You can’t serve two masters.
You’ll just end up loving one and hating the other. You’ve got to pick between loving God and loving money.
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Honestly I always thought the need to preach against financial greed seemed a bit... I dunno... elementary? After all... nothing seems to scream cartoon villain like somebody who loves money way too much. Your BEST case scenario is either Mr. Krabs or Scrooge McDuck.
Then I saw somebody who created a browser plug-in that automatically replaced the words “the economy” with “Lord Mammon.” Biblically, Mammon is how Jesus referred to wealth- personifying it with the image of an Assyrian demon or false idol. It made headlines look like:
📰“Stop COVID or save Lord Mammon?”
or
📰 “Experts discuss whether opening schools will help Lord Mammon.”
Okay, the plugin is meant for dramatic effect and starting a discussion that has room for more nuance. Economic health tends to help people, and it’s not a bad thing to pursue. It’s just a terrible thing to have as a master.
How do you know it’s become a master?
🗞 When the lives of others seem expendable for its sake.
🗞 When we shrug at mass extinctions because the habitat destruction is profitable.
🗞 When we get more angry over property loss more than the loss of human life.
All stuff we see all the time! This is a macro-level reality we live in. And it’s a tough one to escape from, because money’s a struggle for most of us! But I’ve found the following reminders constantly helpful:
💠Buying the more ethical item is a privilege so many people are priced out of. But if you’ve got this privilege, use it!
💠Treat nobody’s net worth as a token of their worth. Including your own. Don’t mistake your productivity for your value. Rest well. Play!
💠Remember, sudden surprises happen and money comes and goes. Safety nets are a good idea, but remember that financial loss can be recovered. Time, health, and opportunity can’t.
Know what your level of enough is. Actually identify a number. Research shows no correlation between money and happiness past $75K. Give or take based on your location and circumstances. But recognizing when you’ve hit enough saves you from excess. It tells you when you fully detach money’s influence on your decision making.
I can’t remember who introduced me to the term eco-discipleship, but it stuck.
The idea is that creation contains valuable spiritual lessons from its Creator. When you hear phrases like “consider the wildflowers,” or “look at the sparrow,” it means we can actually learn from these species.
One lesson I’m always getting from spending time outside is that we’ve been given everything we need for life to thrive. It’s one of the most amazing things about creation, actually. How optimized it is to sustain networks of life.
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How often do you hear of someone wanting to “run things like a business” touted as a virtue?
You hear this phrase in governance a lot. It’s one of the justifications given for the disruptions to the post office lately. More often, I also see this mentality at play in how churches operate, how a lot of school systems think of learning, and the way rest and community are undervalued in the United States.
Here’s why this mindset is no savior:
💸 Businesses aren't geared to serve the needs of all. You identify a “target market.” In the classes I’ve taken, this is almost always determined by which market is the most profitable and it’s not hard to see who that would exclude in the US.
💸 Business tends to aim for more and more, not recognizing the value of “enough.” It always leaves you wanting something more. It becomes so easy to harm others in that quest.
Business does have valuable lessons to teach. But in our culture, I think we’ve idolized it by making it our template for everything.
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I think we need a better metaphor to aspire towards.
Good stewardship isn’t so much running things like a business, but cultivating it like an ecosystem.
This reminds us:
🌱 …that we’re all interconnected. And we’ve got to care for the vulnerable. Even the most seemingly small element of life. In an ecosystem, a disruption to a single insect species or invasive weed can throw the entire food chain out of whack. This year makes it easier to see that humans aren’t exempt.
🌱 ...that real, lasting changes take time. They don’t happen overnight, and yet these are the changes we need to aim towards.
🌱 …the way we’re only on this earth for a moment, and that one of our biggest responsibilities is to future generations that come after us.
I should know better, but I often fall for the temptation to decide whether a day was a good day or not based on how productive I was.
I should know better, but I often fall for the temptation to decide whether a day was a good day or not based on how productive I was.
At the start of this year, I was churning out two videos every week, I was creating content three months ahead of schedule, and I was continuing to plan even bigger productions down the line. And I was really good at building systems that allowed me to maximize my efforts, getting the most done in the least amount of time possible.
When the lockdown brought my extreme work pace to a halt, it was disorienting. Then I realized I was going at a pace that made no sense.
When a culture lets the love of money become its master, one of the first things it does is lead people to confuse their sense of worth for their productivity.
We identify ourselves through jobs and titles rather than relationships and loves. We feel guilty about the very natural need to rest. We become a society that loses respect for the elderly, disabled, or those unable to work.
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It’s easy to fall for this way of thinking, because elements of it resemble truth.
It is a human need to be able to make and create things. Life is more fulfilling when you have some kind of meaningful work to pour yourself into. And work is a gift and a privilege and an opportunity.
A biologist friend of mine likes to point out that the goal isn’t to maximize, but to optimize. The highest level of productivity isn’t always the most ideal. You see this much more clearly in nature. And that makes me think that my goal isn’t so much to be productive, as it is to be regenerative.
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Regenerative work is life-giving. Both to the person doing the work, and all those who come into contact with it.
Regenerative work helps you live out your purpose, rather than getting in the way of you and your purpose.
Regenerative work often doesn’t even look like our mental image of work. It includes rest. It’s often indistinguishable from play.
An extremely large share of problems in our world stem from unhealthy relationships we have with work, money, and our identity. The natural world shows us that other ways are possible.