The Simple Pastor
By Phil Whittall, church planter, blogger & book reviewer
RT @lukedvd: Hope his resignation from the England manager job will allow @JoelVirgo to focus on his church duties #nomorehairdye 17 hrs ago
But even if it is legitimate to not apply Jesus’ instruction in Mt 19:21 it’s quite a bit harder to avoid Luke 12:33 where Jesus repeats the instruction (not suggestion or advice) but this time to his disciples, the ones who will inherit the kingdom (Lk 12:32).
And yet, at least for me, it remains an incredibly difficult thing to do. Yet because this is genuinely difficult I think that reveals something to me about my heart so perhaps I need to do it. In the next 6 months or so we’ll move countries and it’s a perfect opportunity to put this into practice. But it’s hard. Right now it’s a position of compromise. There’s plenty of stuff we’ll simply give away to anyone who’ll take it. So it might not go to the poor or needy. Some stuff we’ll give to charity who will sell it and give the money to the poor (close enough). Today they received around 100 books (barely made a dent in the shelves) from us as a start.
But then there are things like the car, the motorbike which we’ll sell and then keep the cash. We will after all by going to Sweden become poor or at least poorer (ie with no source of income and dependant on others generosity) so that feels like good stewardship. Or is it living by sight? I can easily give away those things of little value but something that to me amounts to some serious cash is much much harder. But why should that be the case? Perhaps because I am of little faith, perhaps because I am afraid.
Perhaps the point, though, is not necessarily what answer I come up with (after I genuinely do believe in God’s grace and freedom in this) but that I actually wrestle with the question. Am I being obedient to Jesus’ in this instruction, am I trusting and living by faith here? After all a disciple is one who obeys all he commanded (Mt 28: 20).
Of course if this becomes a law which we must follow to become righteous then we’re in trouble. My only chance is to sell and keep on selling, I find my righteousness in my lack of things but 1 Cor 13:3 warns me against such folly. Instead Jesus (and Paul) say something very different. If we have love and I’d argue that means we have received God’s love (1 Jn 4:10) then we need not fear, for God has already given. We give because He has already given. We don’t give to get, we give because we have. Although what we have requires faith, because we have a promise. A promise that giving away now means eternal reward. Giving becomes an opportunity to put my treasure and my heart in a beautiful place – in the kingdom of Jesus.
HT: Challies
Which is why it’s important what we teach our kids about money (click here for a summary). We live in age of unparalleled consumer credit, where technology is inescapable and there’s no reason to expect that to change much any time soon.
So, if you live anywhere near Shrewsbury, you might want to come to this event next Thursday (facebook event)to learn more about how we can live well in a consumer culture, we need a conspiracy of freedom. Do come if you can, I’m sure it’s going to be a great night.
I first had to ask myself do we need a car at all? Not what sort of car but just any car. The answer is a yes and no. We could, of course, live without a car but it is a different sort of life we’d live. As my friend Jeremy says in his review of Car Sick,
“Unfortunately, we have structured our whole way of life around cars – to get to work, do the shopping, meet friends, or take children to school. Fifty years of motoring has radically re-ordered our towns and cities around the automobile, and it is hard to do without one even if you want to.”
And that’s what we found, hard to do and right now too hard for us. So while we could do without a car for many away from Shrewsbury trips, public transport in town is quite poor. Another friend, relayed to me how it would cost his wife and three kids £10 to make the short-ish 2.5 mile journey to the hospital by bus and return. In the end the sheer inconvenience and hassle of it told us we weren’t ready for (or possibly not brave enough) a life without a car.
The second issue we had to grapple with was generosity. We’d been given money by various people (who having seen our old car took pity on us) and their gifts were for a replacement car. You honour the giver and the gift by using it as intended. God has blessed us with friends who love us, care for us and incredibly generous to us.
I have to say I’ve been hugely fortunate when it comes to transport. I’ve owned (including this new one) 6 cars and I’ve been given 4 of them. Every time I get into the car I drive I have reason to be thankful, grateful and humble.
Then, from generosity we needed to think as stewards. The 19 year old, 164000 mile Golf has been a great car. Worth every one of the £750 we paid for it more than 5 years ago. But at the same time we were given a substantial gift for a new car, our old one needed around £400 spending on it to get it through the next MOT. Was it good stewardship to sit on a gift and spend money on the old car? We thought not.
By now we’ve decided the right thing to do was to replace the old car but what with? Our criteria was something that would hopefully (barring the arrival of quads or quins) should see last our family some time. We wanted something economical, efficient, safe, reliable and within our budget. We weren’t going to borrow for this.
So what did we get? A 2004 Skoda Octavia 1.9 TDi Elegance with 45000 miles on the clock. Diesel is better than petrol and it can (I think) run on bio-diesel which is something I’ll definitely be researching. It it is economical, hopefully reliable, cheaper to tax and with less emissions than our old trusty Golf, should last us ages. It is also fun to drive and a bit more comfortable.
We’re seeing how we can give the Golf to someone so it will be a blessing to them too.
What have I learnt? One that my car was a symbol of my simplicity, I worried that with a new car people would judge me as consumerist and someone who doesn’t practice what he preaches. My old car was my way of showing how simply I lived. It did become a weird badge of honour. I’ve a long way to go to free myself of consumerism and its trappings but being a joyless moaner isn’t the way to go.
Job, like Abraham, is held up as an example that God thinks being rich is OK. If being rich in and of itself were bad then why would God bless Job? It’s a reasonable argument but the Bible also tells us that wealth is dangerous – wealth can deceive you (Mk 4:19). God it seems is putting dangerous goods into Job’s hands. It’s a bit like giving my baby son Noah the spoon while I’m feeding him. He could get it in his mouth or he could spray mushed carrot all over the room. It’s a dangerous move.
But God didn’t seem to have any such doubts because he knew the character and heart of the men in question. Job reveals the reason for such confidence in chapter 31. Job recognises that all he has came from God in the first place (Job 31:15). Job understands that generosity to the poor is the responsibility of the rich (Job 31:16-22) and perhaps most importantly Job doesn’t trust in gold or riches (Job 31:24-25) he trusts in God. God trusts Job because Job trusts God. God knows that when he gives great riches to Job it won’t pull him away, make him selfish and proud and Job won’t take from God what he is due (trust and faith) and give it instead to gold and money.
So, if you’re rich or God blesses you with greater riches (and remember that if you reading this then from a global perspective you are rich) don’t trust in it, don’t forget who to thank and don’t forget to be generous. Of course understanding what generous is, will help.
Security whether it’s national security protecting your country from terrorism or personal security protecting your home from thieves, it’s a given these days that we have a right to be kept safe from harm. It is our inalienable right to this and more.
Of course these rights are pretty thinly spread around the globe – security is a distant dream for those in Darfur or Eastern Congo or Afghanistan. Or closer to home for children like Baby P or the women trafficked into prostitution.
But we’ve extended the idea of security ever further. Insuring everything in sight has contributed to this. We want not merely our persons and freedoms to be secure but we also want our possessions and dreams to be secure.
We now see it as right to retire as early as possible, as a right to be rich and well fed, it is a right to not having anyone disturb my peace, and it is my right to safeguarded from harm to have all my needs met and to know they will be met as far as advance as possible. Closely connected to this is the idea that it must always be someone else’s fault when something goes wrong. When a house floods it’s the government’s fault for not building flood defences not my fault for living next to a river.
It’s no surprise that we increasingly want ever greater security over the here and now because we’ve lost touch with the eternal, we have no confidence in the kingdom that will never end. Not now, not later. When you think now is all you’ve got then you need to hold on to it as tightly as possible and protect is hard as you can.
Psalm 91:2 becomes difficult to say when you have a life plan that is centred around your comfort and convenience rather than his kingdom and glory. Instead it becomes ‘I will say to my job prospects/stockmarket/ property prices/ pension plan/ daddy’s fortune/ government bailout “my refuge and my fortress, in whom I trust”‘
That’s not to say we shouldn’t plan for the future, but any future provision is so that we can continue serving the king and His kingdom when paid employment is no longer an option not so we can be safe and secure.
True security comes from living in the will of God and focusing on that (Luke 12:27-31) but most of us don’t believe that enough to sacrifice comfort for calling or give up pleasures for purpose. The steps are often small ones to step out and give a little time here, to give a little more money there, to pray for opportunity to serve rather than to be served.
The heart is a funny thing and by that I don’t mean the blood pumper that resides in our chests, it’s that centre of emotions that governs our lives. Some decisions we make are governed by our heads, by that we mean we weigh up the facts, the pros and cons and do our best to make a logical decision. Other decisions are based on our feelings, how we respond to people, situations – relationships for example are almost always started by our ‘hearts.’
What’s been interesting over the last 20 years or so is that what we buy and why we buy them has largely shifted from head reasons (‘I need to replace my winter coat’) to heart reasons (‘I’d really like an iPhone’). The coat is needed because the old one is no longer keeping me warm and I make a choice about the best replacement. The iPhone is wanted and purchased even though I have a phone that works. It may be a better phone, it may not be – better is rarely the point, its because ‘I want one’. It’s difficult to challenge those decisions because the heart is a much more private sphere, facts can be weighed up against each other but emotions are a much more tricky proposition.
This appeal to the desires is at the heart of our consumer economy, ‘buy this and you’ll be happier’ is the essential message and by and large it’s a message that people in the UK have believed Christian or not. Now, when the economy is on the slide we’ll be less able to buy what we want and as a result we’ll probably feel a lot less happy.
Mt 6:21 becomes intensely relevant. In the Greek Jesus uses the word eimi which means ‘I exist’. The idea being conveyed by Jesus when he says, “Your heart will always be where your treasure is” is that where your heart is, is where you really exist, where you find life and meaning, where you draw strength and comfort. Jesus challenges us not to find comfort and strength or meaning and life from earthly treasures, which we are again discovering are unreliable, but in heavenly treasures – in the eternal and ultimately in God. He should be our source of life, meaning, strength and comfort.
The trouble is that it’s easier to say that our treasure is in heaven than to actually make it so, we can only do that by demonstrating our faith with our actions – giving generously, caring for those in need, commiting generous portions of our time to the church or other related activities. As we do these things our lives become less about us and our hearts desires and increasingly about heaven and God’s desires. We need to regularly recentre our hearts.
So what do we make of this? There’s a tide of stuff flowing into your house, toys, goods, furniture stuff? This advert offers a solution. Sell some of it? Give some away? Buy less? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Instead pay for more space, box up your stuff and put it in bigger box looked after by Big Yellow.
Why would people do this? Because our identity becomes wrapped up in our stuff, to get rid of our stuff means that somehow we are lessened, diminished and it forces us to face up to the pointlessness of trying to purchase meaning. In contrast Jesus said, ‘a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of their possesssions’. (Lk 12:15)
“We who formerly treasured money and possessions more than anything else now hand over everything we have to a treasury for all and share it with everyone who needs it. We who formerly hated and murdered one another now live together and share the the same table. We pray for our enemies and try to win those who hate us.”
Quote from ‘Jesus for President’ by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, p148
Hermas – 140 AD
Quoted in Shane Claiborne’s new book ‘Jesus for President’ p146
It’s an interesting idea (although wrong) that things on earth are under an alien power for the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, but right in that not everything has kingdom values and almost nothing is neutral….
“We realize more clearly than formerly that the world lies under the wrath and grace of God. We read in Jeremiah 45, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up….And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not; for behold, I am bringing evil upon all flesh…but I will give your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.’ If we can save our souls unscathed out of the wreckage of our material possessions, let us be satisfied with that. If the Creator destroys the Divine handiwork, what right have we to lament the destruction of ours? It will be the task of our generation, not to ‘seek great things,’ but to save and preserve our souls out of the chaos, and to realize that it is the only thing we can carry as a ‘prize’ from the burning building.”
- Letters and Papers from Prison 157-158
On that note yesterday I kept my laptop switched off all day, and found it hard to do…I think I’m addicted. Alternative ways of passing the time paled in comparison to either working or wasting time on a computer game. So I’ve decided I must have a computer sabbath each week. It’s not good for my creativity, imagination, soul to be addicted to a screen.
Here are a few hunches (shot from the hip), let me know what you think. Money becomes tied up with our dreams, in fact they become inseparable. Money is the key to my early retirement, my travel dreams, my home, my family aspirations. It’s not that I begin by wanting money but that I can’t achieve my dreams without it, so begins our search for more cash.
At the other end of the spectrum is a different but related issue. Money is tied up with my survival, without I cannot buy clothes, food, shelter, basic provision for my family. Without money, my options are limited and unlikely to be lawful.
So money feeds my dreams and keeps me alive but it also soothes my fears. When I’m old, I’ll be OK because I’ll have a good pension, because I’ll have bought my home, because essentially I’ll have money. Without those things I become anxious, nervous and fearful of the future, fearful of illness and loneliness.
In the end we invest ourselves into money, it is the road we must journey on to have hope, to live without fear and to survive in our world. Yet Jesus holds out something different – he calls us to have a new hope, one founded on his kingdom, one that stretches into eternity, He calls us to live without fear – trusting that our Father knows what we’ll need and is able to provide. Death has lost its sting so we are freed to live fully in the present moment. More than that we are born into a family that cares and shares its possessions with each other because they are not mine or even ours but His. No widow should fear loneliness or lack, no orphan should worry about a life without love or food, no family should struggle to survive. And our dreams become renewed, of an earth without pollution, a society without sin, a life without guilt, a kingdom of justice, mercy and grace.
When our hopes, dreams, fears and lives are placed in Christ, money can no longer be a master or even a servant but instead another gift given, received and shared. Then we are free.
What was interesting was initially how hard it was to see that the lifestyle we live ‘by default’ might not actually reflect the values that Jesus taught about. Suddenly eyes began to open about generosity, hospitality, community, possessions, pace of life, forgiveness and that these are marks of the kingdom and that these are increasingly absent from contemporary culture.
It made me think about the rich young man who turned down an opportunity to follow Jesus, to become a member of his band of disciples because he had a great number of possessions and they in turn had him. It’s a sign of our compromise to materialism that we always comment that it’s the attitude that counts, allowing us to breath a sigh of relief because we always tell ourselves, like the unconvinced alcoholic or smoker that we could give up if we had to. But actually we can’t give up, we’re hooked, we have stuff but our stuff has us. The only way to find out if we’re hooked or not, is to start giving things up ….
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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