Elizabeth O'Connor on Money, Giving, and Charity

From Letters to Scattered Pilgrims

Many have struggled with the minimum giving, and some have turned away. Others have broken lose and showered our community with riches.... Sometimes the giving has been excessive and ecstatic, and sometimes impulsive -  a diamond engagement ring dropped in the offering plate, a silver service set appearing at the door, a check for several thousand dollars representing the total accumulated wealth of a young couple.

It was not that our souls we so quickly converted, but that we sensed that something important was going on, and we wanted to be a part of it. We had been captured by a man's vision of what community might do if it really cared about the oppressed and the suffering.

In a recent sermon on money Gordon said as forcefully as ever that to give away money is to win a victory over the dark powers that oppress us.... He went on to say that the poor suffer because they are not able to give.

We still wrestle with fear when we consider abandoned giving. Our wills, with rare exceptions, look like the wills of those who have never been committed to the building of a faith community, or who have never had the poor in mind.... In any case, most of us would probably say that we are not as free as we would like to be where the material things of this life are concerned.

When we begin to take Scriptures seriously, "You cannot serve God and Money" (Matt. 6:24, NEB) becomes a personal address. One would expect God to applaud our small efforts at faithfulness; instead a Spirit comes and takes us where we are not yet prepared to go.

The First Commandment and all the Scriptures on the worship of idols begin to lay bare our own primitive selves. some of us have looked into the face of our idols and found that one of them is money.

Though we along with millions of other churchgoers are saying that Jesus saves, we ask ourselves if we are not in practice acting as though it were money that saves. We say that money gives power, money corrupts, money talks. Like the ancients with their molten calf we have endowed money with our own psychic energy, given it arms and legs, and have told ourselves that it can work for us. More than this we enshrine it in a secret place, give it a heart and a mind and the power to grant us peace and mercy.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ²² “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! ²⁴ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. - Matthew 6:19-24

From:

Elizabeth O'Connor. Dealing with Money. In Devotional Classics: Selected Reading for Individuals and Groups (Revised and Expanded). ed. Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, 251-55. New York: HarperOne, 2005.

Works by Elizabeth O' Connor:

Letters to Scattered Pilgrims
Call to Commitment
Journey Inward, Journey Outward

~ Daniel Brockhan