16 Apr A Christian Financial Response to COVID-19
Did you ever see the movie Jerry Maguire? It’s a movie where a sports agent (Tom Cruise) has a moral epiphany and he writes a treatise that expresses his true feelings and reveals his true philosophy of life.
Perhaps the most famous line in the movie is: “Show me the money!”
And so, part of what I want to think through today, in our current COVID-19 crisis, is money…actually, I want to talk about YOUR money (and mine, of course, too, as you’ll see!) But even more than that— today, I’d like to help us think through, as Christian people, creative fiscal responsibility.
Because of what the world is experiencing right now, we believe that the Church Jesus founded has a unique opportunity to make an eternal impact on people we know (Luke 16). My wife, Debra, and I want to share a creative idea that will hopefully spur you to find your own creative ideas and those just might change the world around you.
Our prayer is that, at the end of this message, you will be able to say that second famous line from Jerry Maguire, “You had me at hello.”
Ready? Here we go!
My wife, Debra, was listening to a podcast a few days ago and the discussion turned to the topic of how Christians are to respond in times of worldwide tragedies, like the one we are experiencing now with this COVID-19 pandemic. During the teaching, the message moved, in truly Pastor Morgan-esque fashion, to a three-point list (at this point he has reminded me to remind you that his message on Easter was actually 10 points!) of activities that seem to be a part of the consistent “tragedy– response–process” demonstrated in the Bible, and that should be demonstrated by Christ followers today in light of current world events.
These responses are:
- Invest in the future by sowing in the land where you have been planted
- Reaffirm covenant relationships, especially the one we have with God
- Live generously, sowing seeds of generosity in a world filled with the fear of physical loss and economic recession
Although each point is worth a thorough study and each is a significant step that would definitely distinguish Christians from a fear-riddled world, the one that stuck out to her most was the third: to live generously in times when personal security and minimized inconvenience seem to be the primary daily objectives.
And here’s why this particularly struck me:
Americans have believed, both liberal and conservative alike, that every man, woman and child deserves a chance to succeed. And, we have believed that those who prosper can and should contribute toward the success of others. Doubtless, there is a great difference of opinion as to how much the successful should give, but there should be no doubt that we all agree that men and women who prosper should, and, in fact, must, extend a helping hand to those less fortunate.
But now we enter an extraordinary time in the history of our country. Both liberals and conservatives find themselves facing a common enemy. An enemy who shows no partiality toward the rich or the poor. No compassion for the homeless, the orphaned, the widowed. We all…yes, all…find ourselves in a life and death struggle with COVID-19, a virus unknown to medical science until revealing itself to the world with an explosion of sickness and death in recent weeks.
And it seems that our only recourse is to hide…to sequester and quarantine ourselves until someone, somewhere finds a cure. When will that happen? We cannot know. What shall we do in the interim? Well now, that question has a completely different answer!
Of course we know —- We follow Jesus! At least those who believe in Him do.
So, what would Jesus do? (This isn’t new is it? Remember the Christian phase we passed through in the 1990s: “WWJD — What Would Jesus Do?”)
In a sentence: Jesus would love, He would serve, and He would heal…but mostly, He would love!
And that brings me back to the podcast and my wonderful, Jesus-loving wife’s decision as to how our family should approach today’s new reality. She came up with the following “response plan” that I now find to be brilliant…but, to be honest, that wasn’t my initial reaction.
When she came to me to lay out her plan, she presented the idea of helping those who have served our family members so well in past years. Her idea was to reach out to individuals who had served us on an hourly or set-fee basis, but, at no fault of their own, were now out of work…being quarantined from their tasks that had, up until now, provided the needs of their families and produced the livelihood needed for the payment of bills and the operation of their businesses.
The presentation of this plan and our exchange went something like this:
“Jim, I want to keep paying people like my beautician who have provided services to me but are now quarantined at home and have no way to make a living for their families.”
To which I thought, “Good Lord, Debra, why would we pay them for services we aren’t receiving?”
(Note: Again, I thought this. I didn’t say this out loud.)
What I said was actually this: “Well, Debra, I suppose we could continue paying them for a while. We can always chalk it up as an offering.”
Her reply to that comment was a direct hit to that sense of spiritual superiority reserved for all husbands throughout all religions in this universe:
“It’s not an offering,” she said. “Offerings have to be something that cost you something, and sending these people checks every month is something we have done for years. It’s part of our budget. It’s an expense we have always been willing to pay, and we never looked at it as a sacrifice before. Why should it be a sacrifice now?”
[And…drop the mic right…about…now!)
For the sake of dignity and honor (mine, that is), I shall stop relaying the conversation here and move on to our final decision:
We plan to continue sending our normal payments to these people, who have served us so well but now cannot serve, until we can no longer afford it, or until they can get back to work.
It seems somewhat radical, doesn’t it? But, in truth, it presents no change for us. All things considered, it’s a means of providing an unexpected blessing to those in need without costing us any additional money. Like I said, it’s brilliant. Maybe we aren’t getting the services we so appreciated, but we are getting something far better. We get the opportunity to be involved in a creative outreach that demonstrates the love of God flowing through His people. It’s not something we have to do- it’s something we get to do. I’ll take that trade-off any day!
As I marveled at Debra’s sensitivity and God’s creativity, He reminded me of His promise to meet every believer’s needs. I needed to hear that. He then quickly reminded me that I am not only His child, I am His agent, sent into a lost and dying world to show them the difference between those who serve Him and those who haven’t yet made the decision to accept His offer of salvation…people my old friend Jack Hammans calls “pre-Christians.” (hopefully you heard him on Mosaic’s podcast last week!)
And I realized that this may be the best opportunity I’ve ever had to help pre-Christians see the difference between their lives and the lives of Jesus followers. I realized that although Debra and I are not the wealthiest people on the block, our lives are filled with a God-given abundance that cannot be extinguished by the trials of this world, and the sooner our non-believing friends and personal service providers see the difference, the better!
These are extraordinary times! And the response of Jesus followers should be to exhibit a true desire to match the extraordinary times with the extraordinary compassion of our Lord!
Abundance, after all, is relative. If I stand before the open refrigerator and see only one egg in the egg tray, I would not feel as abundantly blessed as the neighbor who stood looking at 3 eggs in his egg tray. But if I turned around to find only one hungry child at the same time that my neighbor was looking at 4 hungry children, who would actually have the most abundance?
Isn’t abundance, then, not so much defined by how much we have, but by the resources made available to us to meet the need?
So, as a deacon at Mosaic, someone who loves my church family, to my friends, to my spiritual brothers and sisters, to those who believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God…now is one of those rare moments in the history of mankind where we can make a real difference. If we truly believe that “God will provide all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,” then why not demonstrate that belief? “Pure and undefiled religion, in the sight of our God, is to visit orphans and widows in their distress.” If we read the Matthew 7 verse “however you want people to treat you, so treat them…” and want to live in a world where this lifestyle becomes the norm, then today is the day to rise up!
My spirit sees today as an opportunity for a spiritual explosion that will set back the works of Satan to the point of no repair. All we have to do is to stay strong, remain obedient to what we already know about Jesus, and hold fast to the concept that we must love others more than ourselves.
JESUS, WHO HAS ALL AUTHORITY, WILL GET US THROUGH THIS PANDEMIC…THE QUESTION IS: “WHAT WILL WE LOOK LIKE ON THE OTHER SIDE?”
So, no, I don’t believe God is really calling us to “Show Him the money,” but I do believe He is hoping against hope… that we will SHOW HIM TO the world…
What I really believe is this: that He wants to hear us say, “Oh Jesus…You had me at Hello!”