience” almost always deserve scrutiny. Our culture says convenience = good, but I don’t think Jesus would agree. Keep that in mind.)

Money isn’t necessary for church. Sure, church as a building with a budget and paid staff and identified ministries to support needs money to operate, but as I define church, all that stuff is extra. Church in its basic form doesn’t require money. It requires people. And it requires God. And fortunately people can’t be anywhere where God is not.

Money isn’t necessary for food. If you want to eat whatever you want whenever you want it, then yes, you’ll need money. I’m not bold enough to eat without spending money on food, but it is possible. You may quickly get tired of the seasonal vegetables a garden produces, but they’ll keep you alive.

Food will get its own post later in this series, but I want to share a Bible story that ties money and food together. In John 6 Jesus has a huge crowd following him, mostly because they’ve seen him miraculously heal the sick. Jesus then has a conversation with his disciples about how to feed such a vast crowd of people. Their conversation starts by talking about the tremendous amount of money necessary to feed 5000 men, plus women and children. Philip says it’d take a year’s wages for each person to have just a bite. Then Jesus goes on to show that money isn’t truly an obstacle. He creates more than enough food out of a few loaves and fish. In this story money was a false hope, a distracting lead, a red herring. If money is a god, then money just lost all credibility. If Jesus is God, then he just gained credibility.

Even though Jesus didn’t use money in that story, I think he showed us how you use our money. In decisions involving money, conscious living wonders if generosity should come into play. At Christmas time suddenly I’m faced with dozens of things I never knew I wanted before, but now I want them really, really badly! But, if I spend my money to buy those things for myself, then I have less money to spend generously for others. I have to insert another layer of thought and act more faithfully and less selfishly. Fortunately my family makes this less of an issue. I’ll selflessly spend my money on gifts for them and I’ll carefully drop a hint about that other thing I really need. I’ll rest assured knowing that someone else will practice their own generosity by purchasing it for me.

It’s easy to use money for security. I don’t think that’s where I want to be putting my trust though. I’d rather put my faith in God and, like I said earlier, money is humanly, not Godly. Currently I’m really low on money. I’ve been living in Baltimore as a volunteer for a year and paying off college loans. That’s not a recipe for riches. My security comes from the people of God who have been extremely generous to me throughout this year.

I’m quite sure that life works best when everyone is generous. Notice there I didn’t say that life works best when the rich people are generous. I may not be able to help someone out with a loan payment, but you better believe I’m willing to pay for you to go bowling with me. I won’t balance the church’s budget, but I’ll tithe my $50 monthly stipend. If someone else offers to pay the restaurant bill, then I’ll gratefully accept, but when the bill comes every time after that the other person better act quickly or I’ll be paying for them.

There’s a downside here. If I’m generous with my money, then next time I want to buy something I might not be able to. Yep, that’s true. If I have $20 and I spend it on someone else, then I can’t spend it on me. If it’s something I want, then I’ll have to do without and I won’t die. If it’s something I need, then I’ll turn to someone else and humbly ask for help. I think you’ll find that people are more generous with their money that you expected. (Relationships like this will also get a post later in the series.)

Generosity extends far beyond money, by the way. I haven’t mentioned that, but it’s true. We have much more to give each other than just money.

I wrote about this topic first because I thought it’d be one of the shorter ones. Either I was mistaken and this was one of the longer posts, or I was mistaken in assuming these posts would be short. I could write a ton more and tell a lot more stories, but I’m going to stop.

What do you have to share about the faithful use of money? Have you had any experiences when an extra layer of thought was used in your money decision-making?