Greetings in the Name of the Lord, 

The gospel reading for this Sunday is the parable of the rich man, where Jesus tells the story of a man who strives endlessly to accumulate enough wealth so that he never has to work again. The twist in the parable (with Jesus there is almost always a twist) comes when the rich man discovers he will die that very day, casting his efforts as ultimately fruitless.  

The second reading is from Ecclesiastes and speaks of the vanity (the Hebrew work here is based on the word for a puff of wind or vapor) of striving one's whole life only to see it passed on to others. Even the Psalm for this Sunday centers in on the foolishness of seeking the accumulation of things over seeking to live a life in reverence to God.

In a time when so much of the world seems obsessed with wealth, these passages can hit pretty hard and really show the radical nature of Jesus' teachings. I have never taken these passages to mean one should seek fiscal irresponsibility, but it should definitely get everyone thinking about the ways one spends their own money and their own view towards it more seriously.

Pastor, Author and holder of an MBA, Mark Elsdon writes about how the Church needs to shift the ways it engages with money and how it views its own resources in the book We Aren't Broke. He has also started an organization called Rooted Good to further explore this work with churches. 

I started reading the book on a recommendation while looking for books our Session can read together over the coming year. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by much of what I found in the book, even if it may not have been the exact book I was looking for.  What I find most intriguing is his view of wealth generation, particularly in terms of investments (many church endowment funds rely on vast investment portfolios to grow funds). He robustly challenges the strongly held notion: "it does not matter how the money is made, only how it is spent". 

I think it would be fair to say that all of us agree that how our money is spent as a church is really really important, and although at Victor we are not sitting on any sort of large endowment funds, Elsdon says we should be thinking as much about how our money is invested. He challenges churches to find ways to invest funds and assets in local communities, in ways that can not only offer a beneficial social return, but also a financial return.  Currently so much of investment growth comes from silicon valley companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple. Investing in those companies allows them to grow and spread influence and I think it is safe to say that not all their intentions and strategies line up with our mission and vision. 

Elsdon asks what it would look like to take those endowment monies and instead invest locally  in a way where a comparable return can result all hand in hand with mission alignment. He gets into way more detail than I am able to offer here, but he thinks churches can find ways to provide capital to organizations that more closely align with the mission of the Church and still get investment returns. In other words, instead of providing capital to major multinational corporations with questionable mission alignment, there are ways for the Church to provide capital to local efforts that better align with mission. 

And yes, this approach can be higher risk, but he discusses ways to minimize that risk, and as a pastor, he is ready to remind us of Jesus' willingness to risk his life for his friends, our church is ultimately founded on risks of faith.   

I am not advocating for irresponsible fiscal engagement, "checking the numbers" is always important, or fearless risk--Jesus himself was very calculating regarding his approach to Jerusalem--I am not even sure how many of Elsdon's specifics apply to a church like us, but as our passages this week get us thinking about what it means to be a Chrisitian in a Capitalist society, challenging the way we think about money in general is a good thing, and hopefully it nothing else it gets us talking and open to the possibilities of new ideas and even new creation. As followers of Christ we have to be willing to follow into the new paths offered by Christ, paths that can at first look pretty questionable, yet with prayerful engagement and a rooting in tradition and scripture, we will be prepared to move into whatever new creation Christ is calling us into.

In Peace, 

Mike