What's Money Got to Do with It?

Read Mark 12:38-44

One of the common complaints against the church is that we talk too much about money. It’s true. Every Sunday we pass an offering plate. Every month we make a push for one mission outside our church doors. Every month we put grocery bags out. Right now we are fundraising for new chairs. In spite of how much we ask for money, we rarely talk about money in the church. We skirt around it during Stewardship season and budget conversations. But the reality is that very rarely do we actually have discussions about money outside of our immediate families.

I know in my life, even with my closest friends the topic is taboo. I have no idea how much they make. And unless the person is a church member and looks at an Annual Report, most of my friends don’t know how much I make in a year. Yet, we hint at money all the time. We make comments on Facebook. Or we post pictures of our last trip to some place. Or we pull up in a new car. Or we talk about something that is broke in our home that we cannot pay to fix right now. We talk around money or about the idea of money, but rarely about the relationship between our values and money.

Bill Diehl in The Monday Connection writes about ethics. He makes a clear distinction between values as being the worth or merit we place upon a particular person, action or thing; and morals as the principles we adopt with respect to right or wrong. Ethicists will say that our checkbook (or credit card statement) is an ethical document because it shows what we value. When we give money to something (like to go golfing or for a gym membership or for gas in our cars or from Habitat for Humanity…to name a few places from my own checkbook) that is saying it has worth or merit for my life. I do value my health. I do value being able to be face to face for pastoral visits my car takes me do. I do value the outreach of providing homes for people. Those values lead to morals, ideals I have for what is right and wrong as I look at other people’s use of money.

My point is that we rarely in our private or especially in our public life get the value level in conversation. Sometimes for Gina and I we go there. Sometimes with our kids. But certainly not with our wider group of friends and not really at the church.

So, I encourage you as you ponder the widow’s offering to consider what your check book says you value. How does that lead to morals that you have? How does that influence ethical decisions you make? And when you think or say something is wrong in our community, our state or our nation what values or morals are being held by the other side?

Those are tough questions and I don’t expect easy answers, but shining the light of Christ during this Lenten season on the topic of money can be a blessing because money is a part of our life and our faith both individually and as a church. Perhaps if we begin now thinking about this it will continue to stay with you: which is really what being a steward is all about. Grace and peace to you.