Monday, October 22, 2007
Money and Hospitality
Tim Frickenschmidt writing at CGO claims that money ruins hospitality:
I do think we are all called to a season of poverty. I agree that the call to be Christ's person is not necessarily a call to poverty, but it is definitievely a call to a proper relationship with our material possessions and frankly I have never met anyone with such a proper relationship that had not experienced a period of their lives where they had to figure out how to do without.
One of the more interesting phenomena is such a period of poverty is that we learn not only the value of money hard earned, but we also learn it's lack of value as the really important things in life can, if we allow it, take focus.
Not being a parent, I am loathe to grant parenting advise, but I will make an exception in this case. I see around me many young people whose parents strive to fill the child's every whim and desire. We have the whole sociologically demonstrated phenomena of kids staying with their parents well into their 20's - not mind you in roles as hands, or employees, or partners, but as the same rent-free children they are when they were minors.
I know of a 20-something engagement that recently broke off because one of the couple more-or-less tried to outfit a new house from scratch on credit. I could not help but think of the swivel-rocker I took from the trash of a neighbor at that age.
Yes, media and advertising builds expectations in children, but it did when I was a kid too. My parents hated when the Sears catalog came because it resulted in weeks of "I wants...."
Due to circumstances beyond his control my father was unable to fulfill a promise he made to me as a child, He always promised he would pay for my college education. Between my junior and senior years in undergrad, that ability simply vanished. I know that he died regretting his inability to fulfill that promise, he had expressed that regret so many times through the years.
I worked so hard in that senior year trying to keep up the study load, the volunteer ministry load, and scrapping up the money I needed. It was a great year and I tried to tell my dad through the years that I learned far more from that effort than I would ever have learned had he been able to keep that promise - That he had in the best sense possible educated me.
God had long since blessed me enormously financially, for which I am unspeakably grateful. Which is in the end the real key. It is not the lack or presence of wealth that matters, but the knowledge of its source and real value - lessons best learned in want, not plenty.
Christ's radical call to sell all your possessions is real, but not as radical as some would make it out to be. I think parents, with simple limitations and requirements on their children can teach the lessons of poverty for the season necessary.
Technorati Tags:money, hospitality, want, desire, parenting
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
As Christians our greatest offerings to one another and to the watching world are not positive; they are not out of the reservoir of what we are or have in ourselves. What we uniquely have to offer others that can truly change their souls is the “void” of which Barth speaks; it is the brokenness and feebleness that sin has scarred upon us but which God in Christ is healing. Our greatest offerings, our most hospitable offerings to others are negative; they are what we are not. We are not holier than they; our houses and our lives are not in spotless order; our children are not the beautiful little pixies that the pictures in our wallets display. We just are not...what most people think us to be. And if we let them into our homes and they see what we are not, maybe they will see who Christ is, what the gospel is.There is truth at the heart of Frickenschmidt's arguement, as Christians we are called to offer something quite different in hospitality setting than others. It is also true that money often becomes am idol for us. What I wonder about; however, is the radical nature of this presentation. Does Christ really call ALL of us to sell ALL of our possessions?
It is our negative offerings in hospitality that most clearly share grace with others. When they see that fallen people like us, who were once enslaved to the insatiable egotism of sin are now those who, though not perfect, strive to serve others out of our reservoir of weakness, we will really leave an impression. Christian hospitality is ultimately not an offering of our food, our house, our wit, our house cleaning, our horticulture, our parenting, or anything that the world too can offer, but rather our Lord Jesus, who has graciously filled the void between us and God through His life, death, and resurrection. It is Him we offer in our hospitality. You cannot serve both God and money.
I do think we are all called to a season of poverty. I agree that the call to be Christ's person is not necessarily a call to poverty, but it is definitievely a call to a proper relationship with our material possessions and frankly I have never met anyone with such a proper relationship that had not experienced a period of their lives where they had to figure out how to do without.
One of the more interesting phenomena is such a period of poverty is that we learn not only the value of money hard earned, but we also learn it's lack of value as the really important things in life can, if we allow it, take focus.
Not being a parent, I am loathe to grant parenting advise, but I will make an exception in this case. I see around me many young people whose parents strive to fill the child's every whim and desire. We have the whole sociologically demonstrated phenomena of kids staying with their parents well into their 20's - not mind you in roles as hands, or employees, or partners, but as the same rent-free children they are when they were minors.
I know of a 20-something engagement that recently broke off because one of the couple more-or-less tried to outfit a new house from scratch on credit. I could not help but think of the swivel-rocker I took from the trash of a neighbor at that age.
Yes, media and advertising builds expectations in children, but it did when I was a kid too. My parents hated when the Sears catalog came because it resulted in weeks of "I wants...."
Due to circumstances beyond his control my father was unable to fulfill a promise he made to me as a child, He always promised he would pay for my college education. Between my junior and senior years in undergrad, that ability simply vanished. I know that he died regretting his inability to fulfill that promise, he had expressed that regret so many times through the years.
I worked so hard in that senior year trying to keep up the study load, the volunteer ministry load, and scrapping up the money I needed. It was a great year and I tried to tell my dad through the years that I learned far more from that effort than I would ever have learned had he been able to keep that promise - That he had in the best sense possible educated me.
God had long since blessed me enormously financially, for which I am unspeakably grateful. Which is in the end the real key. It is not the lack or presence of wealth that matters, but the knowledge of its source and real value - lessons best learned in want, not plenty.
Christ's radical call to sell all your possessions is real, but not as radical as some would make it out to be. I think parents, with simple limitations and requirements on their children can teach the lessons of poverty for the season necessary.
Technorati Tags:money, hospitality, want, desire, parenting
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
