A lot of discussion since the Great Recession of 2007 has focused on the 1% and the 99%. One percent of the American population controls somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the financial assets of the country. None of us is part of the 1% (unless you are hiding it exceedingly well). That means that we belong to the 99%. And since most of us getting by relatively comfortably, the 99% includes a lot of people scraping to get by or not even getting by at all.
If a person working federal minimum wage of $7.35/hr has a full-time, 40 hour/week job, they gross a little over $15,000 a year. And many minimum wage jobs are not full-time. Little wonder Florence has to keep asking for peanut butter and more.
Two years ago the global Swiss bank UBS did a survey of more than 4,000 clients, all of whom had more than $250,000 in the bank and half of whom had more than a million dollars. The chief finding of the survey was that the majority of people with $1 million in assets didn’t consider themselves rich. Forty percent of those with $5 million didn’t think they were rich.
Just how much does it take to be rich? I know that when I was growing up my parents never carried more than a couple $20 bills at a time. Now I get seven or eight out of the ATM every time I go. And it buys about the same. So the definition of rich keeps escalating with the increases in the cost of living index. I get that. Even though it is increasing, where is the threshold between enough and rich?
I like to watch “House Hunters” on the HGTV network. I am aghast at the budgets that people have for housing. They think nothing of signing up for $400-500,000homes. There are a few of those kinds of homes in the Waverly zip code, but they aren’t in the neighborhoods I frequent. Every now and then in my walking I pass a house which I have seen in the weekly listings. Basic Waverly Estates or Heights homes are going for $80-90,000, what I would call a ridiculous price. The insides must be pretty nice, because some of the exteriors and yards leave a great deal to be desired.
In the UBS survey, when responders were asked what it would have to happen for them to think they were rich the leading answer was “no financial constraints on activities.” In other words, “rich” doesn’t happen when you get to the $1, 5, or $10 million level. Rich is when you got more coming in than you could ever hope to spend. Rich is an artesian well of money. It is bottomless and never-ending.
How did it get to be that way? An economist could explain it. I’m not an economist. My only skill is keeping the checkbook out of the red and balanced. However, my powers of observation suggest two possible causes. The first cause is that there is an increasingly growing selection of items to buy as well as more and more opportunities get services rendered in exchange for money.
The second cause has to do particularly with material items. Technology – even of things that aren’t electronic – is advancing faster and faster. The life span of items is getting shorter, because the next generation of the thingamawidget will soon be out with new bells and whistles which people are gullible enough to believe are absolutely necessary. Many things are supplanted rather than worn out.
The upshot is that it takes more and more to get more and more. People are rich only when they have enough to get everything and then some. And we are all caught up in it, whether we have $5 million, $500,000, or $50.
The apostle Paul is also not an economist, but he knows the value of things. As he encourages the Corinthian church to take up the special offering for the mother church in Jerusalem, he tells them, “A gift is appreciated because of what a person can afford, not because of what that person can’t afford, if it’s apparent that it’s done willingly.”
Paul wasn’t a certified financial planner, but he was savvy enough to know that a person shouldn’t measure his or her financial status by how much he or she doesn’t have or by how much others do have. Paul may have been talking about money, but he was not trying to be the Dave Ramsey of the ancient world. In fact, money was just an entry point into his real topic: the generous grace of God. As the New Covenant Church sign board recently posted, “Grace is what we receive, not what we achieve.”
Paul mentioned the Macedonian church as an example but not as a financial yardstick. He doesn’t want the Corinthians to trying to outdo the Macedonians. He doesn’t give out the total amount collected, or the average gift. It doesn’t matter. It is not a competition. Paul doesn’t want the Corinthian believers trying to compare themselves to any other church and then feel good or bad about it.
Paul wants the Corinthians to focus on one thing and one thing only: Jesus Christ the head of the whole church. “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Although he was rich, he became poor for our sakes, so that you could become rich through his poverty.” Christ left the glories of heaven in order to spend time as the Human One, fully God and fully human, in the midst of our human goings and comings. He did it for one thing and one thing only, that we might come into the richness of faith.
There’s something that you won’t find in a bank book, on a chart of accounts, or on a balance sheet. You won’t find it on an insurance inventory. Christ’s grace is an inexhaustible supply that keeps us supplied with no end in sight.
Most of us say that we will save more when we have more. Or we will give away more when we get more. When we have a surplus, we will do something with it. But waiting for a surplus is not a good approach. Surpluses rarely happen. They are created with care and attention to detail.
We already have a surplus when it comes to the grace of Jesus Christ. It is an inexhaustible supply that is keeping us supplied day in and day out, year in and year out. The undercurrent of our age is that we never have enough. The security of life with God is that there is always enough grace and more beside.
That’s the truth to the manna in the wilderness that sustained the Israelites. They always had enough, not too little, not too much. That’s the message of the intertwined healing stories from Mark chapter 5, which were read earlier. Even in the midst of allocating grace to heal the young girl, there was more than enough to heal the hemorrhage of the woman.
Peter Chin hates to shop. Crowded grocery stores are painful. But he needed some chicken stock. Hoping to make a quick getaway, he picked an express lane with only two customers. But things weren’t moving. The couple in front were having trouble with their purchase.
“I pursed my lips and peered around the customer in front of me to catch a glimpse of the couple who had so perfectly sabotaged my exit from this purgatory. I could see little of them except their dark curly hair and ill-kept clothes. Their heads were down as they continued to fiddle with their pocketbook, and the attendant took more canned items off the belt and placed them in a cart next to her. I didn’t really know what was going on, but frankly I didn’t care. They had more than 15 items and shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I had no compassion on people who couldn’t do something as simple as making a purchase at a grocery store. I rolled my eyes as the attendant took their final item off the belt. Finally, the couple shuffled on their way, heads down, their empty shopping bag swinging at their side. All that time, and all for nothing. I shook my head in disbelief, and cast a disapproving look at them as they walked away.” (1)When Chin’s got to the attendant, he discovered that the cans were baby formula, probably the wrong kind or size for the WIC program voucher, and they didn’t have enough cash to buy one can. Struck by the callousness of his own impatience, Chin ran through the parking lot to find the couple, but to no avail. As he collapsed in his car he felt ashamed. He realized that it wasn’t selfishness that had prevented him from helping this couple feed their baby – he’d have gladly paid for the formula had he been aware of what was happening. No, it wasn’t selfishness; it was, in his words, “enslavement to my own convenience.” With a more generous spirit he could have tried to understand what was happening to the couple ahead of him in line, instead of viewing them as obstacles to his quick departure from the store.
Jesus was not selfish. He was not enslaved to his own convenience. Yes, the woman who touched his clothing was an inconvenience, but he took time for her all the same. The cross was certainly an inconvenience, but it didn’t matter to Jesus. He lavished grace sufficient for everyone. And he still lavishes his grace on everyone. It is an inexhaustible supply that keeps us supplied.
Paul was right on the mark in telling the Corinthians, and, by extension, us, that they needed to measure their generosity not against others, but against Christ, who though “he was rich, he became poor for our sakes, so that you could become rich through his poverty.”
Christ’s grace is an inexhaustible supply that keeps us supplied. May our wealth be our generosity.
General Resource: Homiletics, May-June 2015, pp. 68-70.
(1) Chin, Peter. “No such thing as convenient Christianity.” Third culture blog, Christianity Today, November 13, 2014.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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