I’ve been battling recently with strong feelings on how the church, and how I personally spend my money. Of course, that may lead me to the first problem, “my money”, but that aside, this must be considered.
The Sermon on the Mount is littered with truths that point to the needs of others and provide a very clear dichotomy between the wealthy and the poor. Jesus’ life itself is a life that could not be defined by comfort, luxury, or even a house. On a couple of accounts when Jesus is confronted by the wealthy he makes giving all that you have to the needy synonymous with salvation! But even with all of this in mind, we have no desire to give up those things that we love.
For example, I pay 10 dollars a month just for DVR, (recording live TV). Through a local organization here in the Chicago area, I could produce 60 meals a month for people that are starving around the world. When I put those dollars in terms of human lives, all of the sudden recording live TV seems selfish, arrogant, and completely contradictory to the message of Jesus. And truly this DVR is certainly at the far end of the desires vs. needs spectrum. There are many things in between what I really need and DVR that I could certainly eliminate so as to physically redeem this fallen world.
Because that’s truly the issue. Evil has permeated so deeply that sins effects are not just spiritual. The effects of sin are physical too. But we as pastors, leaders, believers, church goers, or tithe-check writers, consume ourselves with the salvation of the unsaved, the modification of the immoral, and bantering about the latest theological controversy. Certainly the spiritual landscape is bleak and in need of redemption, but how can we call ourselves redemptive and not be concerned with the struggles of the lesser in our communities. The government doesn’t care, and many right-wing evangelicals scream till they are blue in the face about those that are sucking up the welfare system. Why don’t YOU feed them!
Right here in our towns, in our homes, in our back yards, we have souls that are in pain, we have stomachs that growl with a vengeance, we have fellow human beings fairing winters in the cold, and we smugly walk out of our heated, elite churches and call ourselves Jesus. Though my checkbook echoes this same mentality, I fear the day that I will stand before him and give account for all of the months of DVR that I have purchased. When he asks me, why didn’t you feed them, clothe them, or give them shelter? What will I say? What will you say?