Wake-Up Call

Most of us are very concerned about the financial crisis looming before our eyes. We keep hearing about a government bailout that will hopefully save us from losing all assets and zeroing out our stock portfolios. I personally believe that our country will come out of this and that plenty of safeguards will be put into place in an attempt to make sure it doesn't happen again. But safeguards won't be enough until we address one glaring issue: greed.

It won't do to say, "Stop being greedy!" because that will fall on deaf ears. The best we can do is point out the rippling effects of greed and ask people if that's the kind of world they want to live in.

I heard from a banker friend this week that the phrase "you can't afford it" has been essentially stricken from the American vocabulary. Someone somewhere will see to it that anyone can afford anything. How can anyone refuse a loan that requires no money down and only payments on mortgage interest? No wonder first-time homeowners buy palatial mansions instead of modest starter homes!! But, as we're seeing now, it was a recipe for disaster.

This is what greed does. It looks great in the short term, but in the long term it has disastrous results. What it also tells me is that, by in large, we Americans are not very good stewards and managers of the resources that are God given. We have yet to understand that everything we have in our possession does not belong to us. We own nothing. In fact, the whole idea of human ownership is a fallacy. And since we own nothing we can give nothing. Everything belongs to God, and the best we can do is take our hands off of that which belongs to God.

We are witnessing something that to me is a wake-up call-- God can fire us as stewards and hire new ones by taking God's resources away from us and giving them to someone else who will manage them properly. God has done this before, so don't believe it can't happen to us. We are the wealthiest nation on Earth and yet there are people on this planet who go to sleep each night with an empty stomach. The problem is not God's provision. The problem is human hoarding and greed.

The answer is to repent-- to change our way of thinking, admit that we've been greedy, and realize that we live on a planet that we did not make and do not own, and that God is not concerned with borders, flags, or embassies. We live in one world and we must learn the art of living simply so that others may simply live. But we can't do this on our own. We need God's help and reassurance that God never fails to provide for our needs and not our greeds.

I hope and pray that this whole episode teaches us the importance of being servants of all and slaves of no one or nothing. Christ set us free from bondage to ourselves and our greed. May we follow Christ as we were baptized in him to walk as children of the Light.