Does God want you to be rich?

In last week's Time magazine, the front page posed a question, posted in big yellow and white print, "Does God want you to be rich?" Incredulous and with furrowed brow, I slowly made my way toward the article, flipping and rustling through the crisp colorful pages until I finally arrived at the headline article. I read and read, the mystery growing in my mind, and the knot tightening in my belly. I thought quietly to myself as I closed the magazine and tried to catch the flitting pieces of half-truth and lay them down on the observation table of the mind.

Now, I am no great scholar of all things Jesus, but I am pretty sure he talked about it being harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I suppose the health and wealthers feel like anorexic dromedaries to make such claims. I tend to think that the tight squeeze for the rich might be attributed to the fact that they have made more room for gold in their pockets than for God in their hearts. I'm pretty sure Jesus also said that where your treasure is, that is also where you can find your heart. So with all that golden treasure in the pockets of the rich, where do you think we might find their hearts? But beyond all my trite mockery of the more fortunate, I think Jesus really meant to just let us all know that the things we own eventually begin to own us.

It sounds to me as though millions of "christians" are being duped by a few wealthy reverends who want to justify the extravagance of their lifestyles. Now, before I say any more, I think Jesus also said that before I tell my brother to take the speck out of his eye, I need to take the log out of mine. So let me say that while I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, I still find myself possessed by my possessions, or at least the idea that I need more of them. But I'm pretty sure Jesus also said that anyone who leads any of his little children astray should have a millstone thrown over his neck and be thrown in the sea. This to me sounds like Jesus is pretty serious about the people who follow him, and anyone who would be their leader better lead to Jesus or there are some pretty heavy consequences.

Amidst these frantic ruminations that bombard my inside places, I know that I need to pray for my home, this American continent, and my countrymen who slide down the slick slopes of materialism, even among those who call themselves followers of Christ. Does God want you to be rich? He may not be decided one way or the other, and it may depend entirely on who you are or where you are, but I'm pretty sure Jesus made it clear that those who lead the bumbling sheep of the christian flock better be pointing toward the good shepherd. And for those who don't, there is no part of the kingdom of heaven, because when all is said and done, they are only wolves in sheep's clothing.

pulse of the world

There is a world of suffering outside of our American frame. From the civil war-ravaged port town of Batticaloa where children cannot walk to school for fear of land mines and gunfire, to the terrors of the Sudan/Chad border where hundreds of thousands flee the hunting grounds of the Janjaweed militias, to the blood-soaked poppy fields of southern Afghanistan, to the rubble of Beirut, stumbling peace efforts leave broken landscapes and dreams long forgotten. For the average American, these are names and places from other worlds and times, far away from the Sunday paper and cups of coffee on the way to work. But as we hover in our holding pattern in anticipation of what the Peace Corps will bring, Em and I are beginning to envision weathered faces and broken histories, echoes of children forever replaced by rattling gunfire. We are trying to read between the black and white of the news and get lost in the human stories of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters in foreign worlds, until we can weep over hungry children, and the shadow of fear felt ten thousand miles away can reach through our walls to cast its darkness into our comfortable American lives. And we are learning to pray, to meet with God and ask for our brother in Sudan, our sister in Afghanistan, our auntie in Sri Lanka, our dear neighbor in Beirut. And in that quiet and anguished place, we see faces and hopes for days with less shadow and more laughter and dancing, and we feel, at least for a fleeting moment, the true pulse of the world.