Money is on everybody’s mind these days – especially the lack of money. Everyone from government to business to charitable organizations seems to be short on money or living on borrowed money. Where did it all go?
Most of the anxiety I feel about money is not related to my immediate survival. Worries about surviving due to finances are certainly more present than they have often been in my life, but the concerns that haunt the wee hours of sleepless mornings, though they seem to tag onto money, the truth is they live elsewhere. Money is the currency for determining success and shame, value and blame. It is the measure of our value as persons and the degree to which we have repaid our parents and all those others who have invested in our lives – or wasted their investments.
Yet Jesus told people time and again that these relationships to money are unhealthy. They are destructive both for those with much and for those in need. Money has been, and remains, an idol that keeps taking the place of the true value of life. “Consider the flowers and the birds, how God clothes and beautifies them. Are we not far more valuable to God?” (Matt. 6: 28-9, loosely translated)
Money is a powerful tool with a deep shadow side. In relationship with money, we can measure our faith journey. We need money to survive. The more we feel the need for money, the stronger its draw on our lives, the more dangerous it is for us and the more precarious is our path.
I invite your comments and your questions.
–Jack Price
