It would be easy to jump to one side or the other; we can believe that God prefers the poor or that prosperity is a sign of God’s favor. There is biblical support for both ideas, but it isn’t that simple. The most misquoted passage in the Bible is “Money is the root of all evil.” The actual verse from 1 Timothy 6: 10 is “For the love of money is a root of all things evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.” Anything that we love or serve more than God becomes an idol, and idol worship is just about the worst thing a believer in God can do. The love of money is greed, and we often lift greed up as a virtue to be desired, calling it other words that are more palatable.
The same can be said for the supposed nobility of the poor. Jesus said that the poor would always be with us, but I doubt He said it because being poor is something to be desired. We are pretty sure that, regardless of what prosperity/greed preachers say, Jesus was, Himself. poor. He was the stepson of a day laborer and a victim of an oppressive, blood-sucking empire. He said that He had no place to lay His head, which may have meant He was homeless. We know He stayed in other people’s homes quite often; He traveled a lot for work. Poverty, for His particular faith, was generally caused by economic inequity, which is why, I think, He called for a year of Jubilee – a time when all debts were forgiven and property returned to those it was stolen from. If you don’t believe in equity, you can’t be fully committed to God’s work in the world.
Money was the thing Jesus spoke about the most, yet we still often think of it as a necessary evil. I have been poor, and it is no fun. The vast majority of the poor work as hard as I do, yet because their work is not as valued by most of society, they don’t earn enough to have basic necessities. The hardest-working people I know get paid very little for their labor, and too many rich people benefit from that work without fairly paying their employees. That inequity is what often gets God riled up in the Bible. Too many of us love money more than we love people. And I do not begrudge anyone their hard-earned pay; if you take the risks financially, you should reap the rewards. Not, however, on the backs of those who are making you rich.
God doesn’t bless us with wealth, nor does God punish us with poverty. We are responsible for our own welfare and the welfare of others. We are responsible to God to be generous in our support of our religious and non-profit institutions that are doing good in our communities. God doesn’t send direct deposits to our faith communities; we are the ones expected to be generous. God’s love and generosity is abundant and extravagant; ours should be too.
Prayer – Holy and merciful God, show us how to love each other in ways that support equality and justice. Amen.
Today’s art is “Greed” by Stefany Fisher.