Ethical finance is twofold, it’s about using our money responsibly and it’s about conducting our personal finances with integrity. It’s about managing our money with a conscience. The event on 28th February will look at both aspects with practical and theological applications. I have lots of thoughts on this but I will begin with a pretty sticky comment that echoed through my consumerist materialist soul when I read it:
“I began to find my own conspicuous consumption slightly nauseating…there was, it slowly dawned on me, something really rather gross about wanting something and buying it, just like that – ” (The Thrift Book – India Knight)
After a brief excusion down to Wyse Byse and Connswater one Saturday in January I came back horribly deflated and depressed. I had spent an hour wandering around looking at pretty things, cute things and quirky things – all of them I didn’t need. I became aware of many other people doing the same around me, pointing out something lovely to each other and standing at till points clutching armfuls of totally non- essential tat. Nothing expensive really (one of the great fun things about Wyse Byse) but still giving off the same whiff of unnecessary, pointless purchasing and spending that you can identify in any socio economic group or community around Belfast. This is not a contemporary phenomenon. We as people are motivated by greed, possessions, appearance and status the same now as we always were and Jesus had quite a lot to say about it.
In many ways what Jesus taught about money has commonly been split into two applications: one is give some money in an envelope to charity every month and the other is to give some money in an envelope to the church every month. Leading us to think “well I am buying a goat and I have contributed to the church carpets” we happily continue in our consumerism safe in the knowledge that we give regularly. Jesus said “No-one can be a slave to two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot be a slave to both God and money” Matt 6:24. I think traditionally we have read this verse and comforted ourselves with the thought “well its not like I love money, I don’t sit in a room counting it every night and sleeping with gold ingots under my pillow” But how many of us do if we are honest actually sit at night counting our money? Working out the bills, working out how to get some money to buy what we want and then go to sleep with it being one of the foremost issues in our minds – I certainly do. I am constantly hoping for this or that and I think by buying into this culture of consumerism I am serving money a little too much! It’s a troubling thought.
This isn’t a venture to make us feel guilty and put off, but I think it is worth putting a challenge out there or even a question. How can we as Christians be remarkable in our treatment of and attitudes about money? If we want to follow Jesus’ instruction about money, what does that really look like? What are the practical ways that we can serve God first and not squirm or evade some of the full implications of Jesus’ teaching. Lets get some conversation going and learn from each other.
Is there a difference between narcissistic consumerism and enjoying what has been created around us? My confusion stems from understanding why God made so many different types of everything and their ‘function’. Unfortunately talk of money and it’s use often is reduced to simple existance and keeping people alive. But then after we keep people alive we don’t help them to have a reason, hope and joy in the life that has been extended by x number of years. Seeing folk in hospital situations where their life is being preserved by drips and formulated infusions why didn’t God just make a food that kept us alive instead of providing a vast array of things that we can enjoy? Why endless varieties of fish, birds etc etc etc…
So is it wrong to enjoy a trip around Wyse Byse and maybe even buying some things that you like? No and yes… Left unbalanced where we don’t want to share what we have and keeping it for ourselves I think actually inhibits our enjoyment and certainly prevents anyone else from experiencing the joy. God is a God of abundance and so if we can keep a balance (ensuring money is not our god but a mere reality of a society who cannot live trusting God for all their needs) then we can enjoy what is around us. Key in all this however is that Jesus reminds us that the way to experience real life however is in serving others and caring for them. How then can there be room for self centred greed to creep in if we are always thinking about the needs of others before our own – a healthy way to stop us drowning in our own greed (for which we are to be more pitied than scorned).
As Christians, surely we should be the ones in society giving our money away most freely, being as generous as we possibly can rather the penny pincing scroges. What does Jesus tell us in the parable of the Shrewd Manager? (Luke 16 1-12 just before the not serving money passage) This is a realy tough parable for me to understand but surely important for us to understand how we can avoid serving money without throwing the baby out with the bathwater…
Mark, absolutely I agree we need to also enjoy the good things God gives us, and also enjoy real life by serving others. Self-centred greed does so easily creep in – how can we help each other to avoid that happening?