“Black Thursday”
It was a dark day on the streets of New York City. So dark, in fact, it infamously became known as “Black Thursday”, the day ruined Wall Street stockbrokers leaped from tall buildings to their deaths during the market crash of 1929.
Despite the sensationalist reports by newspapers and tabloids of the time, only two men actually leapt from buildings in New York City that day. Chillingly, despite our national memory around this economic disaster, the number of deaths since then have been dwarfed by the increase of money-related suicides.
Today, it is estimated that around 16% of all suicides are prompted by some kind of financial trouble. This number doesn’t even touch those who suffer from anxiety and depression because of the constant fear of looming financial trouble. As the average amount of debt per American household grows, and the economy continues to spiral, anxiety over money is only expected to grow and spread. It appears our wallets have us by the throat.
You Are Worth More Than You Make
In the Frank Capra classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey finds himself in just this type of panic-stricken financial spiral. He’s deep in debt and out of options. The only scrap of value left in his life is, ironically, a small life insurance policy, making him “worth more dead than alive” as the film’s antagonist says.
As Bailey considers a lethal dive off the town bridge, there’s a brilliant scene depicting a conversation taking place in heaven. A small cloister of angels discuss Bailey’s desperate situation and what can be done to prevent him from throwing away his life—“God’s greatest gift” one of them calls it. Bailey’s guardian angel presents himself to the tormented man and, throughout the plot of the movie, teaches Bailey the immense value of his life and how foolish it would be to throw it away over money.
There’s a good reason this movie has become a classic. The wisdom behind the heart-touching story hits us loud and clear. Our God-given lives are vastly more precious than what we earn or how much we owe. Even unchurched folks in secular culture know, on a basic level, that to measure a human life by their monetary net worth is a grotesque joke. There is no correlation between human worth and money.
We Don’t Believe What We Know (It’s Okay to Say That)
But, let’s be honest for a moment. Does anyone actually believe this? We certainly profess to, nodding our heads piously from our couches to Frank Capra’s immortalized moral. But, if this value really is basic to our culture and our theology, why is there so much anxiety, depression, and even suicide over finances? Most of us today act, whether consciously or subconsciously, as if our money determines our value as people.
More than likely, you know someone who falls into this category, or just as likely, you are that someone. On a foundational level, you actually feel your life is attached to your monetary worth. By this I mean more than your bank account balance. I mean your work, your investments, your securities, your productivity, and your future prospects.
These things put a comforting barrier between you and all the unpleasant possibilities of life. Poverty, meaningless toil, powerlessness, and finally destitute old age. The only reason we put value in money is because we fear these things more than anything else in life, and money promises to protect us from them. It promises power to overcome these grim possibilities, and to throw open doors into sunny worlds of meaning, fulfillment, and security.
No wonder it’s so easy to attach our human value to money. By all appearances, money is the thing that makes life worth living. If we don’t seize money and live our life to secure it, will our lives even be worth living? Some believe this is the truth, so much so they see a long drop and a sudden stop as the answer. But does God see it this way?
Money: Jesus’ Favorite Topic?
You’ve probably heard that Jesus preached about money more than anything else. The gospels record Jesus often putting money center stage in his stories and lessons. 11 of His 39 parables use finances as the backdrop. But really, the statement that Jesus preached more about money than anything else is a myth. The fact is, despite what Christian business gurus might say, Jesus wasn’t teaching about money in these parables and lessons, He was teaching about something vastly more important.
Jesus was and is a realist, as funny as that might sound to modern ears. He knows that money is an unavoidable and integral facet of human life. We cannot help but attach ourselves to the ‘almighty dollar’, and “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:21). It’s what Jesus does with this common financial burden in human life that should surprise us.
Is Jesus Out Of Touch With Reality… Or Is It Just Me?
Consider His often abused and respun teaching in the Sermon on the Mount:
“And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For the Gentiles [unbelievers] seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt. 6:28–33 ESV).
The world belongs to God, and He guides and sustains all things, down to flowers and birds. If we live in God’s world, seeking his rule in our environment and acting according to God’s ways, we should expect the same provision. It’s a beautiful lesson and faith and dependence on God, and like most worrywart Christians, it has always been a passage I would return to for comfort.
However, I came to a difficult epiphany about this passage a couple of years ago. I didn’t actually believe it. (I think we evangelicals need to get better at admitting we don’t actually believe some things in order to heal from our disbelief.) It’s easy to be hypocritical when reading parts of Christ’s teaching like the Sermon on the Mount, because it sounds like Jesus was living on an entirely different planet!
Considering I live in 21st century America and not 1st century Palestine, my life is significantly easier, less painful. Jesus and His disciples walked the earth in the days before Aspirin, anesthesia, health insurance, or 401k. How could anyone in the crowds hearing Jesus say these words take Him seriously?
“What do you mean, don’t worry about food or clothes?” I would probably have shouted back. “I’ve got hungry kids and Roman tax debts to pay!“
Jesus doesn’t even mention anything about not worrying about your career, your investments, your student debt, or your rent. No, Jesus goes straight for what we today would consider the bottom of the human hierarchy of needs. Our lowest human necessities: food and clothes.
The God Who Provides
Jesus clarifies human necessities aren’t bad things in themselves. He reassures us that our heavenly Father knows we need these things, and He will actually provide them for us when we “seek first the kingdom of God”. Some misled interpreters make the mistake when reading Jesus’ words that possessions and money are the enemy. It’s not as simple as that.
Jesus actually promises a level of financial stability to His followers, so we can breathe a sigh of relief there. However, it’s clear this way of “making a living“ is not born out of that old, primal dread of poverty and destitution. Instead, it’s born out of new information about life in the world that we would not have known unless Jesus told us.
The old order of things lives on. God is still enthroned above creation and is moving things back into order with authority in Jesus, the King of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. To those who entrust their lives to Him and His kingdom, he will give necessities—food and clothes, daily bread—and better than that, eternal life.
Note, He does not promise wealth and prestige to those who give their lives for the kingdom. This is an important point to make as movements in the Church around the world today have adopted the spurious belief that Christians are promised wealth in this life. They are not, in fact Jesus often warns His followers of affluence. Rather, we are promised necessities, a family in the church, “homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.“ (Mark 10:30). For more on this topic, visit an earlier post of mine: “It’s Not Americana”.
According to the order of things that Jesus reveals, in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the New Testament, the penniless believer is in a better life position than kings, estate inheritors, and CEOs. In the order of life He reveals, it is not the wealthy who practice control over destitution and death, but the poor, the humble, the trampled upon who set their hope in Jesus and His kingdom. These lowly people recognize a truth that money-worship and poverty-dread blind us to. That “the earth is the Lord‘s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1).
Sabbath: A Return to Reality
So, Jesus’ favorite topic isn’t money. It’s this kingdom of God, where the poor are lifted up and provided for and the wealthy and powerful are revealed to be destitute and powerless without Christ. Along with Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom comes a recurring theme in the gospels, one that strikes us as odd and possibly off-topic—the theme of Sabbath.
Sabbath, the divinely appointed day of rest from the belly of our Old Testaments. Sabbath is difficult for us to grasp today as modern westerners. But, although we consider this peculiar weekly practice an oddity of the Old Testament, the Sabbath is secretly a cornerstone of the story of the entire Bible, marking the character of God and the purpose of His creation from Genesis to Revelation.
Sabbath is precious to God we know, because it is woven into the rhythm of life of all his covenant people in the Bible. Most people forget that keeping the Sabbath holy (Exod. 20:8–11) is right up there alongside not murdering and stealing in the ten commandments! So it should be no surprise to us that, as Jesus comes to establish the rule of God on the rebel earth, many of the stories about Jesus in the gospels revolve around the Sabbath.
Jesus, at one point, gives Himself the curious title: “Lord of the Sabbath’’ (Matt. 12:18). This wasn’t just a power-play against the hypocritical religious leaders of His day, it was a revelation of the nature of the world and the character of God. Jesus was essentially telling the onlooking world to “watch and learn. This is what it looks like for a person to live the way God intended.”
Living Out of God’s Hands
When we look at Jesus’ life, we are witnessing what it looks like to truly live in the reality of Sabbath. To live without duplicity, without this tug-of-war between dreading what will come if I’m not productive today, or if I do not have enough money for tomorrow. It’s showing through our actions, intentions, and words that we are living out of God’s hand. God is the good Father who provides for his children, the good shepherd who leads His sheep to green pastures.
Author Dallas Willard says it well in The Great Omission, “Sabbath is a way of life (Heb 4:3; 9-11). It is simply “casting all your anxiety on Him,” to find that in actual fact “ He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).” It’s not just a pretty sentimentality. God really does care for his creation, and through our renewed relationship with God through Jesus, we can really trust “that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28).
Jesus revealed in his life and ministry, death and resurrection, that this way of thinking wasn’t an escape from reality, but a return to it. The world is truly sovereignly ruled by a God who is not only good, but who we can honestly call our loving and caring “Father” through Jesus Christ.
Sabbath is a fundamental paradigm shift away from the human dread of insufficiency and need for control. Instead, we throw ourselves at the mercy of God. We commit our lives to his work and goals in the kingdom, trusting wholeheartedly in his provision for us.
But, Why Can’t I Believe Jesus?
But doesn’t this just land us right back where we started? We might profess that these things are true, but we don’t believe that they are true. The difference being, when it comes down to it, we don’t act on what we know is true. Instead, we live in constant fear of what could happen if we don’t spend our lives in the service of our bank accounts.
Like any truth revealed by Scripture, we don’t suddenly believe it because we read it. We start believing by putting the learned truth into action. Christianity, contrary to its bad press, isn’t a leap of faith into an abyss. It’s a leap of faith onto a solid rock that will stand even when nations, ages, and even death are dissolved.
The way out of this cycle of fear and shame is not another financial scheme, a better job, or more securities. It is to wake up to reality, to take God at His word, to practice Sabbath in real life and recognize our Father’s real care for us. I don’t pretend it’s easy to come out of this deadly pattern of thinking, but I know it is possible and something God intends for you.
Living Sabbath
The first step might be as simple as practicing a hard-set Sabbath, setting aside one day a week to, I’ve heard it said before, “take your hands off the world and see that it keeps spinning”. But the main goal is not keeping this law, so much as coming to believe what it represents.
We are citizens of the King, the Lord of the Sabbath, who gives your daily bread and every good thing. Trust Him, follow Him, seek his kingdom, and uncover a treasure more real and valuable than a flooded bank account. Money, security, health, and wealth all go back to dust, but you were made for eternity. Release your control, confess your failure to trust, and try again. God is good and gracious and won’t stop until you’re free from money-worship and poverty-dread.
The good news is that real life isn’t “Black Thursday”. Your wallet has no authority to rule you. Christ does, and will provide what you need as you seek first the kingdom. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matt. 6:34).
Good word!