Week 23 Sunday
Week 23 Sunday
A Road with a Dead End—Undedicated Money
James 4:13-17
We must pause to consider a road that perhaps more than any other leads to self-atrophy: the road of undedicated money.
Jesus mentioned two things that choked the growing wheat and made it unfruitful, “As for him who is sown ‘among thorns,’ that is the man who listens to the word, but the worry of the world and the delight of being rich choke the word; so it proves unfruitful” (Matt. 13:22 Moffatt). Here “worry” and “the delight of being rich” are classed as the two outstanding enemies of growth.
Now note that Jesus didn’t say that “riches’’ was Enemy No. 1, but “the delight of being rich,” that is, riches as an end in itself. The delight was in the thing itself rather than in what it could do. It was undedicated wealth. Had the delight been in what could be done through the riches to help others, it would have saved it from decay. But the riches became an end in itself, hence became Mammon, became God. And Jesus said, “You cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Matt. 6:24 Moffatt). You can serve God with mammon, but you cannot serve God and Mammon. Note that Mammon becomes mammon when it is a servant of the will of God, but when it is an end in itself, then it is Mammon, a god; a false god that determines destiny, a destiny that becomes decay.
“Is not life more than food?” asks Jesus (Matt. 6:25). No, says the biochemist; life is food. You are what you eat. Life = food, says the biochemist; life = emotion, says the sensualist; life = money, says the materialist; life = Christ, says the Christian. To the Christian, Christ is supreme. He controls the food, the emotions, the money. They are servants of a divine purpose, hence purified and redeemed. Without that purpose, the purification turns into putrefaction. There is a legendary Muslim quotation from Jesus, “He who longs to be rich is like a man who drinks sea-water; the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes, and never leaves off drinking till he perishes.”*
Jeremiah speaks of “idols” that “break down when the test arrives” (Jer. 10:15 Moffatt). The idols that break down when the test arrives are these: egocentricity, power, fame, and money.
O Christ, who enriched the world without riches, help me to take my riches—small or great—and make them the instrument of your purposes. Your purposes purify. I would have my wealth dedicated to the purpose of your kingdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “A grasping nature is its own undoing” (Prov. 15:27 Moffatt).
*Frederic William Farrar, The Life of Christ, vol. 2 (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1874), 500.
Week 23 Monday
A Straight, Safe Course for Our Goods?
James 2:14-16
Two attitudes with two results, “Woe to the careless citizens, . . . dining off fresh lamb and fatted veal, crooning to the music of the lute, composing airs like David himself, lapping wine by the bowlful . . . with never a single thought for the bleeding wounds of the nation” (Amos 6:1, 4-6 Moffatt). Result? “So now . . . that dissolute crew shall disappear” (v. 7). Those who care nothing for the bleeding wounds of a nation shall decay and disappear.
But here is another picture, “Then I proclaimed a fast . . . , that we might humble ourselves before our God and obtain from him a straight, safe course for ourselves, our children, and our goods” (Ezra 8:21 Moffatt). Result? The people rebuilt the temple, a lasting memorial.
Are we asking for “a straight, safe course for our goods”? That is doubtful. Eighty-five percent of the income of the United States is spent for living; 12 percent is saved or put in various investments; 3 percent goes to schools, hospitals, and churches—the culture, the curative, and the spiritual. Only 3 percent into the spiritual! And the point is that if you didn’t spend that 3 percent, what about the 97 percent? It wouldn’t be worth anything; it would go to pieces.
“One gives away, and still he grows the richer: another keeps what he should give, and is the poorer. . . . Life thrives like a tree on generosity, but grasping greed is death to men” (Prov. 11:24, 30 Moffatt). If we do not take God into partnership with our material life, then a curse will rest upon our riches. “But what he won he cannot keep, the harvest of his gain he cannot reap” (Job 15:29 Moffatt). We cannot take it with us when we leave this life; “There are no pockets in a shroud.” Only that which is laid up in unbreakable banks, banks of character, will remain. Said an oilman to a missionary, as both were evacuated from Malaya with the coming of the Japanese, “My life work has gone into oil wells, which I had to blow up; your life has gone into people, into their character and development. My life work has gone; yours will remain. I’ve failed; you’ve succeeded.” The only permanent investment is an investment in people.
O Christ of the productive way of life, make me productive. I want to make my life count for the utmost. To this end take what I have accumulated and touch it into creative love. I turn it over to you to be used under your guidance and direction. It is no longer mine; it is yours. We work it out together. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Man thinks out many a plan, but ’tis the Eternal’s purpose that prevails” (Prov. 19:21 Moffatt).
Week 23 Tuesday
Some Steps to Freedom
Luke 7:2-5
How can we relate life to the material, so that the material becomes an investment instead of an incubus? The material can be a weight or it can be wings; it can make us sigh or make us sing. A prosperous farmer gave three dollars a year to the church for many years. As he was signing the usual three-dollar check, the pastor remarked very quietly, “I wonder why God doesn’t paralyze your arm as you sign that. You ought to give five hundred dollars now as a thank offering.” Those blunt words struck straight home. The two men knelt in the barnyard, and the farmer surrendered himself and his money to God. He told his wife what had happened, and she replied. “I’ve been praying for that for years.” He gave three five-hundred-dollar gifts that year. His whole soul was loosed. He was a free man and happy.
In order to bring the material relationships of life under the control of the Way, perhaps you will decide to take the following steps:
(1) I have decided that God is owner. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Ps. 24:1 CEB). I have been acting as if I were owner, in other words, as if I were God. But I’m not God; God is God. I abdicate; God takes the throne. God is owner, and I am ower. “The government will be upon his shoulder” (Isa. 9:6)—not mine. I obey. That relationship is pegged down. That is our starting point from which we work out.
(2) 1 will set aside one tenth of my income as acknowledgment of God’s ownership. This does not discharge my total obligation in the matter, but it does set aside a portion as a symbol, a symbol of God’s total ownership. Just as one pays rent as acknowledgment of the ownership of the landlord, so I pay one tenth as acknowledgment of God’s ownership over the remaining nine tenths.
(3) The remaining nine tenths still belong to God and must be used under God’s guidance. I believe that God’s will is always my highest interest, that God is not out looking for a chance to impoverish me, but seeking to enrich me. So I look for God’s guidance, not grudgingly but gladly.
O God, my gracious Lord, you who made me to live in a body, and who wills that soul and body may accord well, help me to get my material relations straight, so that I shall make the material not an enemy to be fought but an ally to be sought. Help me to find you in my material relationships. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “For the authorities were senseless, seeking no guidance from the Eternal; so they had no success, and all their folk are scattered” (Jer. 10:21 Moffatt).
Week 23 Wednesday
Shall I Tithe My Income?
James 5:1-6
(4) I see that the principle upon which God guides me concerning the nine tenths is this; I have a right and duty to use as much of the material as will make me more physically, mentally, and spiritually fit the purposes of the kingdom of God. Need is the criterion. Here I will have to be sensitized, sensitized by the Holy Spirit. Here my conscience will have to be trained to distinguish between need and not need. Yesterday I was on the lake, and I pulled in my oars and let my boat drift. As I looked at the surrounding water, I could see no drift at all. Only as I lifted my eyes to the shoreline and watched a fixed point could I see how much I was drifting. In this matter, if I look around me, watch what others are doing, and catch their unguided ways, I shall have no sense of drift. Only as I fix my eyes on Christ and watch for his approval shall I know whether I am within need or drifting beyond it.
I know it is possible to pay the tribute of one tenth as a mental license to do what I choose with the nine tenths, to buy God off as it were. In Belo-Horizone, Brazil, the municipality determined that casino grounds, where gambling was the chief attraction, were to be established outside the city. At the very center of this one-time Brazilian Monte Carlo is a church put up by the municipality. The church is dedicated to Francis of Assisi, and the central mural depicts him renouncing the world. The mental compensation of the municipality was this: having paid tribute to the renunciation of the world, as depicted in Francis, we are now free to embrace the world! It did not seem to me just chance that the futuristic spire outside the church had its apex stuck in the ground with its base above! The whole thing was topsy-turvy and always will be when religion is dragged in to give an air of moral respectability to our vices. I see that. And I must not consider my giving one tenth as a license to be free to do as I like with the nine tenths. My needs must be honest, honestly arrived at in the light of other people’s needs. For all beyond my actual needs belongs to the needs of others. If I take from their needs, I am guilty of theft.
O Christ, I am coming under the sway of your creative Spirit. You are sensitizing my inmost being. May there be your gentle block when I am about to go beyond my needs. For I know your blocks are really your blessings. You take away on one level only to give abundantly on a higher level. So I trust you completely. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My money can be paralyzing or productive. I choose it will be productive.
Week 23 Thursday
I Am Master; the Material Is the Servant
Luke 14:12-14
(5) Until society takes over responsibility for sickness and old age and makes adequate provision for them, I have a right and a duty to make reasonable provision tor both sickness and old age. For if I do not, then it will fall on charity or on my relatives. I believe that it is the responsibility of society to look after me when I am made incapacitated for work, provided I contribute to society to the best of my ability when I am well and able to contribute. These two principles are inherent in the Christian Scriptures, “To each according to his needs” (see Acts 2:45), and “From each according to his abilities” (see 2 Thess. 3:10). And those who don’t give to society according to their abilities should not get according to their needs. Chrysostom, the church father, says, “To grow rich without injustice is impossible. . . . [God] made many things common, as the sun, air, earth and water, the heavens, the sea, the light, the stars. . . . God brings us together in every way we are eager to divide and separate ourselves by appropriating things, and using those cold words ‘mine’ and thine.’ ”* The only way to take injustice out of riches is by dedicating them to the needs of others, keeping only that which is necessary for our own needs.
(6) As I have taken the above steps, I can now live, not on the unblessed material, but on the blessed. What I shall keep for myself will have the touch of God’s blessing upon it; it will go further and will enrich in the going. Then the material will become the sacramental. Then it will become something to rejoice in instead of something to be afraid of. Besides, I remember this promise, “God is able to bless you with ample means, so that you may always have quite enough for any emergency of your own and ample besides for any kind act to others” (2 Cor. 9:8 Moffatt).
(7) I am no longer afraid of the material. I am master; the material is the servant. The material is my servant because I am now the servant of Christ. As I belong to him, so now all things belong to me. I do not belong to them; they belong to me, for I belong to Christ. I am free! A big landowner showed a poet his acres, “Everything you can see belongs to me.” “Oh, no,” said the poet; “everything I can see belongs to me.” It did!
O Christ, I feel emancipation going through my blood. I am delivered from the bondage of the material. It is now my servant. I shall use it in the purposes of your kingdom, shall send it winging its way to heal and bless and create and redeem. Like Mary, your mother, each material thing I have can say, “I am here to serve the Lord.” Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “But when he attained power, he became haughty, and that ruined him” (2 Chron. 26:16 Moffatt).
*St. John of Chrysostom, quoted in Irwin St. John Tucker, A History of Imperialism (Rand School of Social Science, 1920), 171–72.
Week 23 Friday
Some Illustrations of Defeat—and Victory
Luke 12:13-21
This matter of our relationship to material wealth is so important that we must continue our meditation upon it.
A rich man, with a streak of meanness, left a very large sum of money for a monument to himself. The shaft was struck by lightning three or four times. Now just a broken shaft is there. Whether God knocked down that shaft with lightning is a question, but if God hadn’t done it, people would have. For every time anyone who knew the man looked at the monument, they would have shattered it by their estimate of the man. That man saved his life and lost it.
Into the section of the country where I am writing, two men came. One was a doctor, ill with tuberculosis. But doctors were needed so desperately that he was carried to bedsides to attend people. The doctor became so interested in the people of the Adirondacks that he lived on—and how! A great tuberculosis sanitarium and the Trudeau Foundation came into being. The doctor’s name is a benediction. Another man came into this country, made money and lots of it. To add a cubit to his stature, he left money for a college to be named after himself. It was never built; lawyers are still squabbling over it. His name has a bad odor. The wealth of Dr. Trudeau is healing, creative wealth.
I sat by the bedside of a beautiful soul, A. A. Hyde, of Wichita. Years ago, he gave a subscription to a public project that business reverses made impossible to pay. He might have taken the easy way out. He didn’t. He paid his pledge and went broke in doing so. Forced to find a way to support his family, he hit upon the idea of a healing salve. He made a compact with God and himself to give a certain large percentage of all his future profits to the extension of Christianity through foreign missions. Today this salve (Mentholatum Ointment) has the largest sale in foreign lands of any American salve. Missionaries used it and introduced it. It spread. The touch of a great dedication was upon it. Hyde and his money live—they are immortal.
O Christ, I know that you can touch me and my earnings and change them from death to life. I offer to you all I am and all I earn. Use me and it for the enriching of an impoverished world. You have me. Help me to live under your guidance and to be a steward of all you entrust to me. For I would live and live fully. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “There should be no poor among you . . . , provided that you are attentive to the voice of the Eternal your God” (Deut. 15:4 Moffatt).
Week 23 Saturday
Empty Futility amid Plenty
Luke 12:22-31
There are two drives in human nature: the self-regarding and the other-regarding. If the self-regarding drive is in the saddle, you are ridden to empty futility, no matter how much you accumulate. One of the richest men of this century arose in a meeting and said, “I’ve given so much time and attention to the thing I really care little about, namely, money, and so little time to the things I really care about, namely, spiritual things, that I wonder if I’ve spent my life wisely.” Many people “spend the first half of their lives expending health to gain wealth and the second half of their lives expending wealth to gain health.”
A US doctor, an expert in hospital construction, was asked by a committee from Montevideo, Uruguay, how much he would charge to plan a hospital for them. He set his fee at $100,000. The committee saw him again, told him of the needs of their great little republic, asked him if he would do it as a contribution to friendship, for nothing. He said he would. He put up one of the most wonderful hospitals in the world and saved millions of dollars for them on their plans. He is loved by Uruguayans, who take their visitors, as they took me, to see the monument to the man. The self-regarding said: $100,000 is the price! The other-regarding said: I’ll do it for love! Had the doctor responded to the first motive, we would have forgotten him; but he responded to the second, and we can’t forget him.
Twenty years ago, Russia was starving.* The Midwest had a surplus of wheat. They gave it to the Russians, railroads carried it free, grain elevators handled it for nothing, and ships carried it gratis. It saved the farmers—their prices stayed up—and it saved the Russians; and it left a deposit of goodwill in the souls of both peoples.
A porter groaned as he picked up my heavy bags. “You carry your gold around with you, don’t you?” I could say that I did! My “gold” was within—peace, harmony, God! Obeying God brings that!
A proverb puts it thus, “That which I spent I had; that which I kept I lost; that which I gave I have.”
O Christ, who said, “I am the light of the world,” we know that you are still the light of the world, especially the light of the world of things. Help me today to take the Way, and then I shall walk in the light. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “One gives away, and still he grows the richer; another keeps what he should give, and is the poorer” (Prov. 11:24 Moffatt).
*The Russian famine of 1921 killed an estimated 6 million people.