Rocky Cape Christian Community

Stock market crashing? To this K'ekchí man and his son, fishing beside their house in Toledo District, Belize, Central America, it will not make much difference.

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
 
But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you will go hungry.
 
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
 
* * * * *
 
In light of what Jesus said (far more than just this), it is impossible to justify wealth -- individual or corporate -- as a Christian. But what is wealth?
 
Basil, a rich young man of Caesarea, who gave up all he had to follow Christ around AD 360, wrote: "Are you not a robber, you who consider your own that which has been given you solely to distribute to others? This bread you have set aside is the bread of the hungry. This garment you have locked away is the clothing of the naked. Those shoes you let rot are the shoes of him who is barefoot. Those riches you have hoarded are the riches of the poor."
 
Listening to Jesus -- "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" -- the early Christians believed one could only follow him in detachment and dispossession. "Wahre Gelassenheit (truly letting go)," people called it in the Middle Ages, and the term has gotten carried into the present through our Anabaptist speech and writings.  
 
But what does detachment, dispossession, Gelassenheit, mean? Does it mean poverty like Francis of Assisi and the barefoot friars chose, shifting from town to town, begging bread? Into what do you interpret it, or how easily would you explain it away?
 
Here in Australia "poverty" has come to stand for the ability to spend so much money that one always runs out a few days short of the next welfare cheque. Drinking so much coke in government provided housing, that one must use free transportation to a public hospital where all services get paid by the rich (through our taxes and GST). In many other parts of the world "poverty" means going hungry, and barefooted. Or dying from untreated disease.
 
What does it mean to you?
 
If you must choose poverty to follow Christ, which kind will it be?
 
In the church to which we belong (an Anabaptist community operating on the same principles as the community young Basil founded in Palestine) we handle it like this: We believe industry and thrift are commended by God. We believe we should serve God through hard work and good management, but that the income it brings should get distributed fairly. The one that has gathered much should not have too much and the one that has gathered little should not have too little, so all may live in equality (2 Corinthians 8:13-15). We believe it our duty to feed and clothe our families, paying special attention to the affairs of the "household of faith," but what goes beyond that is for the benefit of the world's poor. The poor we always have with us, like Jesus said.
 
Through our common possession of this world's goods we have kept many smart men out of the danger and distress that goes with the acquisition of private wealth. "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction."
 
On the other hand, we have saved many bad managers from the chaos of private financial ruin.
 
Whether we are smart or dumb, weak or strong, old, young, male, female, brown, white, whatever -- our life in community is the best way to let go of material things and follow Jesus in faith alone. Money is power, and power corrupts. The best thing that has happened to us -- to our young men in particular -- is to be shorn of that worldly power (a demonic power and bondage) by having no money of our own.
 
What a great freedom! What joy in being totally vulnerable, totally dependent on Jesus all the time! But has this freedom of private wealth and goods, this "voluntary poverty" for Jesus' sake, freed us from all dangers, or put us on a foolproof route to glory?
 
No, it has not.
 
Every community, like every individual that loses its focus on Christ, loses its way. The corruption that comes of private wealth and greed stinks all over town. But the corruption that comes of corporate (communal) wealth and greed stinks to high heaven.
 
For many years I have listened to wealthy people telling me that riches or poverty is all a matter of the heart. If your heart is right, it does not matter how much money you have in the bank. If that is how you think, Jesus and all the world's poor (the ones you have robbed like Basil said), will stand to condemn you on judgement day.
 
The campesinos of Latin America take for granted that all rich people are greedy and selfish. Thieves. Despicable cheats and tyrants. I remember a young brother in Costa Rica telling me that no one gets rich, or stays rich, by accident.
 
Is that true?
 
Remember what Jesus said.
 
Peter
 
Rocky Cape Christian Community
19509 Bass Highway
Detention River, Tasmania 7321
Australia
www.thecommonlife.com.au