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By Matt Guerino|Published Date: March 08, 2010
Reversing The Curse, Part 2
A central feature in the Biblical view of life is The Curse: the understanding that things are bad – that they’re not the way they’re supposed to be – because the world and everything in it has been broken by mankind’s sin. Jesus came to reverse The Curse by eliminating its cause (mankind’s sin) through his death and resurrection. He then returned to heaven, sending his redeemed followers out into the world to live lives that imitate his Curse-reversing mission.
The assumption is that as Christians live in this broken world, we will encounter the results of The Curse just as everyone does. However, the Christian’s calling in such instances is to be a redemptive influence; to reverse The Curse through the power of God’s Spirit living in us. This column is part of a series that examines practical ways that Christians can begin to reverse The Curse right now in each of 8 spheres of life: Relationships, Government, Creation/Environment, Culture, Economics & Vocation, Education & Human Development, Religion, and Science & Technology.
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19
“Are they not of the human race!?!”
So thundered the Ghost of Christmas Present in response to Ebenezer Scrooge’s insistence that the plight of the poor was not his concern. Charles Dickens’ tale of heaven reforming London’s most notorious miser is a well-known classic. But in A Christmas Carol, as with most of his writing, Dickens was not simply trying to create a popular story. Through his fiction, Dickens was appealing to the conscience of his readers and condemning the injustices of his day.
Contempt for the “Surplus Population”
Scrooge is remembered mostly for being a miser – a hoarder of wealth. But money is only a symptom of the moral crisis that lies at the heart of this story – merely the visible flower springing forth from the deeper root. Where heaven really confronted Scrooge was in his worldview, his belief that he was responsible for and obligated to one person and one person alone. Himself.
Ebenezer saw the world as a harsh, dog-eat-dog place that contained only two kinds of people: winners and losers. It was a stark and barren world, free from the contours of values, obligations, and morals which give color and texture to human life. Consequently there were very few rules Ebenezer felt obligated to follow as he sought to entrench himself permanently among life’s winners. And there was no one he felt obligated to amongst the losers once he did achieve success.
The Corroding Curse
Such is the way of The Curse. The Bible describes the effects of sin in corrosive terms: eating away at the ties between man and God, between man and his fellow man, and even between man and himself. In sinning, mankind has made himself his own god, deciding for himself what is right and wrong and thus throwing off the constraints of obligation that God’s divine will puts on him.
Financially, when the autonomous self is at the center of its own universe rather than God, the result is a world much like that of Ebenezer Scrooge in which money is merely a tool for the individual to achieve his own happiness. Work becomes simply the way to make money, and money becomes simply a way to achieve our own goals. After all, having cut ourselves free from God, what other goals are there to achieve than our own?
“Mankind was my business”
The Christian worldview presents an answer to this question: a Reversal of The Curse. When the ghost of Scrooge’s deceased former business partner Jacob Marley arrives to announce that Scrooge will be haunted by three other ghosts, they briefly reflect on their past business partnership. “You always were a good man of business,” Scrooge tells Jacob’s ghost, complimenting him for ignoring everything else in life to pursue greater riches. “Business!?!” Jacob retorts angrily, “mankind was my business!” Jacob had made himself his own god, just as Ebenezer is doing. And he has paid a steep price.
Jacob’s ghost stands before Ebenezer as a stark reminder that God’s purposes still stand. Though The Curse has wrecked the lives of men like Jacob and Ebenezer by causing them to use wealth merely for their own ends, the Biblical vision is to reverse The Curse by seeing wealth and vocation as realities emanating from God.
Calling
The word vocation derives from the Latin word “to call.” It reflects the idea that God created the human race for a purpose. In Genesis 1:28 God tells Adam and Even to “fill the earth and subdue it,” as well as giving them “dominion over” all other life on earth. Here God tells the human race to spread throughout the earth and develop ways of taming and developing it, including the creation of societies, political systems, arts and culture, science and technologies, and economies. It is here that we first encounter the concept of stewardship in the Bible: the human race has been given the job of developing the world on God’s behalf, so that it achieves his purposes.
And he gives each individual person a specific job to do in order to fulfill that purpose, as well as an individualized set of gifts and abilities to accomplish their unique part. This is a person’s calling; his or her vocation. In the Biblical view, work is about much more than simply generating money. It is about fulfilling one’s God-given purpose.
Making the world go ‘round… God’s way
But that is not to say that the wealth generated by work is inconsequential in the Biblical worldview. The fact is that wealth is the means by which much of human society operates, and it is connected to work by nature itself. In many ways the saying is true: money makes the world go ‘round. This is by God’s design and it reflects his intention.
The question is, how will “the world go ‘round?” The Curse has corroded our understanding of money, but the problem is not money. The problem is our tendency to make ourselves our own gods, and thus use our money for our own ends. Instead, money is a part of our God-given stewardship. It is a tool to accomplish his purposes, not ours.
Reversing the Curse
1 Timothy 6:17-19 enjoins Christians with wealth to think in kingdom terms about how they manage it. We are urged to give generously and do many good works with our wealth; to use it to make the world go ‘round the way God intends it to. Such giving is not only to be generous, it is to be based on insight: recognizing that real life does not come from using wealth for our own ends. Instead, it comes from using our wealth to advance Jesus’ Kingdom by spending it on his priorities.
As Christians we’re called to give in Jesus’ name. This means not only giving generously, but giving with his priorities in mind. It means using our wealth to care for the needy and poor because we recognize them as equals; people made in God’s image. When you do so, you’re helping reverse The Curse in a practical way by bringing the kingdom of Jesus to light.
Helping manifest the Kingdom of Jesus with material possessions: That’s a choice that even Ebenezer Scrooge came to be proud of.
For more insight to this topic, get the book, Happy Are You Poor, by Thomas Dubay, at our online bookstore. Or read the article, “Empowering the Poor,” by Charles Colson.
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