Today is the first time that I’ve ever heard of Senator Bernie Sanders. He’s evidently kicked up a ruckus today as he’s been talking for a while.  I don’t know what all he believes. In the two minute video of his that I watched I think his rhetoric is a little strong and he makes a few leaps that I’m not sure that I agree with. They are…

1) People who have lots of money are all greedy.

2) Sharing is a virtue.

3) Greed is almost like a sickness or a disease.

4) That there might be something more important than the rich getting richer when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world.

Yeah. I think he’s messed up on a few things here.  If we were debating, I would respond…

1) Not all people who have money (& he’s talk about the top 400 people in America) are greedy but there is that one guy I read & talk about a lot who says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God – not impossible to be part of what God is doing, but difficult. Don’t mistake Kingdom of God here for Heaven.  I think Jesus is talking about the work he is initiating…it’s very hard for a rich person to enter into what God is doing. It’s actually easier for that camel to get through the eye of a needle. Hmmmm

Oh….and I really think for some people it is not the money. It is the status or the power. The money is just an added benefit – a bonus per se, but this too is another issue.

2) Sharing is not a virtue. For the believer it is a command. It is the way that God intended things to be. The early church finally got what God intended all along.

3) Greed is most definitely a sickness. It is a contagious disease that destroys all who are infected.

4) There is nothing more important than us taking care of the needy in our midst.

But he raises a very important question. Actually, when I started this post, I didn’t really mean to write about #’s 1-4. That just kinda happened.

My real point was simply this…WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?

What a great question and a question that I agree we need to wrestle with. And it’s not just those top 400.  It’s all of us. When is enough, enough? It always feels so much better to bless than to consume. God doesn’t want to use you & your resources one day when you have a certain amount of money. He wants to use you now – where you are, with what He’s placed in your hands. Remember: It’s not your anyway. It’s His.

God blesses us to bless others…not ourselves. This was the plan from the beginning of a called people who would be the hands & feet of Yahweh to heal the creation.

When is enough, enough? Thanks Senator Sanders for asking a tough, tough question in a room full of power people with probably…probably more than enough.

Watch the Video

Will Samson hooked me early in this new book. He paints an image of the communion table where one person eats all of the elements. One person devours all of the bread and the wine and none is left for anyone else. The Eucharist, the beautiful good gift of God that was given to show us how to live is hoarded and misused.

“Surely Jesus didn’t die so some people could grab it all , while others are left out.”

“There was supposed to be enough. Wasn’t there?”

With that the book enters in to a very well paced and sourced discussion of how we as modern Christians need to deal with our poor stewardship of all that God has entrusted us with. Enough goes beyond a simple argument of how we manage tangible resources and digs deep into how well we steward who we are and how we steward our relationships (personally and communally).

One of the elements I love about this book is the pacing. The chapters move well and are just the right blend of insight from Samson who clearly has something to add to the Christian conversation about how much is enough. Samson also really uses sources well and the quotes and statistics really seem to land at the right spots. I have burned out a couple of highlighters on this book and the quotes he uses from other writers and thinkers especially seem to land Samson’s arguments and even take them further.

One section of the book that is really dear to me is where Samson moves the discussion towards our poor view of what it means to be a follower of Christianity and not Christ. He lands the idea of civil religion well and speaks to how we have been sold on the idea that the world will burn and how we steward it really doesn’t matter. We often more than we know are part of system that acts this way, even if this not what we believe at our core. I think he really lands well the idea that if you were watching us behave from 10,000 feet you would see consumers first and Christians second or maybe even third.

The final section of the book really ends well with a very thoughtful discussion that has some great suggestions mixed in. The suggestions for moving beyond being consumers are really simple easy ideas that could radically change believers, if they were embraced. I felt like I could go out and implement most all of them this week. It wouldn’t be easy, but it is possible. I could see how just a few simple steps could really change my family and effect those who live around me.

I really appreciated this book and will for sure be adding it to my “need to read” list for our community. As I read and read the Eucharist story from early on never left my head. It was the perfect backdrop for this book and is an amazing image of how we appear to live. This book with that image and much much more could be a great way for Christians to begin the discussion on modeling better stewardship to a culture that desperately needs to see it.