Rev. Abby Phinney Baskette and Rev. Abigail A. Henrich
~ First Church Somerville and Union Congregational Church~
Sunday, October 26, 2008 ~ Twenty-Second Sunday in Pentecost
Jesus and Money: Greatest Hits: Matthew 6:21, Luke 8:18-23, Matthew 26:7
Abby: I’m thinking of something that’s really important to every single person in this room. It’s an intensely private thing, really. It’s something that we touch every day; some of us, in fact, touch it a lot. Some of us have a little one, others have a big one, but size is relative, really. It’s what you do with it that matters.
Molly: Abby, this is a family church! Can I remind you there are children present, not to mention our honored guests, Thula Sizwe? What will they think of us Americans?
Abby: Get your mind out of the gutter. I was talking about wallets.
Molly: Oh. Well. You can’t talk about that in church, either. I have heard loudly and clearly from my people: the issue of money is PRIVATE and doesn’t belong in church. For example, only our collector knows what people give to the church, and every Monday after she counts the offering, we systematically erase her memory. But don’t tell her! She thinks her name is Liz Davenny, that she’s married to that cute man with the beard and works as an attorney during the day! So you see the lengths we have to go to to protect our privacy.
Abby: Well then, it’s a good thing I’m not the pastor here; I can bring up anything I want. If your church doesn’t talk about money, maybe today is a good time to start. Just grit your teeth and imagine me as your parent during that uncomfortable birds and bees conversation…how old were you?
Molly: (hemming and hawing, growing visibly embarrassed)…21.
Abby: My point exactly. Listen, we need to talk about this. And not just because it’s stewardship season. Money is something we don’t talk about enough in churches. The more we talk about it, the more comfortable we’ll get.
Molly: Really, because here we are talking about it, and the more we talk, the less comfortable I feel!
Abby: Starts singing Money, Money, Money, and encourages Molly to sing….Maybe this will ease your embarrassment: I’ve heard you here at First Church have a deep and abiding love of ABBA songs.
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich mans world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich mans world
Aha-ahaaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
Its a rich mans world
Molly: (interrupting) ok, Abby, now that we’re done embarrassing ourselves in that way, what is it you were saying?
Abby: Do you know that ABBA is what Jesus called God? It can’t be a coincidence. And here’s something else they had in common: Jesus talked about money, too. He talked about it more than he talked about healing, more than sin, way more than he talked about marriage or forgiveness; more than he talked about Heaven and Hell put together! If he talked about it that much, surely he would want us to be able to talk about it, since we call ourselves his followers.
Molly: But the reality is, people are uncomfortable talking about money. I’ll tell you what. Do we have talk about it in detail, or can we just talk about it in generalities? Like “a man has a seed and plants that seed in a woman…”
Abby: Is that another parable of Jesus? I haven’t heard that one.
Molly: Abby, sounds like YOU need to have a certain talk with YOUR parents.
Abby: You have a point. I should talk to my parents more, at least about money. Can I tell you, at my church we’ve been trying to talk more openly about money and giving lately, to get at why it feels so intensely private. In our adult education class, my husband and co-pastor Jon Paul, taught a five week course on money. He asked the class what they had learned from their parents about money. Do you know what they said?
Molly: Buy bonds? A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned? In God we trust, all others must pay cash?
Abby: No, they said, “Nothing.” The vast majority never talked about money growing up in their families. They didn’t talk about saving, they didn’t talk about how to use credit cards, they didn’t talk about tithing to the church or how much to spend on eating out versus charity. Most of them didn’t even know how much money their parents made. And they said, “And now I’ve grown up, and my parents don’t know how much money I make!”
Molly: That’s true. The secrecy and embarrassment about money in our families really warps our perspective. When I was a kid we were on welfare for a while, and what I always heard from my mother was how poor we were. We lived, for a time, in a wealthy town, and I was always aware of what we didn’t have. Then when I went to college, I went deep into credit card debt trying to dress like my peers so I wouldn’t be outed as the “poor kid.” I later took out student loans to pay off the credit cards, and never told my parents. The irony of it all is, I made myself poorer trying to keep up with the wealthy. And of course, I’ve never really been poor at all, from a global perspective—I have always had food, clothing, shelter, and education. I’m trying to teach my own kids just how wealthy they are, even if they don’t have the “right” sneakers or a new car.
Abby: Thank you! Why is it that as Christians we’re willing to talk to our kids till they’re blue in the face about God’s rainbow promises and caring for the earth, but what about plain talk about faith and money? We rarely do it. Maybe it’s because we’re not sure that we’re doing it right ourselves. There is a ton of shame wrapped up in our relationship with money, and the mistakes we’ve made with it. In my church there’s a man who is 72. He has his PhD, has worked hard his whole life, and is functionally destitute. Every penny he earned, he spent, and the more he earned, the more he spent. There is a mother who feels unappreciated and buys expensive clothes online to feel better, but most of them hang in her closet, never worn. There are people who spend money to try to earn love, or withhold money to punish.
Molly: It’s a good thing we don’t have any of those people in our church.
Abby: Molly, I tell those stories not because those are people we should judge—we should have compassion for them. We are all those people.
Molly: I know. There are two kinds of people: people who live beyond their means, and people who don’t—but many of the people who don’t, used to be people who were deeply in debt. For me, it was a holy moment one day when I turned on Oprah and it was an episode about gargantuan credit card debt. I got out the scissors then and there.
Abby: Well, whatever our story, we need to come clean about money, how much we have and who it really belongs to, if it is not going to dominate us. We need to be truthful with our kids and with our spouses; if we have terrible secrets we need to tell them to someone: a friend, a financial planner or, even a minister.
Molly: Hey Abby—remember when Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also?”
Abby: Yeah.
Molly: What Jesus was saying was, “Show me your treasure, and I’ll tell you the truth about what you actually care about—not what you say you care about.” Abby, I think it’s time for some of that transparency you’re talking about. What’s in your wallet?
Abby: Too many health insurance cards, my credit card, a song my son has been learning about the fifty nifty states so we can practice it together…
Molly: Come on, you know what I mean. What I want to know is: Are you practicing what you preach? Where’s your treasure? What are the last five entries in your checkbook?
Abby: Well, er, um…you mean, you want me to tell right now? In front of all of these people?
Molly: Yup. I thought you said we should talk about this more in church.
Abby: Well, I did, theoretically. You promise you won’t tell my church? People, do you solemnly swear to keep this between me and the 86 of you? Ok, my last five check entries are: pledge to my church: $80; a mission in Haiti called beyond borders $25; housecleaner, $70; Newton-Well hospital $32.11; pledge again: $80.
Molly: Pretty noble. Now for the whole truth: tell me what your credit card statement says.
Abby: My credit card statement—yikes: Stop & Shop, $157; LLBean, $89; Ward’s Berry Farm, $30; Netflix, $32; Foil and cut at Salon Moda, $80; Stop & Shop again, $46; (with some embarrassment) Halloween and other stuff from my favorite store, Building 19, $30.
Molly: There, don’t you feel better, letting it all hang out there for everyone to see?
Abby: (humbled) I think you were right, money is terribly embarrassing and shameful. I feel like people just saw all my dirty laundry.
Molly: It’s not dirty laundry! We just saw what you treasure: your church, your spirit, good food for your family, and lovely blonde locks. And listen, now that we’re talking about this, I’m starting to think you’re right. Money isn’t shameful, any more than sex is. It’s what we do with it—or fail to do with it—that makes it so! Money is a gift from God, used appropriately.
Abby: So what is an appropriate use of money? Did I spend enough on church? Did I spend too much on my hair… I did spend too much on my hair! It’s so hard to stop!
Molly: Well, Jesus was pretty severe on this point. Remember the rich young ruler?
Abby: Yes, he said to Jesus, “I’ve kept all the commandments. What else shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
Molly: …and then Jesus threw out one of his really easy commands, “sell all you have and give the money to the poor and then come follow me.”
Abby: Yes. And he couldn’t bring himself to do it, because he was so very rich and loved his stuff too much. It’s a terrible story. What did Jesus know about gray hair! He only lived to 33! He didn’t know the pain of having your lovely blond hair turn dishwater! It’s easy to have good self-esteem when you’re the Son of God! Some of us need a little more help. I obsess about that story, and what it means for me.
Molly: I expect the gospel writers wanted you to obsess about how you spend your own resources. But here’s a different story—this one appeared in Matthew, Mark and John—it’s one of the only stories they all agree on that was part of the life of Jesus. It was about a woman who came to anoint Jesus with expensive ointment.
Abby: Yes, the disciples got all huffy trying to be more devout and charitable than Jesus, and they said: “that ointment could have been sold for a lot of money, and the money given to the poor.” And they were right—that ointment in 2008 dollars would have paid rent for a family of four for about a year! That’s a lot of cut and foils.
Molly: Yes, but Jesus said something surprising to the disciples, “you always have the poor you, but you won’t always have me.” So we have two stories that contradict each other. Should we be giving away all our money and possessions, redistributing our wealth to those who need it? Or is there a call sometimes for luxury, because some luxuries make life beautiful, and point us to God? I remember on one trip to the Casa San Jose, the orphanage we support, we took Lupita, the director, to the salon and we got her a pedicure. Let me tell you, she hated every minute of it—kept saying we ought to spend that money on the children. But we said we were spending it on the children: we wanted her to know how much we value the work that she does, and that she needs to take time out to tend to her own body and soul, so she can keep tending to the needs of all those other humans.
Abby: As always with Jesus, it’s a case-by-case basis: what is called for in this moment? What does the giver need to do most, for their own soul? There are times when we do need to sell all our possessions and give the money to the poor. You all know the incredible story of UCC church in Newtonville that closed—their numbers were declining, and they saw the writing on the wall. But rather than spend every last penny on themselves, they sold their building and with the funds, they now support churches like yours.
Molly: Yes! Did you know they gave us $19,000 last year, to build our new Sunday school room and to support Laura Ruth’s outreach into the community. They died, so that we can live! And now that we are becoming self-sustaining, we are becoming the kind of church that supports others. We raised about $10,000 in money and goods for the orphanage this year? And just a couple weeks ago, we came in first in fundraising for the Somerville Homeless Coalition’s 5k race, the major source of support for the poor in Somerville.
Abby: But Jesus also knows we need to celebrate, to enjoy the blessings of life, or life will become one long dreary self-denying battle. It’s all held in balance. Don’t you guys have a fabulous block party every fall, for the neighbors? Your purple dragon bouncy house is the stuff of legend.
Molly: Exactly! Jesus didn’t say we should all become poor in solidarity with the poor. He said “woe to those who store up treasure for themselves, but are not rich toward God.” It’s all right to be rich, if we’re rich toward God. That’s what both the rich young ruler and the woman with the ointment were supposed to do—use their wealth to glorify God and support the needs of God’s children. Maybe it’s not so much about what we spend, and more about why we spend it:
Abby: But what about the gray area (like my roots!)? How do we know when we’re using our money frivolously, and when we’re using it for the glory of God?
Molly: Abby, whenever I’m stumped about life’s big questions, you know what I do?
Abby: Ask a 5 year old?
Molly: You read my mind!
Invite the children up for some advice on what it means to be “rich toward God.”
