Myths About Money
October 16, 2005
Ralph DiBiasio-Snyder

Mark 10:17-23, 1 Timothy 6:11-19

Introduction to the First Reading
The Gospel of Mark tells us about a challenging and poignant encounter between Jesus and a man who one day earnestly and sincerely asked Jesus about the meaning of real life. He "has it all," but senses there is something yet missing, and so he asks Jesus, "What must I do?" He gets his answer, but it was not one he wanted to hear. In fact, none of us would want to hear what Jesus told him to do. We who would "take hold of real life," often find the "things" in our lives taking hold of us. Jesus knows that possessions easily possess us, and he is not afraid to speak the truth to this man, and to us. Listen now as our Speakers of the Word tell us the story.

Introduction to the Second Reading

Now listen in on some good advice from an aging apostle to a young pastor perhaps just starting out as a church leader. The older man with the wisdom of age urges the young man to carry out his ministry with energy and courage and strength. "Run hard, and run fast in the faith," he says.
And then he talks about what Jesus and the man in the first reading were dealing with: how does one take hold of real, eternal life? And here again the answer has to do with money, and with not mistaking wealth with "life that is life indeed."


Well, it's Consecration Sunday again! As we are to be talking about money, and making pledges of money, I thought it would be good to see what we're talking about. So I brought a visual aid . . . Cold cash . . . lots of it! ($5,000)
How does having this much money in hand make us feel: you - amused, interested, attention-grabbing! Me - worried! A lot of money!
Amazed that I could get it!

"Only money" - Pieces of paper . . .Right? Try to burn one . . . . BUT . . . Not just money . . .

Can do a great deal, can't it?
+ Can buy groceries and heat our home for a year!
+ Drill two wells in Burkino Faso
+ 60 piles like this could fund all the church programs

Money can do wonderful things! But it can divide people too; couples fight about money, and nations go to war over money. It can be dangerous - deceiving! The Bible tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil . . . .
Money as an indicator of our deepest values: Where your heart is, so shall your treasure be . . . . . Or, Follow the money . . . it will take you to what you value most in life.

Someone last spring loaned me a copy of a book called The Soul of Money.  It was written by a woman named Lynn Twist, who for twenty years worked with  "The Hunger Project," a group that seeks to alleviate hunger and poverty throughout the world, especially by empowering women economically.  Through grants to efforts that address the root causes of hunger, The Hunger Project has made a great impact in the world.   Lynn Twist has spent decades raising funds for such projects - millions and millions of dollars!  She is a professional fund-raiser. 
            In the process, Twist came into contact with people all over the world, from the very rich to the very poor, meeting kings and presidents and CEOs, but also the poorest of the poor, and those of us in the middle as well.  In asking all of those people for funds, and talking with hundreds of people about what money is, and how it works, and how we feel about money, she came to identify what she calls the three toxic myths about money.  Joke about pronunciation!  I want to share with you those "three myths," because I think she is "right on the money."  Three myths - wrong understandings - about money that are shared not only by the rich, and the poor, but by you and me, all of us, all over the world.  See what you think.
 
Toxic Myth #One: There's not enough. 
             There's just not enough . . . of anything.  Not enough money, but not enough  time, not enough food, water, you name it.  In other words, we live in a world of scarcity.  There's  just not enough to around, and someone is going to be left out.  And it's not going to be me.  So I'd better get all I can, and hold tight to it.  Toxic myth #1 - There's never enough.  We believe in scarcity.
            Now, if I believe this first myth, if I believe in a world of scarcity, of deficiency, then I've got to be afraid.  And I am going to hold on to what I have, for if I let go of even a little then what will happen to me?  Twist writes,
Once we define our world as deficient, the total of our life energy, everything we think, everything we say, and everything we do - particularly with money - becomes an effort to overcome this sense of lack and the fear of losing to others, of being left out.
 
            That surely must have been in the mind of that man who asked Jesus how he could take hold of real life, eternal life.  "What do I have to do?"  he asked.  And you remember the answer:  Give it up.  No way, Jesus.  There's only so much to go around here, there's not enough for everybody,  and if I lose what I have, what will happen to me?
            If we as a society believe in scarcity, we set up systems and practices that protect what we have, that favor us, and limit access to what we believe to be scarce resources for those who don't have them.  We do it because we're afraid;  Scarcity is fear-based.  
            But the biblical world-view is not one of scarcity, where a shrinking pot of goods and services and wealth is to be fought over and walled off and selfishly clung to.   The God of the Bible is no stingy God,  a God who only reluctantly supplies our needs, who only grudgingly blesses creation.  No, we worship a God who abundantly supplies, who has created a world where, if we only had the will to do it, all could have enough.          
            In the world's response to  the great natural disasters of the past year, The lie of scarcity was shown to be the lie that it is.  When the tsunami hit last Christmas, we were stunned first by the devastation and then by the outpouring of generosity from the entire world.  Donations by individuals, faith groups, governments, corporations, were astounding - billions upon billions of dollars!   If we lived in a world of scarcity, where there's not enough, where did all that come from?
            Then of course most recently we have seen the world's response to our hurricane, Katrina.  It's difficult to get figures yet, and certainly money is still being raised to help the victims of that overwhelming event.  But corporate donations alone to date are double the corporate donations to the tsunami relief.
            If there is just not enough money out there, if we live in a world of scarcity, where do these billions and billions of dollars come from?   It's there; and yet we continue to believe there isn't enough, globally, and we believe that in our own households.  No matter how much you have, there's never enough - at least, that's what we think.

Toxic Myth # Two: More is Better.  The first myth - There is never enough - nurtures within us a continual sense of dissatisfaction, of failure, of discontentment and fear.  Myth # Two  - More is Better - introduces the drive to acquire.  If I don't have enough, I'd better get more, and more, and more.  If more is better, then no matter how much I have, more would be even better!  Again let me quote from The Soul of Money:         
 
The rush for more distances us from experiencing the deeper value of what we acquire or already have.  When we eat too fast or too much, we cannot savor any single bite of food.  When we are focused on the next thing - the next dress, the next car, the next job, the next vacation . . . .we hardly experience the gifts of that which we have right now. . . . More is better is a chase with no end and a race without winners.
 
            We all know that American culture is thoroughly steeped in the deeply held conviction that the key to happiness and the surest sign of a successful life is found in the acquisition of goods, and goods, and more and more goods. (Interesting that we call those material things "goods," isn't it?)   Consumerism practically a religion for us.  Our economy is predicated on our continual purchase of things we do not really need; we are consumers, born and bred, and it takes great effort to consciously reject the consumer messages that come at us from every angle.
            As I was reading this book last summer it happened that Lifefest was taking place at the fairgrounds.  I had just read about Toxic Myth #Two - More is Better - and read that very day that the theme of this huge Christian music festival was . . . . More is Better!   All of us fall victim to the lie that "more" will make us happy, and much more will make us much more happy.  And yet we know deep within, from disappointing experience, that more money or more things do nothing but offer false hope.
            What did we hear in the reading from Timothy about real life?  Was it get more things, and you'll find life?  Or was it this: life, real life, is found is "wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy."  Riches are found in "doing good, helping others, being extravagantly generous!"  More here IS better - but not more material things.  Instead, more love and grace and service, more wonder and joy!

Toxic Myth #Three: That's Just the Way It Is.   There's not enough for everyone, and the more I have the happier I'll be, and there's no way out of it; you can't change it, that's the way it is, so I guess I'll just have to play the game like everyone else.  Resigned to the status quo, entrapped in the mind set of scarcity, seduced to believe inane commercials that tell us how unhappy we are and how we need so much more,  poisoned by the toxic myths we are told to believe - and we all do to some extent -  it can feel like we could never change.
            But it is to change that God in Christ calls us.  Jesus told his disciples, "How difficult it is for people who ?have it all' to enter God's kingdom."  And it is!  Difficult!  But it's not impossible.  God calls us to change our way of thinking about things and about money, from scarcity to abundance, from greed to generosity, and God calls us to change because we can.
            We are called to change, and empowered to that change by God's Spirit within and among us.  We are called to change our minds; called to say of toxic myths # 1 and 2, yes, that's the way the world thinks and acts, and that's how I think a lot too, but that's not how God sees it; and I won't believe it anymore either!
            God sees a world of abundant resources, entrusted to the likes of us to make those resources serve all, so that all can have enough.  God calls us to take hold of real life, lest what we have been falsely told is real life takes hold of us, and chokes out the life of the Spirit within.   God calls us to be generous, even extravagantly generous with one another, and with the world beyond these walls.
            If you are a regular attender you received this week a letter from the Financial Stewardship Committee, asking you to carefully and honestly consider your estimate of giving for 2006.  They have asked us to think about an increase in our giving, an increase of a half a percent of our household income.  Just a half a percent of our income.  Putting it that way doesn't sound like a whole lot, does it!  If you translate that into a dollar amount it may sound like more.  In our case it comes to about a dollar a day.
            But if I believe there isn't enough right now to live on, I certainly can't spare even that!  And if I believe that getting more and more things is what I need to make me happy, then I could buy something - anything! - pretty cool with that $365. 
            But if I have enough already, as I do; and if I know that getting yet more will have exactly zero effect on my happiness, then surely I can spare a half a percent more to make the ministries of this church continue and broaden and deepen.