Some wise words from a pastor-friend:

I think Tony Campolo once asked if Jesus would own a BMW.

We have our own form of a BMW if we aren’t willing to give it up or share it.

If we all had to raise our own financial support – independently of church offerings – we may be better qualified to make assessments. We might also discover some financial realities.

Anyone with a computer, electric light, a phone or more than six years of schooling may be considered greedy on a global rating, for greed has a sliding scale that nearly always targets people above us on any financial pecking order.

We need to be alert to the greed and selfishness that is triggered by poverty, because peole caught in a poerty mindset are rarely able to see past their next mealtime. I’d rather naively always admired civilians during wartime, while their soldiers were away at the front. Until I learned from a German family, when I was arranging their mother’s funeral, how the need to survive the war caused people to rip each other off without any compunction. Shoddy goods for sale, or bags of plaster flogged off as flour, as one example. Now we all know they were then the enemy, so obviously they were all a nazi piece of work… But similar things went on among us goodies …

The issue is not greed but stewardship, so gratitude to God and generosity to others can get some room to breathe. This generosity may be in church giving, in charitable donations, in securing employment for others, or in being able to support yourself so your time is fully available to helping anyone less fortunate. To mention a few …

I’m sure there will be more, but it can only help to teach on the blessings that God gives, including financial ones, so we may share; and to report back from those who receive our gifts as to the blessings that result.

PS, a Jewish curse “May you be blessed with an apparently limitless supply of money; and may you be the only person in your neighbourhood to be so blessed.”