Ashleigh Martell's Blog
Big Money for Lyin' / 10.01.08, 02:30 PM
Since I’ve been here, I feel like there is an impossible amount that I want to get out of my head and down onto paper (or screen). Whether it be a new idea learned, an old perspective broadened or a current belief better articulated, I seriously feel as if my brain is simply going to drop everything out the back if I don’t make sense of some of it soon. I don’t know where to start, but more so, I don’t like being indecisive. So, here we go.
There’s a quote that I can’t stop thinking about from this week:
“Location, perhaps more than other any decision, disturbs the delicate balance we have tried to achieve between mammon and spirit. In this issue, the American Dream collides with the vision of God’s kingdom here on earth, exposing them to be as different from each other as darkness and light.”
-Bob Lupton (If I could bold the first sentence, I would, but I haven’t figured out how to do that just yet. That’s gonna be my focus.).
Burn.
I don’t know a single soul who can argue that they’ve never struggled trying to figure out how to balance those two. We live in a money obsessed nation. We’ve adopted mammon as our primary god. Materialism and consumerism define our lifestyles. Reaching the America Dream symbolizes a blessing – ‘God wants the best for us’, right? I feel like we use that last statement as a cop out to letting ourselves fall prey to the trendy “prosperity gospel”. Yes, God want the best for us, Jeremiah 29:11 seems to explain that pretty well, but who are we to assign standards to His definition of “best”? I mean, get real. Let’s look at Job. Or Abraham…
And we’ve done this for centuries. This isn’t a new fad, as much as we like to paint it that way, since we’ve now got advanced, new fangled everythings. 1st Timothy 6 seems to talk about this topic endlessly, and it was written somewhere between AD 62-64.[[vs. 5 ‘and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.’; vs. 6-10, But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs’]].We’ve come to believe we can live comfortably serving God and mammon, despite Matthew’s reminder. (Ch. 6:19, 21, 24)
Then there’s the issue of the actual subject in this quote: location. Before now, I’d never considered location as such a key player in this fragile and elusive tango we share with the God of Israel and the god of the personification of money. But since I’ve been in Wilmington, or with MissionYear more precisely, I’ve read or heard the word “relocation” more than I can keep track. I think I’ve neglected this issue ad I’m beginning to realize why it’s such a controversial matter.
With this topic, there are questions that I need to consider: how effective can not only my ministry but the witness of my lifestyle be if I live in the suburbs? Can I effectively foster meaningful relationships with “the least of these” in our society if I commute in? How much needs truly be invested into relocating – can I live in the community and commute out for work, school, leisure? How literal do I take the word ‘neighbor’ – do I continue to blanketly apply it to all God’s creation, faceless unending quantities, or do I define it to those on my block and to my sides? Can I exist as a committed Christ follower AND a lame neighbor? Is “blanketly” a word?
I see the positive effects of living alongside the poor: when we do so, help is not charity, it’s sharing. We acknowledge that they too have something to offer back to us and in doing so, affirm their dignity as a human, a friend (which mission trips and random acts of kindness, as good intentioned as they are, often steal from the recipients receiving the kindness). In relocating, we bring our resource to the community and most importantly, we keep them there. We invest in community businesses and developments and so our dollar is recycled through the town’s economy. We not only act intentional with the way we invest our resources, but we encourage our neighbors to do the same. We help to empower indigenous leadership, bringing hope to those once in despair over the exodus of the inner city (where too often those who “make it” abandon those who don’t). And if we’re moving in as a minority, we seek reconciliation between races, religions, social statuses.
Christ lived beneath His means, didn’t He?
And further, WHY is location the ‘disturber’? Do we truly seek so much of our identity through where we’re planted? I believe so. The American Dream includes it – and I think it’s safe to say that many of us have at some point adopted this dream as the “guiding standard” for God’s will for us, as mentioned earlier. Kind of.
I’m not saying at all that relocation is the mark of a true Christ follower. I haven’t eve worked out my own beliefs on this. But it is something to mull over, don’t you think? I think I’ve begun to ramble…
And oh yeah, the title of this is just a quote from our pastor this week.
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Very good article and AMEN! I live in Los Angeles and what a mission field even my own apt. building is! Have you seen Justin Peters’ site on the WoF movement? Check out: http://www.justinpeters.org and be sure to watch “demo.” Here he gives an overview of his seminar. He gave the full length seminar at my church and comes highly recommended by my pastor, Dr. John MacArthur.
By CLS / Oct 1, 08:00 PM / #
I love what you’re learnin. Here’s some random things I’ve been thinkin about the same subject:
I just reread Mt 6:25-34 today which talks about worry. And how we worry about money, clothes, stuff etc., but it stood out especially much for me today when after all that, Jesus says “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and [you won’t have to worry about the rest -my paraphrase].”
Also, Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz noted a similar question about “charity:” He saw some woman using food stamps in front of him in line and he felt pity for her. But then, he realized that his own pity didn’t help bring her dignity as a human being, but he himself was detracting from it by his own reaction.
And about suburbs, I dunno, I think we ought to evaluate ourselves often. Do I live here because it is where I’m “called?” Maybe despite our work against the contrary, we find we are more wrapped up in status symbols and acquiring wealth (whatever the reason) that we would like to admit. Maybe it breaks down into insecurities we have and wanting to be around those like us. Maybe we don’t admit deep down that we’re really scared of stepping out into what we do not know; that which appears as a less stable way to live? Who knows. maybe we need to examine 1 Timothy 6 again about the rich not putting their hope in their wealth.
By Nathan McConnaughhay / Oct 2, 11:02 AM / #