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| Sam Funkhouser, a native of Shenandoah County, is a member of the Old German Baptist Brethren, New Conference, and is the executive director of the Brethren/Mennonite Heritage Center. |
You could have heard a pin drop as Sam Funkhouser spoke those words at a recent monthly meeting of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community's Elder Exchange. Few of us gathered at the Detwiler Auditorium were used to hearing these kinds of prophetic words from our pulpits.
Which raises the question of whether our churches have become all too complicit in immunizing us from Jesus's liberating good news of a more simple and celebratory way to live in the Babylon that is America.
Which has me raising the following questions:
• Are millionaires made to feel more at home in our congregations than people living in poverty?
• Are our stewardship sermons and Sunday School conversations more about offering charity than about creating equity and promoting justice?
• Are we we being assured of our right to continue increasing our wealth year by year or are we being urged to heed Jesus's call to decrease our wealth in favor of storing up treasure in heaven?
• Do we see the millions of children of God in the global south as deserving the same access to adequate food, shelter and medical care as we feel entitled to?
• Is anyone raising serious questions about our churches and church-related institutions investing ever more of their budgets in state of the art facilities and programs that are creating an ever widening disparity between the world's privileged and the impoverished?
• And are we becoming increasingly comfortable with being increasingly comfortable and complacent?
Here's a link to the October 12 Elder Exchange event at VMRC https://vimeo.com/872662179?
I find the words spoken by your much admired Mr. Funkhouser disturbing. I cannot help but feel that these words are like spitting in the eye of the Lord and questioning whom He should bless. Do we fault Jospeph, who was blessed with wealth beyond measure, but because of his position of second in command of ancient Egypt which a merciful God raised him to enabled him to save thousands from starvation? Should he be condemned for the gift of wealth that God gave him?
ReplyDeleteShould we condemn the likes of Andrew Carnegie who was one of the wealthiest Amercans near the turn of the last century because of his wealth? Or should we be thankful that God so blessed him that Andrew Carnegie is remembered for his work to better communities. He built 2,509 libraries in several countries throughout the world, the majority being in the U.S. Throughout his life, he gave away over $350 million to philanthropic projects.(BTW, that $350 million dollars in 1900 would be equal to about $12,824,541,666 in today's dollars.)
You ask the question: Is anyone raising serious questions about our churches and church-related institutions investing ever more of their budgets in state of the art facilities and programs that are creating an ever widening disparity between the world's privileged and the impoverished? Where this is true, shame on them, they are not representative of the teachings of our Lord.
Yet, it is wrong to question whom God blesses. It is equally wrong not to use the blessing for the benefit of those who struggle. God has asked some simple things of us. It is in Micah 6 where God pours out a scathing indictment on the misuse of His blessing. It is in Micah 8 that He tells what he expects of us through the prophet. He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love (doing)mercy, And to walk humbly with your God.
God's blessings are not to be condemned, nor are those who receive them because it is somehow inequitable in the eyes of some that everyone is not equally blessed and the inequity is the fault of those who have much. But there is a caveat that should be spoken in the churches with fervor and frequency. It is this: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48). If we are blessed with talents, wealth, knowledge, time, and the like, it is expected that we use these well to glorify God and benefit others.
It does not matter how large or small a church is, if this teaching is not foundatonal, then it's leaders are errant, the congregants lack direction, an God will not be glorified.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Elly. I do believe we could all agree on the need to make a distinction between legitimate earning of profits, as was largely the case with Andrew Carnegie, as far as I can tell, and outrageous gain made by many coal barons, for example, who became rich at the expense of miners working long hours in unsafe conditions. I think we would also agree on the need to distinguish between stewarding large amounts of capital wealth versus claiming entitlement to an excessive amount of consumer wealth. https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=capital+wealth+and+consumer+wealth
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