“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
So said the Preacher.
It was all I could think of as I picked up the glossy real estate flyer that came in the mail the other day.
The homes, all in southern Ontario, started at around $15 million and were described with more ecstasy than a four-year-old discovering hidden chocolate Easter eggs. One was a “fabulous family compound!” Compound? For what??
The flyer set me wondering. What was its aim? After all, no one who can buy a multimillion-dollar home is waiting for a free flyer to detail their opportunities.
Four pages in, and the game revealed itself. It was a kind of bait and switch. Can’t afford $12 million, well, what about $1 million? Or perhaps $850,000? Makes you feel rich by extension. Kind of like rubbing shoulders with big money.
What kind of delusion are we buying into? It’s no use blaming the realtors. They advertise like this because it works. Because we buy into the myth they are creating. Meanwhile, practically every day, someone is noting that Canadian real estate is on a bubble — about 20 per cent overvalued.
And you don’t have to live in Vancouver or Toronto to get a feel for our collective obsession with wealth. Every newspaper, newsmagazine and nightly news is crammed with stories about the economy and how to become rich.
Take mortgages. Each day for the past two or three months produces yet another expert who looks into the crystal ball to tell you when rates are going up and whether you should lock in now or wait — as well as noting that too many Canadians are too highly leveraged as it is. The psychic in the strip mall is as good a prognosticator as the so-called experts, but she doesn’t sell newspapers, although at least she has a real crystal ball.
We are bewitched with money and wealth. Take our attitude towards pollution and urban sprawl. If someone thinks it’s going to cost us money in the short term (which it will), our elected representatives from the municipal to federal level safely conclude we won’t object that cleaning up the earth can wait for another generation.
We as a nation, and most of us as individuals, are wealthy. Yet none of it is our own doing. Health, education, infrastructure and opportunities are unbelievable here. To live in Canada is a gift. Ultimately, a gift from God.
Followers of Jesus know this. They say they believe they must not only thank God for their riches, but care for creation and return to God a token of their wealth as thanks and redistribute their wealth to ensure the poor are not neglected.
They say this. We say this. But do we do this?
God has been so generous to us. The only possible response is to be generous back to God (supporting the church) and to our neighbours in need, whether they be next door or halfway around the world.
Everything is from God and everything returns to God. It’s not for God’s sake but ours that we exercise stewardship. It reminds us to be humble about all our blessings, and it is through us that the divine love and care is extended to all God’s children.
Church members are facing some serious financial issues at both the national level and the local level. Too often too much of a congregation’s budget is going to heat and maintenance.
There is more than enough money within the Presbyterian Church to accomplish the broad mission of extending God’s love wherever we can. But it will require some rearranging of priorities.
First, individuals need to think seriously about proportional giving. That is, giving as a percentage of one’s income. Start somewhere — one, two, three percent, and keep building a little more each year.
Secondly, congregations who cannot reasonably support ministry because they are supporting old churches need to reassess their local mission. The church is not in the museum business. It’s about a living faith.
We need to make sure our stone buildings don’t become millstones of real estate vanity.
