On Being a Wealthy Christian

It is difficult being wealthy when you think yourself poor. You can’t afford any of the things you feel you should have, such as a new lawnmower, or an eighty-dollar wide-brimmed hat. You pout because you have to settle for borrowing the landlord’s mower, and wearing an old baseball cap. But what you shouldn’t take for granted is that you do have a lawn to mow, and a house to live in, even if you are just renting it; and you do have a head to put a cap on, which is to say that you have been given the gift of existence! We should be grateful for the house, the lawn, the generous landlord, the cheap old cap and the head to put it on. We should be grateful for our wealth.

After all, we who routinely have shelter and full bellies are wealthy. 

This Truth comes from God, for whatever state we are in, if we abide in Him, we are content. And if we are content we are rich.

But this is also a statistical fact. For the most part, those of us who are European or North American Quakers are wealthy people. In our wealthy nations, we may call this ‘working’ or ‘middle’ or ‘upper-middle’ class, but by the standards of the world, it is wealth.

For example, I am only a street vendor who sells hot dogs in a relatively ‘poor’ Western nation, and yet my income, according to Global Rich List, makes me wealthier than the vast majority of the people in the world. Another immigrant, a Bulgarian whose only income comes from helping me sell hot dogs for four hours a week, has an income that makes him comparatively wealthy by the world’s standards. A part-time hot dog vendor’s assistant in Portugal is financially much better off than most of the world! And yet many people who are wealthier than 90 percent of the world’s population consider themselves to be poor and struggling.

But are we really poor because we are having a difficult time of it, living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make bank payments? Wouldn’t billions love to be in our difficult position? We are wealthy people. And if we who struggle with the bills are wealthy, what are those who are able to hoard their wealth and live comfortably?

In the 19^th century, Quakers who were immersed in debt were strongly discouraged from being charitable to others until they had paid off their debt. I say this is contrary to the Spirit of Christ. Let my ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ in that I have agreed to pay a debt, and sooner or later, God willing, I will pay it. But if my wealthier creditor demands his $400 now, and a neighbor cannot afford groceries for the week, I will help out my neighbor with her groceries before I pay my creditor that week. In the face of my neighbor’s even more unfavorable circumstances, I will not hoard, nor will I help another to hoard. Hoarding wealth is contrary to Christ, especially when so many people in the world are struggling to eat.

I know there is a Calvinistic streak in Quakerism that leads us to believe we are blessed by God if we are wealthy; and there is a sense of pride in that wealth having come by honest and virtuous living; but our wealth is blessed by God only if we are ready to part with it. It is God’s wealth, entrusted to us to do His will. And His will is to lower the mountains and raise the valleys.

Therefore, I have asked myself whether I, in the Spirit of Christ, have deemed to love not in word or tongue, but in deed and truth, for if the love of God is in me, and I have this world’s goods, I  will help my brother in need and not shut up my heart from him. I may not have all the goods that the Jones’s have, but I may have far more than the Smith’s have. My focus should not be on keeping up with the Jones, but with helping the Smiths to keep up with me.  

And I mustn’t believe that by calling myself a Quaker I am necessarily a righteous person.  Certainly my dressing in old clothes, addressing everyone as ‘tu’ (the informal and familiar way of saying ‘you’ in Portugal), and daily spending time in solitary waiting worship—if I am indifferent to the suffering of the person next door—makes me nothing but boorish and eccentric.

And let me not deceive myself into thinking that giving out of my relative abundance makes me righteous either. For though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, if I have not love, it profits me nothing, because without love there will be a grudging sense of obligation in my charity. But if I truly love my neighbor I will be joyful in giving to her.

The way of the Christian community in the Book of Acts is an example of how primitive Christianity worked as real community, based on love of one’s neighbor. ‘Primitive Christianity revived’ is loving your neighbor as you love yourself, and living the Kingdom of God here and now, just as the early Christians did.

So let me realize first that I am wealthy, and second, that whatever struggle I may encounter to maintain my family’s relatively high standard of living is no excuse for not helping someone who is struggling for the more basic necessities. Then let me chip away at lowering the mountain I have set myself on to raise the valleys that so many others live in. This is the will of God, and if we don’t do it, He will.

Lord, let me be content with my wealth and help me to lift the valleys. Lift the valleys, Christians!