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In this second part of "The Eye of the Needle - Christians and their Money", Dr. Donelly examines the assertions of Christ about poverty of spirit, and what this means for wealth.[CLICK HERE for Part One] Finally -- or maybe this is what he was saying all along -- Jesus was convinced that money hindered the internal freedom which he called the poverty of spirit.
Jesus spent a lot of time talking about money and what it could buy because he knew that it creates the illusion that it is all anyone needs. Therefore, people who had a lot of money, or those who hoarded it or were greedy with their relative share of it, tended to need him less. The bottom line, as they are wont to call it these days, is whether you believe that Jesus saves or money saves, whether money talks or the gospel does. Jesus was sure you couldn’t have it both ways: "You cannot serve two masters" (Matt. 6:24).
Because there can be only one way, it is necessary for the follower of the gospel to sense a real and blessed harmony (Luke 6:20) between external poverty and interior poverty, because that harmony validates Christian discipleship and keeps us honest about what our commitments really are.
What does it look like to live the internal freedom of the poor in spirit? What, in other words, are the side-effects of living the gospel teaching on money and possessions? I count five things.
1. To live this way prevents us from thinking that because money is scarce, or even unavailable, nothing can be accomplished. We need only to glimpse the vitality of the church in the poorest areas of the world to know that the Holy Spirit is not confined to large budgets, endowments and foundation support. This truth also underscores the fatuousness of arguments holding that the ideal is to be a rich Christian who shares his or her plenty with the economically deprived.
2. The internal freedom born of the gospel teaching on money lets us see that no one owns money, any more than anyone is absolute owner of the earth. Money is a human invention that facilitates the transfer and distribution of goods and must always be at the service of-justice.
3. Curiously, the gospel spirit of detachment and non-clinging with regard to money allows us to use it more freely. When a woman poured expensive ointment over the head of Jesus (Matt. 26:6-13), it was the disciples who computed the cost and calculated the gesture as an extravagance since, they insisted, the money involved could have been better invested. Jesus, on the other hand, did not reprimand the woman or condemn the gesture, possibly because he knew that giving with largesse is a form of poverty; such a giver is not bound to a cost-accounting process but responds, rather, to the inner logic of love.
4. Believing and acting on the gospel allows us to trust that the poor way -- the gospel way -- never fails. Ultimate victory results because the gospel persistently raises hard questions about the things everyone takes for granted. In particular, it calls into question certain perennial human assumptions: that suffering and pain are to be avoided at all costs; that the more one consumes, the better off one is; and that the goal of life is to have. James Carroll writes that "Jesus Christ comes as the horrible sign to us that religion without suffering is meaningless; that life without suffering love is a lie, and that an affluent Christian life is a sacrilege."
5. Finally, the most pressing issue in the world today -- political, economic and moral -- is the fact that a minority of human beings pursue without limits their own pleasure, while the majority pay for that privilege with their very lives. The militarism of today’s ethic is simply our collective expression of a personal conviction that we do not trust God, or that we trust God a little bit while hedging our bets with nest eggs, pension plans and MX missiles.
Thinking about money, unpleasant as it may be, exposes the inner division many of us experience with regard to the subject, for our hearts so often tell us one thing and our heads another. Thinking about money also refocuses the issues of trust and security. A resource book on my desk from the Sojourners group is called My People. I Am Your Security, and that title is neither sentiment nor slogan but the very rock of reality.
Of Francis of Assisi’s "sublime dependence" on God, G. K. Chesterton wrote: "That we all depend in every detail, at every instant, as a Christian would say upon God . . . is not an illusion of the imagination; on the contrary, it is the fundamental fact which we cover up, as with curtains, with the illusion of ordinary life."
About The Author: Dr. Donnelly is associate professor of religious studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland. This article appeared in the Christian Century, April 27, 1983, pp. 400-402. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation.
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In this second part of "The Eye of the Needle - Christians and their Money", Dr. Donelly examines the assertions of Christ about poverty of spirit, and what this means for wealth.[CLICK...
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