example number Christ

What are we doing as Christians? As Christians we adopt certain standards of: loving our enemies, loving the poor, seeking justice, giving grace, giving mercy, being hopeful, and in general, sticking to moral standards on the basis of loving our God and our neighbor.

I’m not talking about such things as murder, robbing a bank, or insurance fraud. Everyone agrees that those are bad things. Plus, you get a whole lot of jail time for them. I’m not even talking about swearing when you hit your thumb with a hammer, or giving someone the bird when they cut you off. No, I’m talking about these middle-of-the-road, gray subjects. These subjects may on the surface seem okay, right, or “not bad”, but when you get right down to it are just awful.

Example number one. In college I went on a missions trip to Detroit. On the Sunday morning of the trip, like good Christians, we had planned a church visit to a local church. The church was selected because it was multi-ethnic. Another reason we went – it was a prosperity gospel church. The church was indeed multi-ethnic and the people seemed to have had a good time. After the service our group walked to our cars to go back to where we were staying. We were some of the first people out of the church. As we were walking to our cars the pastor of the church that just spoke five minutes ago drives past us - in his Mercedes-Benz. First, why has he left before the visitors have even left? Secondly, his church is supposed to be reaching out to the poor in Detroit and yet he is basking in his own wealth.

Example number two. After talking with one of my coworkers about this subject, he went on to tell me another example. A Christian retirement community was forking over millions of extra dollars every year because people in the retirement community were living longer than projected and their funds did not support them. People in the community began to say, “I don’t need to put money in my retirement plan because the retirement community will take care of me.” Doing all this as they jump into their expensive car and drive off…

Example number three. The welfare system in the States just isn’t good. It is a good idea, but in practice it just hasn’t met the standards. For instance I once heard someone say they had a friend on welfare that did not need welfare, but were on it anyway and that they were eating steaks every night. Welfare is not the only system that is being taken advantage of. And it isn’t just non-Christians who are taking advantage of these systems when they do not really need them.

In these examples the Christians are not following the same standards to which they adhere. As Christians take advantage of systems and programs they are taking money away from people that really need it. What does it mean to take advantage of a system to meet your needs? Just because laws and polices may dictate that something is okay does not mean that it is still just, or by the standards as we live as children of God. And just because money, time, etc is available to us does not mean we should take advantage of it. God calls us to be just, love abundantly, and live graciously.