Rules vs love

There’s nothing more annoying some days than losing my poppy.  It’s gotten to be a bit of an obsession with me.  I keep my poppies from year to year, stuck to a cork board so I won’t go without.  I have tried bending the pin.  I have horded poppies.  I have checked as I’m leaving a place to make sure I haven’t lost them.  All because I fear the censure and judgement of people who assume that my lost poppy is a sign of disrespect to veterans, that it is unpatriotic or unCanadian. And it’s not all in my imagination either.  There have been times when people who are normally nice, kind people have let loose a diatribe or scathing remark about my empty collar without asking if I lost it.  They assumed bad intentions and they judged my character and they let me have it.

I’m sure they, like the religious scholars Jesus was talking about, had good intentions.  We do need to remember the dreadful cost of war, the dreadful consequences when totalitarian dictators brainwash voters with us vs them rhetoric.  But I think we do need to be careful when we hear people put rules ahead of love.

There’s a house in Edmonton that was set up for moms who wanted to get off the streets and get sober.  Some were fleeing the drug trade, some were running away from a toxic childhood home, or bad boyfriends.  Some had lived under bridges, and some had couch surfed.  The ones who had children under 5 had nowhere to turn.  If they went to a homeless shelter, they would lose their children to the system.  And they all had to be sober for three months before they could access social service programs and treatment centres.  Three months can be a long time when you don’t know where to find a safe haven.  When I first visited, I was told that the residents might be afraid of me.  Because I was white, I looked like a social worker.  And social workers took children and babies away.  They would even show up in the maternity wards before the moms were released!  The rules were more important than love but the group home made love more important than rules.  Whatever happened, everyone was committed to keeping the children safe.  That was their mission, their purpose, and they were committed to that rule of love.

Generosity is the same.  If we are being told to be generous because of the rules, instead of love, it, as Paul says, it’s extortion.  That is what Jesus was pointing out when he showed the poor widow giving her two cents.  She was giving for love, but the hypocritical leaders of the church were pushing her to such giving because of the rules.  We learned last week that you can’t get to heaven in a rocking chair.  Well, a visa card or fat check book won’t do it either.

It’s important to be intentional and loving with our money, just as we are called to be intentional and loving with our words and our actions.  When we think things through carefully with intention, there’s a fancy word for that, discernment, which is a spiritual practice.  It’s when we choose how we use money and where we use money.  Society doesn’t want us to take time to think about purchases, they want us to spend emotionally.  They want us to grab that extra chocolate bar at the till, become addicted to the shopping channel, spend money on the latest eye-catching gismo we see on the internet, or the coolest thing out of the latest Hammacher catalogue.  I have just got to get that glow in the dark motion sensor toilet seat that doubles as a nightlight!  Really?

We are called to remember that we can’t get to heaven on such an amazing throne, available for the low price of 16.99, with free gift wrap included, even if we do qualify for free shipping.  That is not about love of God, love of neighbor, love of self.  On the other hand I don’t think we should be like Elon Musk, who when the U.N. claimed that 2% of his wealth would solve world hunger, retorted that he didn’t believe the U.N. could save millions of lives with such a donation.  His cynicism is a way of justifying his $311 billion dollars.  And what about folks who spend 250 to 300 thousand dollars to get a ride into space?  So maybe we can get to the heavens with a big enough bank account, but where’s our love, our ministry, our mission, our caring for God’s neighbor in that?

Compared to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, we may feel more like the poor widow who only has two cents to rub together.  But we do have a false sense of our own economic status when we only compare ourselves to millionaires or billionaires.  Compared to many around the world who live on $5 a day, we are wealthy too.  So how do we find a healthy relationship with money that falls into our Christian ethic without either giving away everything we own in guilt or hording everything we have in fear?

Nathan Duncan teaches church goers that most of us fall into one of three categories: we are savers or spenders or sharers.  He encourages us to think about where we need to save more, where we could spend more, and how we could share more in a healthy balance.  We should never be like the Widow woman giving her last coins to the church, nor should we be like the hypocrites who demand money from people so they can wear their fancy outfits and show off in church.  When we share, let us do so with careful discernment and love.  When we save, let us do so with careful discernment and love.  When we spend, let us do so with love. Love, not rules.

Intentions matter.  I intend no disrespect to veterans when my poppy slips off my coat.  The social workers I’m sure didn’t intend to traumatize the moms but make sure the babies were safe. But let’s err on the side of love in all that we do, because we are loved and called to love in everything we do.  Rules can be loving and health-giving, but ultimately, God calls us to healthy relationships and balance, even healthy relationships with money.  By discerning and loving, we can make healthy choices that benefit both ourselves and our neighbors, and helps bring God’s heaven a step closer to earth for us all.  May we work together to build Heaven on Earth for all God’s children.  Amen.