Okay, I've been thinking about the "final" post in the One Thing You Lack series, and finding myself caught in an uncomfortable place. Do I believe what I said? Yep. Am I afraid it's going to be misinterpreted? Yep.

It's the next series of posts, a kind of miniature exploration of "what being a Christian might mean," that is supposed to more sharply define what I may or may not mean by my closing comments in the series. I'm impatient. I want to sharply define right away. But there isn't a way to do so. The issues of personal faith, of what certain ideals mean and how they are implemented into our lives, of trying to view Jesus in the present day, are not trivial. So for now I'll just say that in terms of our riches, I'm satisfied with the content of the posts, but I'm worried people will take them wrong, and in taking them wrong, miss a useful point.

The first area I think people might take wrong is that I'm saying, "Hey, if you stay rich, you go to Hell." This is not what I'm saying; the simple reason being that I don't think of Christianity in terms of going to Heaven or Hell as being the main point of Christian living. Personally I think that if I live my life ordered around my personal eternal reward, I'm being selfish about the whole thing, which in the overall scheme makes no sense at all. My job as a Christian isn't to win myself a place in Heaven. My job as a Christian is to love God and love others, and let the eternal chips fall as they may. I realize that to some people this is a completely wacked way of looking at things, but there is an idea that simply resonates too much with me to ignore, and it is that God calls me to love him and to love other people; not to worry about what he's going to do with me now or later. It's a bigger version, I suppose, of Mother Teresa's view that God didn't call her to be successful; God called her to be faithful. I don't think the Bible is about living life in such-and-such a way because God is going to punish you or reward you. I don't think the Bible is about play nice and you get candy, play mean and you get a lump of coal because God is really into the whole reward/punishment scene. Rather, I think this is a child's way of looking at things, and we adults who profess Christianity need to be a bit more mature in our theology. I think the Bible is about playing according to the way Creation is in the being of God.

It's not that I'm saying, "God says live this way, so I do." Honestly, I'm not a good enough, nice enough, obedient enough person to do that. The context is elaborate, but to me the meaning of Jesus' life and death, as God incarnate if you will, is that there is a way that creation is, in the heart of God, and that's the way to live if you want to be in relationship with God. This is why we are supposed to become something new, and it in turn determines what we do. So if, for example, the Bible says God has no relationship with the proud, it isn't that a person is proud and God says, "Blah! I reject you! To Hell with you!" No, it's just that the way life works is, if you're proud, God can't relate with you; the phone is unplugged on your end. The difference in views is significant. In the first, God sits on a throne and deals out heart-candies or swats, rather enjoying both. In the latter, God offers relationship with himself, and you come to it or you don't. The difference is that God in the first place is a totalitarian who becomes angry when you disobey, while in the second place God is a patient and loving figure who waits hopefully for his children. As for me, I pick the latter view. Personally, I wouldn't much want the other God; it wouldn't be a god big enough to love me.

So. Be that tiny summary as it may, I say it for this reason: Don't think that when I say we rich have rejected the Way of Jesus that I'm saying we're going to Hell. Maybe this interpretation is why people get so defensive and aversive when I mention it, but it isn't at all what I'm saying. But what I am saying is, yes, I think that if we get rich, and if we stay rich while helping not those who are suffering, we're rejecting a large part of what Jesus taught. And in rejecting that, we're rejecting the way the world really is, and accordingly the way we are supposed to live, in the heart of God. So what I'm saying is, those of us who are rich need to take a dose of humility, and understand we have some growing up to do. We aren't rich so we can have fun kicking back and playing with our toys. Life isn't for each of us to suck up as much fun, entertainment and excitement as we can while we rest complacency in something called "eternal salvation."

As for the point I'm afraid people will miss by misinterpreting what I said in the previous post? Well, it's something like this: There are plenty of us who think Christianity is about being richly blessed with money and goods and having a grand old happy time with good, clean, "moral" fun ("Let's take our church buddies out on the boat this weekend! We'll share the Lord's Supper on the lake!"). What I'm saying is that if we are having so much good, clean fun while we're doing precious little to help those who are suffering—then maybe we are practicing immorality in a far larger sense of the word than we ever choose to consider.