January 27/28, 2007
Epiphany 4 C
Isaiah 61:1-11; Luke 13:18-19 "Leveraging Our Spending"
Last week, you heard Pastor Steve say that he and I decided to switch topics for preaching. I was originally scheduled to talk about saving and he was to talk about spending. It was my idea to change it up. I told him that I thought - and my husband heartily agreed! - that I was much more qualified on the subject of spending, and he observed with a laugh that since he has earned his reputation as a pack rat, he guessed he might have plenty to say about saving. And so the plan was hatched that he would talk about saving with purpose and I would come to you today and hold forth on spending.
I want to start with this: Spending can be a thankless job. I speak from considerable experience. Those of us who are the chief spenders for our families don't always get the respect we feel we deserve. It can be hard work and there's always plenty of it to do, it seems...
Earning the family income isn't easy either, and this too goes largely unrecognized and unappreciated. It isn't easy balancing the demands of family members -- that mixture of needs and wants -- with a budget funded by income that is about 10-20% less than most of us think we need to be "comfortable." So we who spend the choice hours of every week in the shank of our lives to provide for our families do long for a pat on the back along the way.
I hope the confirmation students are still tuned in and are taking this down in their Worship Notes: "Pr. Kristie said to thank my parents for earning our family income and for helping us to spend it in wise ways for what we need."
And there are many other aspects of spending that beg for our attention, too, as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Consider the diverse messages we get and give about spending in our culture. They are different from the ones our parents and grandparents got and gave. And each has a sinister, life-stealing quality. Here are just a few of the messages we know well:
- To be successful in business or popular at school you need to have the most up-to-date fashions, a late model car, the latest technological gadget. To get the most up-to-date fashions, late model car, and latest technological gadget you need to spend money.
- To ensure that children feel loved and accepted in the intensely competitive social environment they are swim in, parents must buy the clothes, cars, cell phones, and iPods those children, 'tweeners, and teens ask for.
- There are the messages from the advertisers: If only you had product x, you'd be or life would be (fill in the blank: fun, sexually appealing, glamorous, hip). Spending money is an investment in your future happiness.
- All my friends have (fill in the blank), so I need to have one too. Now.
Any of these messages have the power to entice, betray, and enslave us, because embedded in each of them is the assumption that we are either pathetic and unworthy and need to spend in order to get "fixed" OR, at the opposite end of the scale, we are at the center of the universe and thus, entitled.
Hardly God's assessment of the persons he created or the people God has enlisted to help with the work of bringing in the kingdom.
Since our baptism makes us a sacrament of generosity in the world, as Pastor Nate puts it, we know in our heart of hearts there must be another way. There must be a way to shake off the barrage of messages that plant the seeds of dissatisfaction blossoming into a growing list of things we think we need, leading to even more spending. Are there ways we can use the spending we already do to advance God's alternative economy of seeking the welfare of the neighbor above our own "...to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and release to the prisoners.."?
Centering our lives by claiming our baptismal identity and actively following Jesus' example is both a starting point and a goal. Washed in liquid grace, our sins drowned each day in a baptismal waterfall, we are recruited by God and planted like mustard seeds in the wilderness to make a difference. To do justice and partner with God in healing the world.
It is a consequence of our high standard of living that we even need to think about such things as priorities in our spending. The world's poor - a billion people -- live on less than one American dollar per day, and many of those have more like 20 cents to spend. Subsistence farmers in Central America or Belarus or China look to feed, house, and clothe their families before they consider such "luxuries" as education or medical care. In much of the world, people have very little disposable income, so a discussion of needs versus wants is an academic exercise.
But fortunately AND unfortunately, it isn't for us.
When Nathan Dungan was here with us, he reported the results of a survey that found that Americans consider the #1 moral/values crisis in this country today to be greed and materialism. There are spiritual implications in that finding not just for ourselves, who are at risk of enslavement by our many possessions and our drive to spend beyond our means to acquire more and more stuff that we just have to take care of and find storage for. No, the spiritual implications are not just for us: Our access to disposable income and spending habits sustain a demand for goods and services that impact the lives of others. In this, there is both threat and opportunity: We can, by our spending, keep indulging ourselves and exploiting nature and other human beings OR we can use our economic power to do justice instead. But it takes courage and patience and information.
I hope each of you will take time to write down (on the slips of paper the ushers handed to you when you came in today) an idea or two you have of ways you can spend differently or refrain from spending that will do justice in the world. Place these ideas you've written down in the basket in front of the baptismal font as you come up for Holy Communion. We'll post the best of them on the Family of Christ website as a resource for us as a community of disciples making a difference.
To prime the pump, here are a few ideas of my own about doing justice with our spending.
Any time we save energy, we save money AND the ozone layer that surrounds the wounded earth that is our home. It's just a mustard seed of a deed, but this is what my family did: We got down from three to two cars this year. I haven't made the switch to those long-lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs, but that seems like a good idea. What are your ideas on how to save energy? What would make the biggest difference?
Any time we use alternative forms of energy, we save precious non-renewable resources. It's always windy here at 2020 Coulter. Is a windmill at Family of Christ feasible as a source of energy for this building? If you have some expertise in this area, I'd like to talk to you.
Anytime we invest wisely in people, say, with micro-loans or grants which help families or communities help pull themselves out of poverty and despair, we build social capital and unleash the rich gifts and talents of all God's children, creating space for peace and prosperity. Buying scholarships for students in El Salvador is an example of this. And some of our tax dollars are spent strategically in ways that bring transformation and add value. What other ideas do you have for investing in people?
When we buy fair-trade certified, organic, shade-grown coffee, tea, and chocolate, we become links in a socially responsible supply chain that ensures that growers receive a fair price for their products which they toil in the hot sun to produce and pick by hand, bean by bean, leaf by leaf, so that we can enjoy our favorite beverage each day. Talk to Ana at Caribou Coffee in Chan or someone at your favorite coffee shop or candy store. Or go on the Lutheran World Relief website to learn about fundraisers involving fair-trade chocolate products.
We might try not spending for a month or two at a time, like a pastor in Philadelphia did for an entire year. Maybe you read the article she wrote about this experience in The Lutheran magazine. "If I see myself in my immediate context in which 'everyone' has cable, a cell phone and [an SUV]," Pastor Janet Corpus writes, "my needs are big. I need to shop [and spend]. But if I see myself in the context of the globe, I have more than enough stuff to last a lifetime. I don't need to shop. And I see that my freedom from wanting may be part of a world that is free from want."
There are countless ways to do justice with our spending. Each act of spending to do justice may be small but many such small acts do add up. As Pastor Scott Searl reminded us at Family Faith night last week, it was Gandhi who said, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."
It starts with each of us... asking questions and being deliberate about what we do buy. We can research the products we buy most often to find out how they are produced. Are the employees who grow, harvest, process, or manufacture them treated fairly? Do they receive a fair wage? What impact does the production of the things we buy have on the environment? We can do the same research for one-time purchases of things like furniture and wood products. The Rainforest Alliance is a good source of information on companies that harvest timber in just, sustainable ways.
The common thread here is making the effort to bring our spending in line with our values, living as grateful children of God --claimed in baptism and called to participate in God's alternative economy. Leveraging our economic power to spend our selves and the wealth we control to make a difference in the world. Letting God deliver us from the grip of our own materialism Following the One who spent everything on the cross to redeem us, and who never lets us go.
Remember Jesus' parable of the mustard seed. A little justice goes a long way. God will leverage our individual acts of faith for the greater good, transforming us from commonplace consumers to disciples making a difference.
Thanks be to God!
The Rev. Kristie Hennig
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