So we're into week two of the series on finances, but last week when I was preparing the sermon on "What does the Bible say about money?" I felt a lot of anxiety and sadness because the Bible says far too much to explain in one sermon, without just listing off bullet points. I settled on focusing in on one main theme - the dangerous blessing of money and talents.
However, I realized that our series needs something more. Every sermon scheduled in the series (overview, debt, saving, giving) focuses on personal finances. There is no macro-view, no overall statement of the Bible's teaching on an economically just society.
The Bible actually teaches a great deal about economic justice, maybe even more on this than on personal finances. Also, economic justice is both near to my heart and one of the least understood themes of the Bible.
Soooooooo, I'm adding one sermon to the series on financial peace: Biblical Economics. The focus will be on alleviating poverty, adjusting social structures to give poor people a fair chance, and the failure of religion to take seriously the needs of the world and our responsibility to help. I'll be preparing for it today and writing it tomorrow. Sorry for the lack of warning here, but if you have any comments, post them quick.
2 comments:
I've been getting more and more disturbed lately by realizing just how rich I am. Yes, I can't buy the latest car or a big new house or designer clothes but I essentially have an outrageous amount of money to spend every month not on food, clothing or shelter.
About 1 Billion people around the world live in extreme poverty (less than $1 a day)...what if we were actually serious about giving some of our money to the poorest of the poor? It really wouldn't affect us that much but would make a huge difference in their lives. This has to happen at the individual, Church and governmental levels.
I'm really glad you decided to talk about this. And perhaps the idea of "personal financial peace" and "economic justice" are interrelated. It seems to me that a misguided idea about the meaning of "financial peace" is one of the roots of economic injustice. In other words, part of the reason there is such a huge and growing gap between rich and poor (nothing new, in terms of world history) is that people equate personal financial peace with getting more and more money and stuff for themselves. The Christian view is rather that financial peace has a lot to do with being able to share with othes. Of course prosperity is a good thing. It's just that love for our neighbor means wishing for other people to have that good thing themselves, and doing what we can to help make that happen.
Then again, there is the more radical view of, say, Simone Weil, for whom any sort of prosperity in the face of the suffering of others was reprehensible. It might be interesting to talk about just how far we "should" go, and the problems that come with drawing lines.
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