Scripture is full of guidance and teachings about it, and that, of course, includes what we just heard as some of the teachings from Proverbs. And again, remembering that the purpose of Proverbs is to instruct young men of a certain economic class about what they need to know if order to be productive in their lives, these economic instructions make total sense. Proverbs tends to have a fairly positive view of money and of wealth, as long as that wealth was not gained in illicit ways, such as by lying, cheating, stealing or unjustly, to name just a few. and, just as Jesus has a lot to say about money, and we ignore that at our own peril, so too does Proverbs have a lot to say about money, and so that’s where we’re going to be spending our time today, and unlike most of the time in which the preacher begins talking about money, you don’t have to hold onto your wallets.
Now if there is one thing that is as true today as it was at
the time of Solomon, and that is that most people wish they had more money than
they do. It might not be a lot more, but at least enough to take away some of
the edge, or to take away concerns about paying the bills. Although all of that
is somewhat relative, as its not as if Jeff Bezos doesn’t have bills, they just
happen to be bigger and different than they are for most of us, but that’s what
happens when you want to launch yourself into space. But we have entire
industries built around the idea of getting rich, and the quicker the better
for most people, which is why we have casinos and lotteries. And a ridiculous
percentage of people are counting on winning the lottery in order to fund their
retirement, and for me a ridiculous is more than 1%, but, depending on the
source, it’s actually between 20-25% of people. And while there is something to
be said for dreaming about what we might do with a large influx of cash,
winning it is entirely a different thing. Because, as it turns out, winning it
is not all it’s cracked up to be. As columnist Gregg Easterbrook said, $1
million will change your life, $100 million will ruin it. And I know most of us
have probably said something to God like, “The money won’t change me, just let
me win and I’ll prove it,” but it will change us, and not for the better, and
it’s not a gift from God. Proverbs says, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich,
and he adds no sorrow with it….” Did you
know that 70% of those who win large jackpots declare bankruptcy within 5
years? Just five years. That doesn’t sound like a blessing, that sounds like
sorrow, and that doesn’t even begin to take into account the other negative
consequences winners deal with like broken relationships, lying, cheating and
even some murders.
Now one of the themes of Proverbs is that God blesses the
righteous with wealth and that foolish behavior will lead to poverty or that
wealth in the hands of fools won’t last, but if it’s not really a blessing can
we consider it from God? Financial advisor Dave Ramsey talks about people he
will talk to who have car payments, or house payments, they cannot afford but
will tell him that the car or the house was a gift from God, because it was a
miracle they got approved for the loan. His response, often quoting this
proverb, is that it wasn’t a gift from God, it was a gift of stupidity. If a
financial decision is bringing sorrow, more than likely it’s not from God. In
addition, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, which is the second
proverb that pertains to lotteries and all other get rich quick schemes:
“Wealth hastily gained will dwindle, but those who gather little by little will
increase it.” This builds upon the theme already discussed in past weeks ago
hard work leading to wealth, as well as that “the plans of the diligent lead
surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to want.” This is
true because if you don’t know how to handle money with what you have now, getting
it all at once won’t teach you that skill. But, if you are accumulating over
time, you’ll either learn that skill, or you’ll continue to waste it and never
accumulate, as we say, “a fool and his money are soon parted,” which sounds
like a proverb although it isn’t. But slow and steady ultimately wins the race
every time.
Now this is not all to say that if bad things happen to you
that it doesn’t mean you are blessed, although there are some proverbs that
want to say that, we know it’s not true. We even hear it in the sermon on the
plain from today where Jesus says that we will be blessed when people hate us
and revile us and defame us on account of being Christ’s love to the world. So,
the blessing doesn’t take away these negative things, and it’s not that the
blessing therefore makes it okay, but that they go hand in hand, and we have to
accept one with the other. And I suppose that thinking could go hand in hand
with another proverb about wealth, and that wealth brings many friends, but the
poor are left friendless. Now is this saying that poor people don’t actually
have friends? No, it’s a matter that when you have wealth, especially if its
quickly gained wealth, people will come out of the woodwork looking for help or
assistance, to be hangers on, to become part of an entourage and make their
living off of being in the circle of the rich. Now I’ve known several truly
wealthy people, that is on the Forbes 500 list wealthy, and one of the things
they will talk about, when they are really opening up, is the fact that it’s
hard to know who your friends truly are. So, if you dream of being or getting
rich, remember that while there are some nice perks that come with it, that
there are also lots of downsides to having wealth, and now I know you’re all
going to have a pity party for them.
But the other thing about those I have known with extreme
wealth is the fact that most of them did not live ostentatious lifestyles, or
really do anything that would make you know their truth financial standing. And
yet there are plenty of others who want to make you think they are wealthy when
they aren’t. And so Proverbs says, “some pretend to be rich, yet have nothing;
others pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.” Another interesting piece
about lotteries is a study done of lottery winners in Canada, and it was done
in Canada because the average zip code there represents 19 homes, and so they
could get more granular results. But they looked at bankruptcy rates in
neighborhoods where someone won a jackpot of around $100,000 dollars. They
eliminated the largest prizes because they would tend to move, but smaller
prizes would keep them in their same neighborhoods, but they would renovate
their homes, or buy new cars and other toys and go on expensive vacations. But
what the researchers found was that not only would these winners be prone to
bankruptcy, but the bankruptcy rates of their neighbors also increased in the
next few years because they were trying to keep up with their neighbors without
the financial resources to be able to do it. And so, lottery winners have negative
impacts on more than just themselves.
A more modern saying for this is “big hat, no cattle.” That
is people want to have the appearance of having wealth, of being conspicuous
consumers, of keeping up with the Joneses. They can’t afford to do what they
do, but they also think they can’t afford to. Their identity, and their need to
have others think good things of them, is tied up in their possessions and the
outward displays of wealth. Often, they are trying to prove something to
others, or often to themselves, and it actually doesn’t have anything to do
with wealth. Wealth is simply a means they pretend to have in order to feel
better about themselves, to prove themselves to be something more, perhaps to
win favor, even to win God’s favor. And yet Proverbs reminds us that “the rich
and poor have this in common, the Lord is the maker of them all.” A deep
reminder that our salvation is not dependent upon our wealth or even lack
thereof.
Even worse, those who need to show off their wealth, and yet
don’t have it, are often in significant debt, and Proverbs definitely has
something to say about that, with what I think is one of the strongest worded Proverbs,
which tells us “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the
lender.” Not just that it’s not good to be in debt, but that you will be ruled
by others; you will be a slave to whomever you owe money, because, the thing
is, lenders are not as forgiving when it comes to money owed to them as we
might wish. They want their money. Now as most of us know only too well, once
you’re in debt it’s much harder to get out of it, and it seems like everything
we are doing is simply to manage our debt. So, we become slaves to that debt.
Our work is not for us, it becomes for someone else, someone else who is then
gaining wealth from the sweat of our labor. Good deal for them, not so much for
us. God knows the dangers of this so much that the year of jubilee was
instituted in which all debts would be wiped out and everyone would return back
to zero in order to stop intergenerational poverty.
But that leads into, what I think is one of the most
important pieces of information when it comes to finances, just as true for
Solomon 3000 years ago, as it is today, and that is “Know well the condition of
your flocks and give attention to your herds, for riches do not last forever,
nor a crown for all generations.” I am always amazed at how many people don’t
have any idea where their money goes. They get paid, and then they get paid
again, and somewhere in the middle all of it goes away. That’s not paying
attention to the condition of your flocks. That’s what is being said here, as
there wasn’t money as we understand it, or at least that we know about as the
earliest coin we have comes from the year 600 BCE. So, think about your money
as your flocks and your herds. Are you paying attention to it or is it
wandering off to other people’s pastures to be lost forever? Is your flock
producing more animals for your flock, or is it only increasing someone else’s
flock? If you want financial security, stability and growth, these are the
questions that have to be answered, because if you don’t pay attention to your
flocks they will wander away, and you’ll be left holding nothing but a
shepherd’s crook, which won’t do you any good without nothing to round up. And
ignoring it because you hope it will just go away, or you’re afraid of what you
might find, doesn’t solve the problem. You need to know the condition of your
flocks.
And this is for everyone. Even if you are in a relationship
your partner handles the finances, if you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t
know the condition of your flock, and even worse you are not in a position to
take over management of that flock if something should happen to the other
person. This is incredibly important because all too often after a death I’ll
hear that the spouse, and not always the man, was the one who took care of the finances,
and they don’t know what to do or where to even begin. That means it takes both parties to
participate; it’s about knowledge and education, although I’d also say it’s
about more than just your partner. Proverbs says, “the good leave an inheritance
to their children’s children.” The way I hear that it’s about more than just
money, but about the passing on of wisdom, especially when it comes to
financial wisdom. Make sure the wisdom you have gained doesn’t die with you but
is passed on for generations to come. That’s a pretty strong inheritance. And
another way to protect your inheritance, although not a Proverb, but wisdom
anyways is not to invest in anything that you cannot or do not understand. If
you don’t understand an investment, and cannot explain it to someone else so
they understand it, then don’t invest your money in it. That right there would
eliminate most Ponzi schemes.
But I’d like to close with two final proverbs. And although
there are proverbs about giving, it’s not about that. The first one warns us not
to wear ourselves out to get rich but be wise enough to desist. And so that is
a sort of reminder of the dangers of seeking after wealth for wealth’s sake,
because it can lead us to do things we might not otherwise do, to use the ends
of achieving wealth to justify whatever means we need to do it. As another
Proverb says, it’s better to be poor and righteous, which will look at next
week, then to be wealthy and dishonest or crooked. Which then connects to the last Proverb we
heard this morning.
In Chapter 30, Agur, who is responsible for this series of
Proverbs, although we know nothing about who he is, he prays to God asking God
to grant him two things. The first is to take away from him falsehood and
lying, presumably both from those he might be inclined to tell, but also from
those who might be inclined to tell them to him. And then he says, and I think
this should be the prayer for all of us, “give me neither poverty nor riches; feed
me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you, and
say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the
name of my God.” I think there is some
incredible wisdom in this prayer, and it is the only prayer found in Proverbs.
First, he doesn’t ask for riches, but instead enough to get him through,
because, he realizes, if he has too much, he may deny God, thinking that he has
done everything himself, that God has not only not played a role in his life,
but that he doesn’t even need God because he has everything he needs to get by.
This is a common feature of modern America. Jesus tells a story about a man
like this who has more than enough, and after he builds bigger barns to hold it
all, tells himself to eat, drink and be merry, but God calls him a fool, the only
time in the gospels this happens, and appropriate for proverbs which is about
wisdom versus foolishness, and then God takes his life. So, don’t get so much,
or don’t seek so much that you may deny God.
Secondly, he asks that he won’t be so poor that he will feel the need to steal, and thus profane God’s name. This is about trusting that God will provide, but it’s about more than that as well. It’s about remembering that everything we do is a reflection not only on ourselves, but also on our faith, and therefore a reflection on God. If we claim to be faithful and are told not to steal, but then go out and do so, what does that say to others, especially non-believers? May everything we do honor God and bring glory to God’s name, everything we do in poverty and in prosperity. May we never have so little that we must break our faith and may we never have so much that we forget where it came from and deny God, and if you are in that second position where you have too much, I would be glad to help you make a donation to the church in order to return you to the proper place of gratitude in your life. And amy what we have bring blessings rather than sorrow. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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