Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?

Written by Al Stewart, Director of City Bible Forum in Sydney

If you’ve ever tried to live on a budget, you know it’s hard to make ends meet. There seem to be endless things we need to spend money on, or to put it as my friends did,

“How come there’s so much month left at the end of the money?” [1]

As individuals, there’s more and more pressure on the cost of living: we need to pay rent or mortgages (as Sydney house prices climb), petrol goes up, car payments, food, school fees (if we have children), all sorts of extra expenses. It feels like trying to keep warm with a bunny rug; some part of us is financially cold.

As a nation, it’s hard to live on a budget, it seems like our national income is not enough to cover hospitals and medical expenses, to find the funds for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, to look at how to cover an ageing population and to care for them properly. Successive governments have more and more trouble in balancing the budget. At the same time ironically, we are getting richer and richer in real terms.

How is it that we get richer and richer and yet there never seems to be enough money for what we need. That’s the problem of the 21st century, in fact, every century and in the 1st century, Jesus diagnoses exactly what the problem is. He says in Luke 12:15:

“Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed, life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

The problem is greed. To define greed simply in Jesus’ terms, it’s the belief that we are the stuff that we own, an abundance of possessions. If I just have more stuff I’ll be more secure, I’ll feel safer or more significant, people will treat me differently, the more stuff that I have, the better life will be.

At one level, we all say,

“Money won’t bring happiness”

We don’t think we’re greedy, and yet greed is our great blind spot, that’s why Jesus says, “Watch out, be on your guard”, greed sneaks up on us. None of us think we are greedy and yet it is so easily our blind spot.

How is it that greed sneaks up on us? There’s many different ways; we keep thinking if we just have the next thing, life will be better and so yesterday’s luxuries become today’s necessities, become invisible tomorrow. There’s all sorts of things that were once luxuries like colour television, mobile phones, dishwashers, a second car, overseas travel. A generation ago, these were great luxuries but now, they’re taken for granted. In fact, they’re invisible as we look for the next thing.

We also assess our level of wealth and lifestyle by looking at our peers. As our peer group gets wealthier and wealthier, we don’t notice it. A rising tide lifts all the boats, but everyone still feels like they’re living at sea level. And so we live looking for the next thing that will make us more secure, happier and yet when that next thing arrives, the buzz and the joy are very short lived.

The fundamental problem of greed is that it never finally delivers. We never actually have enough and of course an even greater problem that Jesus warns about is that we can spend our life ignoring the one who gives us life. We can live for created things, rather than the Creator. Jesus diagnoses that lifestyle is like being foolish. He goes on to tell a parable about the rich man who gains even more wealth and yet was a complete fool in how he used it.

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
Luke 12:16-19

What was wrong with what this man did? After all, in a year of plentiful crops the price of grain will drop and so the wise thing to do is to hold onto it all, wait till the price goes up and then sell. Do you notice who is missing from his speech above? Yes that’s right, God and every other human on the planet! There’s no thankfulness, there’s no generosity, there’s no thought of other people, it’s all “me, me, me”. Jesus goes on to explain why this man was such a fool:

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Luke 12:20-21

This man was a fool because he lived his life for things that would never ultimately deliver and he had to leave them all behind to other people anyway. He had fronted up before the God who gave him life having wasted that life and that would make him a complete fool as he faces the judgement of God.

Jesus’ alternative is to be rich toward God. Jesus teaches that the great currency of life isn’t currency and possessions but relationships. The fundamental relationship of course is a relationship with our Creator, where we can find forgiveness and life with him. And ironically, it’s as we know our Creator that we can actually enjoy possessions and wealth even more, because they’re not the meaning of life, they’re a means of serving God and other people.

Contact the Sydney Team to find out how to be rich towards God

Listen to Al & other speakers at the Forum in Sydney

_____________________________________________________

[1] Scott & Kim

Banner image courtesy: Vagawi on Flickr