Bob

Over the past few days, I feel like I’ve had a slowly dawning epiphany.  The way the ideas have come together based on reading some books and talking with some people have solidified some things I’ve thought for a while but never put into words.  They can all be summed up as: Living life as a follower of Jesus often means making financial or economic decisions which are completely foolish. Let me see if I can address that here in a few different ways.

Note that I’m going to do my best to untangle finances and economics from politics.  I’m not making a political argument and, please realize that, if you start thinking along party lines (of either side) or are applying this to anything but personal behavior, you’re missing my point entirely.

Economic Foolishness

So, let’s start by defining economic foolishness.  We’re trained in our current world to get the most bang for your buck. To be wise with your purchases to make sure you get the most for the least amount.  We’re considered stupid if we put money into things that have no return or have ‘low value’.  We’re ignorant if we opt for investments that grow slowly and minimally, rather than robustly.  What I’m going to suggest here is that these opinions are not of God and are very often completely counter to what we should be doing if following Christ.

I’m not saying “be stupid and just throw money away because it’s not important”.  Quite the contrary.  I’m saying that money is SO important to how we live our faith that we must look past the wisdom of the world and look to the direction from God. We must look past the best value for ourselves and invest in the best value for other people and for the world as a whole.  We must look past America and see what’s best for all of God’s creation.   When we do this, we often look completely foolish.

Charity

Let’s start with an easy one on which I think we can all agree.  God asks us to give away much of what we earn to those less fortunate than us.  Right out of the gate, this is economically foolish.  We are working hard every day and then we turn around and, with no strings attached (hopefully) we just give our money to someone else.

When Christians do this, however, they most often take the ’safest’ and easiest roads which offer them the most credit (ie. personal gain).  They give most often to their local church where their donations are ‘credited’ to their account, are added to a budget (which they vote on), and are all tallied up on a sheet at the end of the year which can be shown to the government in order to get financial credit.

I won’t go down the rabbit hole of arguing that, in my eyes, this isn’t charity at all (it’s the supporting of an organization from which you get benefits and then can write off these social activities on your taxes ;)…but I will challenge it to say that if it is charity, it’s charity in its weakest form.  That’s why it doesn’t feel very ‘foolish’ and instead feels quite ‘wise’.  You can track exactly where your money goes, you can vote on it, and you can somehow get a return on investment.

“Real” charity is giving in a way which:

• Gives you no credit for giving…be that credit financial, emotional, or spiritual
• Has no advantage to you and all advantage to the person/people you’re giving to
• Is not track-able or quantifiable (except by God)

I think it’s summed up pretty well in the following verses from Matthew:

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

I would argue that most ‘charity’ done by Christians is done in a way that is “wise” in the eyes of secular economists.  It is giving that is no different than supporting a bowling league that you’re a part of.  Whether they’ll admit it or not, giving to their church benefits them.

A funny thing has happened in the past when I’ve truly given to charity (or directly to a person) in a way I believe is biblical:  I feel deeply and incredibly foolish. I feel like what I’ve just done isn’t wise use of my money.  My stomach hurts because I feel stupid for giving to something for which I’ll never get credit and never even know whether it did ‘the greatest good’ or not.  This is the foolish economics of faith and it doesn’t always make me feel good. But it’s exactly the way God asks me to give to charity. (note that it doesn’t have to feel bad to be right, I’m just saying it doesn’t always feel good…)

Value

As mentioned at the beginning, we’re told that in a capitalist society, that we should do everything to get the most bang for our buck.  If we ever choose something of lesser quality which cost more money, we’re stupid, right?  I think, in the world of a faithful person, this rule is flipped on it’s head.

Sure, sometimes it makes all the sense in the world to buy the ’smart’ thing and get the most ‘value’.  The problem is, we miss the boat when we define the word value.  We define it as something related to the thing we’re buying, but there’s so much more to value than that.  There’s so many more important things people of faith should put into that word ‘value’ than the quality or usefulness of the thing being purchased.

To God, people are the highest value.  Not things. A close second and third (still greater than things) are animals and our planet.  That puts, at the very most, the ‘thing’ we’re buying at about #4 on where we should consider it when assessing value.  We should first consider the people involved in that purchase: the person you buy it from, the people who ship the item, the laborers who made the item, the society who manufactured that item, right down to the person who is benefiting the most from the profits and what that will mean for the future of society.  People come first when assessing value.

Then we have animals and the environment (God’s beloved creation).  We have to, next, assess the value here.  Is what we’re purchasing hurting or bad for God’s creation?  If so, then it’s not a good value to people of faith and we should spend our money elsewhere.

THEN, finally, we get to the value of the thing itself.  I won’t spend any time on this because I think it’s an assessment skill we have in overabundance.  You can see, that we shouldn’t even think about purchasing that thing, or determining it’s value until we’ve already determined the people/creation value of the item.  The value of the ‘thing’ is almost an afterthought after it’s passed the two tests that are really important.

Value, in the secular world, is all about MY money and what I get for it…value in the economics of faith is about people first, then God’s creation, with the ‘value of the thing’ bringing up the rear.  What does this mean in reality?  It means that often times people of faith will look ‘foolish’ with how they spend their money:  paying more to support a local family business than going to the MegaMart or being joyful when the local auto repair shop makes a good profit on the work he’s done for you because you know he works hard and is struggling to survive.  It means we pay more and sometimes get ‘less value’ in the eyes of the world.

When was the last time you bought something of “less value” because it was the purchase of greater value in the eyes of God?

Investing and Retirement

How about investments and retirement?  Its easy to invest our money and savings in something which will get us the biggest return.  Often times we don’t care (or even consider) where our investment dollars are going.  We don’t ever ask if we’re helping Tobacco, Oil, or Pornography-Peddling companies make a profit, as long as we get a good return.  We stick our heads in the sand and pray for a good financial return.  This isn’t how people of faith should be investing.

Luckily, we have another option.  You can choose Socially Responsible Investing instead.  You can put people and what’s best for the world in front of profit.  You can invest with your foolish faith-based economics and it can make a difference…or at the very least you can remove yourself from the economy of sin.

Retirement is an issue I’ve thought about for a long time.  Retirement investment accounts are ‘wise’ in the ways of the economic world.  But are they what people of faith should be counting on or doing?  Are they just proof of how weak our faith is?

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Personal Socialism

Finally let’s get to something that can sound very political but, again, I ask you to have some self control and don’t let your mind go there.  We look at the New Testament community and see an awesome example of, what we now call, socialism.

32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34 There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, I don’t think this (as some might suggest) is a biblical argument for government socialism.  I’m not even going to go there.  Instead, it’s an obvious example of the foolish economics of faith.  They sold their personal possessions without regard for ‘whats best for me’ and gave to those who had less…they even put the power to decide what to do with that money into the hands of the apostles.  They let other believers decide where the ‘wise economics’ directed the money. This is foolishness and it is the way of Christ.

‘The Way it Is’

Many people look at all this, throw up their hands and say “that’s just the way it is” and keep shopping at big box, ‘big value’ stores.  They keep making their investments and sending work to China because “the free market works” and “it’s a global economy”.  The free market is bullshit for a follower of Christ. Working the way the ‘free market’ wants me to work is of no concern to me.  The free market is not the highest goal and the free market is not the Savior.  The free market IS the ‘way it is’…but that doesn’t mean we’re helpless.

As Christians and followers of Jesus, we have weak faith if we bow to what the markets tell us to do.  We have little faith if we don’t stand up against ‘the market’ (which puts profit as the main goal) and stand for a ‘people first’ economy. Instead, we should be subjecting ourselves to what God wants us to do…if that’s ‘foolish’ and opposed to the free market, so be it.

Are you foolish?

When we look at our lifestyles, at where we spend money, at how we assess ‘value’, are you ’smart’?  Or are you foolish?  I choose being foolish, putting God, people, and creation above my own desires.  I invite you to join me and be foolish with your money, sharing it to a ridiculous extent with those who are in need, support people who work hard and fairly even if they’re not the best ‘value’, and use it to stick the ‘free market’ in the eye because it only assesses value by the worth of ‘things’…not people.

So go ahead…call me foolish.