06-02-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
June 2, 2023
What does it mean to change your life? Within Christianity, following Jesus has become more associated with new or additional beliefs than a noticeable transformation in one’s daily life. A change in behavior can follow a change in beliefs, but in more and more settings, there is less and less connection between beliefs and behavior. Or, to say it another way, there is a great disconnect between what people claim to value and the way they are choosing to live their lives. Of course, we all need to acknowledge that we have areas of hypocrisy, a sort of dissonance between what is in our heads and what is being expressed through our hands and mouths. Yesterday, in my studies on Bible Stories For Grown-Ups, I saw participants being challenged by the scriptures, and they were echoing some of the discomfort I was feeling. Jesus spoke about wealth more often than anything else in the Gospels. Some disagree, but even if it wasn’t first, it was in the top three. Whatever the number, let’s think about this: some of us need to hear Jesus talk very specifically about:

​-The poor use of money;
-Feelings of scarcity in our lives that cause fear;
-How money and stuff can own us;
-The capacity of money to uplift the community;
-The capacity of money to undermine the community;
-Where does money become an idol;
…and the list goes on.

Years ago, I received a very strongly worded letter (before email was the thing) about a sermon I preached on the topic of money. The couple left the church over that sermon, though four years later they went through a very public bankruptcy and then divorce. I’m not suggesting my sermon, had they taken it to heart, would have changed things. But I sort of think it could have. They accused me of getting too much into people’s personal business, yet I’ve always wondered if the discomfort they felt was God pointing out how their WANTS were much bigger than their NEEEDS and their Checking Account.

Money is just an easy topic to use in a conversation like this, but I am coming to believe there is plenty of stuff in all our lives that needs some divine discomforting. This is not for us to feel guilty or beat ourselves up. I believe God causes that noticeable dissonance for the purpose of helping to make us the best version of ourselves possible and then to get us on track as participants in the fulfillment of God’s dream for this world. Those moments, at least as I think about them, are not God’s anger with us. Just the opposite. It is God’s love. Or maybe it is our own inner ethical voice naming the problem.

I can’t say that I’m excited about it, O God, but I’m sure there is some stuff in my life that needs a closer look. Guide me, and where it is needed, I seek the help of your Spirit as I make needed changes in my life. At the end of the day, I wish to value the things you value. And I want others to know what I value simply by the way I am living my life. Amen.