Ironicschmoozer’s Weblog

Money & Anxiety: As Old As the Bible

Family Minister, Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento

February 28, 2010

Introduction

[Minister is holding rural-route mail box on top of his head.

It says PLEDGE CARDS on it.]

Worship Leader:  Roger, do you have something on your mind?

Minister: Yes, Judy, I do have something on my mind.  It’s been on my mind for several weeks.  It was even a little bit on my mind while I was on vacation last week.  Can you guess what it is?    The stewardship drive is the annual campaign when members and friends make our financial commitment to support the congregation for the coming budget year.  Our budget supports most of the programs, facilities, outreach ministries and staff members of the congregation.  We have had positive results so far, and 1/3 of the expected pledge cards have been turned in.  Off the top of my head, [Putting the mail box back on its stand], I’d say this means we expect the remaining 2/3 to be submitted by the end of February. That gives us nearly 12 hours to wrap up.  I’m not ready to panic, but the stewardship season does increase my anxiety level every year.  {PS to web readers.  If you are a member or friend, you can find and print out a pledge card  at http://uuss.org/Forms/Pledge%20Card%202010-2011.pdf.  Thank you!}

Reading

This reading is a poem entitled “Joe Heller,” written in 2005 by the late Kurt Vonnegut about his fellow writer and friend and published in the New Yorker magazine [5/16/05].

Joe Heller

True story, Word of Honor:

Joseph Heller, and important and funny writer

now dead,

and I were at a party given by a billionaire

on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel

to know that our host only yestereday

may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’

has earned in its entire history?”

And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”

And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”

And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Not bad!  Rest in peace!

Sermon

Ongoing political controversies about homosexuality and abortion rights could give you the impression that the Holy Bible is bursting with guidance about same-sex relationships and family planning, but it’s not.  Contrary to the advocacy of religious conservatives, the Holy Bible says less about sexual morality than it does about financial morality.

Here are some examples:   Hebrew prophets in several books condemn the oppression of the poor by the powerful, and the Jewish Bible  prohibits lending money at high rates of interest, the way credit card companies and payday lenders do today.   It speaks of the jubilee year—a celebration every 50 years in which land was to lie fallow, all property was returned to to its original owners or their heirs, all debts were forgiven and indentured servants released.  Contrast this with debtor prisons which existed in Europe and the U.S. until the mid-19^th century.  In the New Testament, in one scene, Jesus of Nazareth praises the poor widow for her generous offering to the temple while scolding the rich donors for their pride and their lack of equal sacrifice.

According to the Reverend Stephen Gray:  Of the 38 parables or stories told by Jesus in the New Testament, 16 deal with the relationship between what you say you believe and how you use your money and possessions; of everything that Jesus talks about, the number two topic is the use we make of our possessions.  (He didn’t say what the number one topic is.)

Gray is a United Church of Christ minister who speaks about money.  He gave a workshop at the annual meeting of the UU Ministers Association several years ago.  By his calculation, in both testaments of the Holy Bible one out of eight verses talks about the relationship between faith and the use of our money and possessions.  Of the Ten Commandments, three provide instructions on how we relate to money and possessions, including the possessions of others, such as not coveting what they have.

The individual books of the Bible were composed in different places and times over a span of thousands of years, written by and for different communities.  Yet throughout those varied books are stories, questions, and guidelines about money in personal relationships as well as money and social justice and fairness.  These various passages don’t all say the same thing, but they show the centrality of money to human relationships.  Stress over money is not a new thing.

Gray writes: “If you wonder why money and possessions are referred to so often in the Bible, I would simply remind you of the number one reason for family conflict?  The answer, of course, is money.”  Money was a major source of domestic disagreements long ago, and it still is.  This is why premarital counseling and couples workshops help engaged couples to talk in advance of their wedding about financial priorities and habits, as well as the messages they received about money while growing up.

To demonstrate how important this is, Gray tells this story about an old married couple up in Maine:  Matilda and Bert were visiting the Blue Hill Fair.  Soon enough they came across one of those open-cockpit airplane rides with the advertisement:  Ride for 2 — $10.  Matilda said to Bert:  “You know I sure would like to take one of those airplane rides.”  To which Bert replied, “I don’t think so.  Ten dollars is ten dollars!” But Matilda said, “But Bert, I’m 72 years old.  I might never get a chance to fly in one of those planes.”  To which Bert replied, “I don’t think so.  Ten dollars is ten dollars!”
At that point the pilot, who was listening in on their conversation, said, “Tell you what, folks.  I’ll take the two of you up for an airplane ride for nothing as long as you don’t say one word during the flight.  But if you say so much as just one word, you owe me $10.”  Well, that sounded like a bargain they couldn’t pass up, so Matilda and Bert climbed into the little open-cockpit plane.
Well, that pilot did everything he could to get them to cry out.  He did loop de loops, he did spins, he took the plane into steep dives.  But Bert and Matilda didn’t say one single word.
Defeated, the pilot finally brought the plane in for a landing and turned around to Matilda and said, “Well, I guess you got that plane ride for free.  I did everything I could to get you to say something, but I didn’t hear one word.”  To which Matilda replied, “Well, I was going to say something when Bert fell out of the plane… But then again, ten dollars is ten dollars!” [i][At the first service this story was told to the children before they departed for Religious Education.]

Nothing like that happened in my family, but I did grow up with mixed messages about money.  Instead of learning clear lessons about financial security, frugality or generosity, I learned to be anxious and ambivalent about money.  My relationship to money was shaped in part by the habits, attitudes, complaints and worries I heard from parents and close relatives.  We were secure financially as a family, but it didn’t feel that way.  In contrast, I’ve heard other people say, “I grew up in a poor family, but we didn’t realize we were poor.  We had enough to eat, fun ways to spend time, and lots of love.”

Every Sunday the Sacramento Bee newspaper runs a few articles from the Wall Street Journal, one of which is entitled Yoder & Sons.  For several years the Journal‘s San Francisco Bureau Chief, Stephen Yoder, has written a column with his teenage son Isaac, who’s now in his first year of college.  Last year the team added the younger son, Levi, who is 14 and a high school freshman.  Every week there’s a new topic related to family life and money.  The father and one or both of his kids write their thoughts on topics like kids’ allowances, savings, spending, cell phones, summer vacations, summer internships, selecting a college and paying for it, volunteer work, giving to charity, and balancing work and family life.  They don’t always see eye-to-eye.  The parents struggle with how much free choice to leave to the ikds and when to assert parental control.  But they stay in conversation, and all of them learn from one another.

In January, 14-year-old Eli made a New Year’s resolution to give away 10% of the money he makes from writing the column for the newspaper.  He would divide it between the family’s church and another not-for-profit organization.  A month later he was still putting it off.  He said his church youth group is collecting money to support a clinic in Indonesia “that provides health care in local villages in return for the villagers’ pledging not to cut down trees there, and to restore part of the rainforest by planting seedlings.”  Eli writes:  “For the fund-raiser, we’re going to ask the adults to pitch in, and I figure I should lead by example.”  He notes, however, that the fundraiser will be a temporary event.  He wants to start making donations regularly, and he’s still trying to figure out which not-for-profit agency will benefit from his tithe.   He commits to visiting the bank on the upcoming Saturday and withdrawing 10% of his earnings to give away.

Like many people with the last name of Yoder, this is a family of the Mennonite church.  Related historically to the Amish, Brethren, and Quaker traditions, the Mennonites are a self-proclaimed peace church.  They stand against war and capital punishment, and are involved in ministries of health care, economic development and emergency relief in poor countries.  Steve Yoder, the father, writes that he learned the practice of tithing from his own parents:  10% of his allowance and earnings went into the church offering plate.

Yet he adds:  “Talking to to my sons about their money decisions sometimes means admitting my own failures….  I must confess one here:  We should be giving more money away.”  He explains that he and his wife, Karen, do give away both time as well as money, but they have fallen behind their own standard of tithing, and it’s become less of  a priority.

Recalling the Jewish Biblical tradition of giving away the first fruits of one’s harvest, Steve writes that if any of us waits until we think of all the other things we want or need to do with our money, we will find reasons to give away less than we can—or give almost nothing.  He recounts a story of a Mennonite cattle-farming family.  Every year, the family would designate the first calf born  as the one for the Mennonite Central Committee a service agency that is the Mennonite church’s “rough equivalent of the Peace Corps.”  The so-called MCC Calf would “be fatted and nurtured just like the rest of the herd.  At year’s end, no matter how thin the family finances were, the full-grown cow would be sold, and the proceeds sent to the (service agency).”  Steve Yoder says:  “Giving first–before spending on yourself–has got to be a lifestyle choice, like investing in the 401(K) before buying a new car.”  Now he and his wife are talking about downsizing their home and becoming more frugal in order to “leave more money upfront to give away, while still allowing us to do the things we value, such as travel.” Inspired by his son’s thoughtfulness and good intentions, Yoder says “Levi is on the right track.  Now if Karen and I can just get ourselves on that track too.”[ii]

Even in a family like this, with strong traditions and common commitments, managing money is a challenge, a topic for ongoing dialogue, and a reason for mutual support and encouragement.  I can’t imagine it’s any easier for other families than it is for the Yoders. Stress about money and possessions is a real part of real life.  It’s important to acknowledge our personal reactions about money, or about any other topic brings up strong feelings.  It can help to be clear about what gives us joy and what our hopes are,  as well as about our dilemmas, doubts and fears.  It’s especially useful to talk about anxiety about money.  This is important whether we are a family of one person, two, three, seven or more.  Anxiety is a sign that something deep is going on in us.

Anxiety is a challenge to look deeply—it’s not a feeling to run from, avoid or conquer, as much as we’d like to get rid of it.  It’s a feeling to look in the face.  If we know our own values well and keep to them, if we stick to our personal priorities, we can let anxiety be what it is, without letting it drive our decisions and run our lives. We can respect our anxiety without letting it chase us around.

I know adults who learned to tithe as children, but I didn’t.  My parents were somewhat generous to the church and larger community, but there was a sense of duty about it, even a sense of caution:  Make sure you don’t give away too much!  What I missed then was a sense of joy in giving.  We didn’t experience the joy that comes from living with an attitude of abundance and gratitude.

When I think of the spirit of abundance and gratitude, I see the image of gardeners passing some of their vegetables over the fence to neighbors, or bringing extra produce to church to give away.  I remember  a house I saw last year in a Sacramento neighborhood where I was apartment-hunting.  It had a sign in the front yard:  “Help yourself to fruit from the tree.”  I said, “I want to live near them!”  Alas, the apartment I found was 12 blocks away.  But a few weeks after I moved into my new place, a neighbor from a family in the next building knocked on my door to introduce herself.  I’d already met her spouse when he brought me a piece of mail that had ended up in their box.  As a housewarming gesture, she brought me two cupcakes, freshly baked and frosted.  I was delighted–and I obliged by eating them at once.  Who knows if the joy was greater for her or for me?  But it seems clear that joy increases in all directions by the act of giving and receiving–giving away without expectation, and receiving graciously.

It can be challenging to feel a sense of abundance or gratitude when we are beset by misfortune, loss, illness or money problems.  Yet often we meet or hear about people who get by on little money but show gratitude for life and for what they have, and who give to others with joy.  We see on television or read in the paper about a sick child or an adult with a life-threatening illness, and we’re amazed that they show gratitude for special moments in life.  Perhaps abundance– rather than a measurable quantity of money– is an attitude that we can try out.

Perhaps gratitude is a practice, a way of looking, a point of view, a lens.  Through the lens of gratitude we can see our lives anew, and remember our connections to the world around us, to all of life, to all the gifts of life.

The abundance of life flows around us and through us.  We don’t own it; we are merely its keepers.  We’re the stewards of the gifts of this world.  The word steward comes from an Old English word that means the “keeper of the hall.”  We are the keepers, the temporary keepers.

Stewardship is about giving thanks for our gifts, tending them, sharing them, and —eventually—letting go of them.  Stewardship is about gratitude and relationship.

When money flows through our hands, it represents the abundance of life.  It represents the gifts of hard work and wise choices and good luck.  It represents the gifts of all the other lives that are connected to our lives, all the other beings that make your life possible.   Money reflects our inter-connection and inter-dependence.  It’s not the only thing that reflects inter-dependence, but it does reflect it.

Money is a gift that passes through us. The very first gift that passes through us—through each one of you you and through me–is life itslelf.  Our existence is a gift.  We are temporary keepers of our lives and all other gifts.  As much as possible, let us be joyful receivers and grateful givers of our gifts, and of ourselves.  May gratitude and joy bless our lives, and bless our world.  Amen.

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[i] Money, Ministry and Stewardship:  Doing Better at All Three,” copyrighted address by Stephen C. Gray, June 1999, UU Ministers Association continuing education day and annual meeting, Salt Lake City

[ii] “The Joy of Giving, and the Pain of Falling Short,” by Steven Kreider Yoder, Isaac S. Yoder & Levi Yoder, Sacramento Bee, 2/7/2010, p. D6.  See several of his columns at http://topics.wsj.com/person/y/stephen-kreider-yoder/4321

http://topics.wsj.com/person/y/stephen-kreider-yoder/4321