Threading the Needle: The Parable of the Ravens and Lilies

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The evening was full of great food and great conversation among great friends. College friends who hadn’t seen each other for too long, around the table Adam, Bella, Candi, and Don. They met at a top-notch restaurant, and they ordered appetizers and desserts and another round of drinks. They laughed and told stories late into the night. It was an evening that they would never forget!

And then the bill came.

All of a sudden, there were a lot more people around the table.

Adam’s grandfather was there with him, chiding him for spending so much money on something as silly as a night out with friends. “What a waste of money!” said Grandpa. You barely had enough for your car payment last month, and here you are spending money you don’t have!”

And there was Bella’s big brother: “Grab the check. Quick. You just got that raise, and now you can rub it in their faces that you have money to spend. Show them that you are big time now!”

Candi’s parents made an appearance, too. “The fair thing to do is to go through the bill and figure out what everyone ordered, and split the check. It isn’t fair that some people ate more dessert than others, while you barely touched yours. You told them you didn’t want chocolate; it isn’t fair that they make you pay for it.”

And Don’s wife glared at him. “You know we don’t have enough for a bill like that. Remind them that you have two kids at home and still have college loans to pay off. They have money to blow, but you are saving it for important things. After all, hasn’t Bella been telling everyone that she just got a big raise?”

 

How many of us can relate?

We all come from a family, which means that we all come from our family’s narrative about money. A certain set of attitudes, behaviors, choices, expectations. Think back to the messages that we heard from our parents, our siblings, our grandparents, even great-grandparents. Just like those four around the table, when money is involved the table gets a little more crowded. Our families of origin have these messages that we heard growing up, we internalized, and some of us even passed them along to our children.

When the bill shows up at the end of the night, these stories come out to play. Some of us repeat the same money story that we were taught as children: our grandparents had certain attitudes about money, so our parents had the same attitudes, so we have the same attitudes. Others of us swing the pendulum and choose to react to money in completely the opposite direction: your parents were strict savers…so you like to spend; your family was out of control with spending…so you tend toward rigid budgets. Or, still others of us have done some good work around this, maybe even going through counseling to think through our family’s money narrative…but then some unpredictable event takes place, and all that work goes out the window, and we react in the way that we promised ourselves we never would!

Margaret Marcuson has a chapter in her book about money and ministry titled “Remember Your Family’s Money Story.” We don’t really have the time this morning, but we could dig deep into those stories today if we did. Like last week, I will share with you some of the questions that Marcuson asks to help us be curious about our family’s money story:

1. How do people in your extended family make decisions about money? Does your immediate family differ from your extended family?
2. Who is the most responsible person in your family around money? The least? Who is the most financially successful person in your family, and how is that defined?
3. How did you learn about money growing up? How did your parents learn? What did your spouse learn?
4. What do you notice about gender and money?
5. Are gifts freely given in your family, or is there a sense of obligation? Is gift-giving balanced or do some people get more?
6. What is the general attitude toward philanthropy, charitable giving, and stewardship?
7. What do you notice in your family about where anxiety shows up in relation to money?

 

Her last question takes us back to this morning’s Scripture passage, where the theme is anxiety. For Jesus, worry and anxiety about having enough is a symptom of our lack of trust in God. Let me preface this with the statement that I don’t think that Jesus is talking about a diagnosis of clinical anxiety, what we understand to be a physiological thing. This is a more general worry, based in an assumption that God cannot or will not care for our needs, so we need to take over and do it ourselves. Jesus compares us to flowers and birds. The lilies are not stressed out about what clothes that they have to wear. The ravens are not worried about where their next meal is coming from. And, Jesus preaches, if God cares about these common and everyday and rather unimpressive creatures, why don’t you trust that God cares about you, too?

“Yes, but…” you might be thinking. “…I get that we shouldn’t worry, but Jesus isn’t talking about money, is he? The heading on my Bible doesn’t say anything about money or my family’s money story!” And you would be right that this passage can be relevant to all kinds of worry and anxiety. I could preach 10 different sermons about 10 different kinds of anxiety. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not NOT about family anxiety about money. Remember that this passage comes immediately after the one we read last week. And do you remember how that one starts? “Jesus, tell my brother to give me what he owes me from our inheritance!” Think there is a family money story going on there? Attitudes, behaviors, choices, expectations? You bet! This family becomes the catalyst for Jesus’ whole sermon here.

So, if last week’s text was an expose on greed, this week is an expose on anxiety. Last week, Jesus’ sermon helped us discern the difference between a mentality of scarcity and one of abundance. Of greed vs. “richness toward God.” And today’s sermon is a part of the same dynamic. Both greed and anxiety are part of the same experience of distrust. One grabs and the other frets, but in both cases there is a basic lack of trust that God can handle this, so I better step in and take over. Both are actually pretty aggressive forms of distrust. Two prongs of the same fork that is used to reach out and grab control back from God. Whether you tend toward grabbing or fretting, probably has a lot to do with your family’s money story.

 

So, how does Jesus respond to our anxiety, especially our money anxiety, especially our family’s anxious money story? Instead of a two-pronged fork, think about it in terms of two open hands.

The first open hand is trust: “And do not keep seeking what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations  of the world that seek all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” Jesus reminds them that God is not dumb. God knows that you need things. But the anxiety-driven, fear-motivated approach that many of us start with is counter-productive. Begin with trust that God knows our needs and is actively working to provide them.

And then Jesus names a second open hand of generosity: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” When we give to others, it changes the way that we feel about money. It releases us from the anxiety that so many of us bring to the money question.

With these two open hands of trust and generosity, we find ourselves able to approach our money story in different ways.

Marcuson gives us some incredibly helpful suggestions for how we are to approach that story. I want to summarize part of her chapter here, because I think she contemporizes Jesus’ sermon on trust and generosity, and puts it in the context of our own story.

One, she suggests that we Know Your Family’s Relationship to Money. “The More You Know…” in other words. Knowledge of that story means that we aren’t just blindly reacting without any forethought to why we do the things we do when it comes to money. Or why we believe the things that we do about money. She suggests a ton of tools for this:

• Observe, even keep a journal of your spending habits and patterns. What do you do and how do you feel about it.

• Conduct interviews with extended family members, where you can ask them these kinds of questions and learn what messages they were taught growing up.

• Draw a family genogram, which is kind of a family tree based on relationships. Genograms don’t have to be about money, but you can use money themes to chart your family story: this aunt declared bankruptcy three times…this grandparent ran a successful business…this sibling cares more about his trust fund than his parents.

These suggestions lead us to a second step: Learning to Make Different Choices. Growing in our attentiveness and knowledge helps us disentangle us from assumptions about money. Our capitalistic mindset assumes that financial wealth worth equals emotional health, but some of the richest people in the world are gripped by these prongs of greed and anxiety. Having money does not necessarily mean one is emotionally and spiritually healthy when it comes to money. Or the opposite…some folks think that having money is evil and you are only holy if you are in financially need. Some wear that need as a point of pride. Marcuson says that the more clearly we look at the messages that we received, the more we can stop reacting from that family story, and begin to choose how we want to act. How we want to behave. What we want to believe. What family narratives we are thankful for, and which ones we might not want to blindly accept.

Finally, she suggests that these steps mean that we can Grow in Your Relationship with Money. Marcuson reminds us that a) this stuff doesn’t happen overnight, and b) we can’t go into this work trying to fix other people. But if we humble ourselves and ask for God’s help, spiritual growth is possible with this stuff. She summarizes this work: “Our challenges are not technical alone; they are emotional and spiritual. The fact is, all the good advice in the world about personal finance will not do any good if you cannot take action—or if you take lots of action while you are thinking anxiously….When you grow, emotionally and spiritually, you find greater freedom. This includes financial freedom. More maturity means you have more choices rather than being governed by anxiety and fear, or by old family patterns. You can take thoughtful action rather than reacting or taking no action at all.”

I end with a scene from The Matrix. (Obviously, right? It’s what you were all thinking…)

If you have seen The Matrix, you know it is a science fiction movie where the good guys—the Resistance—are chased by the bad guys, the Agents. And when the Agents come after folks in the Resistance and try to shoot them, and the reaction is to either to run or shoot back, or both.

Now, I’ll admit this stretches the metaphor a bit, but stay with me. It feels like Jesus’ sermon is describing this. The bullets fly our way: the bullets of cultural values about money, or the bullets of unhealthy family stories, or the bullets of “not enough.” And most of us choose to either run away and hide from them, letting anxiety take over. Or fight back and shoot back and take no prisoners and do it our way, letting greed take over.

But there is this scene near the end of the movie where Neo, one of the Resistance fighters, is in a hallway with the Agents. And they have him cornered. And they shoot their bullets toward him, emptying their guns right at him. But he doesn’t shoot back or run away. Instead, he puts his hand up, and the bullets stop. In mid-air. And Neo takes one of them and looks at it, curious about it, and then lets it drop to the floor. In fact, they all drop to the floor.

I think that this is the power that Jesus gives us. When those powerful and gripping stories come our way, we don’t have to be overwhelmed by anxiety or fruitlessly fight back with greed. We can take those stories, pick one out, take a look at it, take what is helpful, and let the rest of it drop to the floor. Because we know and we trust the power that is greater than those stories. We know and we trust the one who guides us along the way. We know and we trust the one who is beyond the illusions around us.