We play all kinds of games
when it comes to money. One of the most common is musical chairs.
We live as if there is not enough, as if something is going to be
pulled out from under us at any minute. We had better get ours
before any one else does.
It doesn't matter how poor
or how rich you are, chances are you are playing this game. Those
of us who do not consider ourselves rich think it is okay for us to
play this game. We know that if we just had a little more then we
would be able to manage fine. Most of us have been thinking that
for years and through many pay raises. But usually our desire for
things we do not need fuels our feeling that it is all slipping away
from us and so we just need a little bit more.
What we don't understand
is how people who are clearly rich by whatever standards we want to
set have the same problem. They do. The things that they "need"
become more and more and more expensive. And the need to protect
what they have only becomes greater.
I guess the best example
of this comes from my visit to India. I was befriended there by a
woman who was also a nurse -- as I was before becoming a pastor --
and made a tiny fraction of what I make, although she was decently
paid by Indian standards. In fact I am sure she made more than her
pastor husband. She was incredulous at the salary I made as a
nurse, but I started to say that she didn't understand my mortgage
was huge and the expenses of two cars (one a conversion van with a
TV for trips with the kids, a definite necessity), etc., etc., etc.
We rode the crowded bus
when I went places with her. She had a tiny apartment and offered
me a simple meal when I went to her house, as that is how they
lived. All of the things I thought were necessities and tried to
explain to her were things she would never dream of having.
After I got home there
came a point where I had to make some choices. I had three girls in
college and I was in seminary. In the process my van was
repossessed and my house was foreclosed and
all those things I thought that I couldn't live without were gone.
To be honest, it was a
relief not to have to worry about large mortgage payments any more.
The used car I drive now is adequate and it is paid off.
Sometimes instead of
thinking that with the next raise we will finally be able to make
it, maybe what we need to realize is that when the next thing is
taken away we will finally be able to make it.
Maybe musical chairs was
the best game I ever lost. Someone said to me the other day that
losing at musical chairs isn't so bad. You can always sit on the
grass and it is a lot more fun anyway.
I keep thinking of a hymn
"We were baptized in Christ Jesus" that ends one verse, "In the
winning and the losing we hold fast." But more than that God holds
us fast. The abundance of God's gifts and God's grace are more than
we can even imagine.
Knowing that God is not a
capricious God and that the last chair is not going to be pulled
from us and that we are not going to be left with nothing on this
earth -- this knowledge may break the cycle of needing more and
better. We might really be able to realize how truly rich we are.
Lord, help us to know that
there is nothing that we should fear but the loss of you and that
there isn't a chance of that. Amen
