Last week I suggested that it is not wise simply to shrug off the verses about money-loving. This week I want to try to describe my motivation for taking up this issue. The elephant in the room for Western Christians is how much freaking money we have. The comfort and luxuries that middle-class Americans enjoy, compared with, say, people in the third world today or Christians of the past is beyond staggering. It is this dramatic economic inequality that should make honest Christians ask ourselves whether those passages about money-loving are about us. Now, as I argued last week, you cannot simply equate having money with loving money. But it sure is bizarre that my Christian brother in the third world makes $1 per day while I make a million times that much! (Alright, my math may be a little off, but my point remains).
This kind of comparison may give you what I call ‘Schindler disease.’ Oscar Schindler, as the story goes, was an incredibly wealthy man who saved 1,100 Jewish lives during the Holocaust by employing them at his factory, even though he did not actually need them as workers. He basically used his fortune to save their lives. It seems like he was a generous hero, but in this clip, he realizes that there was even more he could have done (even if you have seen this movie before, I recommend watching this scene again).
Our situation is not somewhat similar to Oscar Schindler’s. It is the exact same. We find ourselves with plenty that we do not need, and we could trade that stuff to either change or save the lives of another. But if we follow the Oscar Schindler problem down the rabbit hole, we will all have to take a vow of poverty, for if we have any money or possessions at all, then there is by definition more we can do for the poor. But alas, we would be part of the poor in that case, dependent on handouts and calling our local church for rent money!
Oscar Schindler and his interlocutor articulate this frustrating state of affairs well in that scene:
Oscar: I could have done more….
Interlocutor: But you did so much…
…and this conversation could go one forever, because both men stated a truth. Yes, Schindler could have done more, and yes, he did so much. Schindler never solves his own problem. He drives away in his car tortured by guilt and sadness. In that moment he must have felt like a true money-lover, the kind that Jesus denounces in the harshest terms. This, despite the fact that he had just done one of the kindest acts in human history!
How can we heal ourselves of Schindler disease, even though Oscar Schindler himself could not? Should we just go through life feeling guilty every time we swipe the credit card? One very effective method, practiced by most Christians today, is to look at the person driving the luxury car and say “Thank you, God, that I am not like that!” But is there a way that is not hypocritical?
