Day 252: Keeping Your Head in Spite of Yourself

 

DAY 252

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty-six   Saturday 21 November 2020

Keeping Your Head in Spite of Yourself

A stressful year has brought out biases that are 

hard-wired but not necessarily smart money.

“Here’s an election prediction you can take to the bank: Whenever the count is over and no matter who wins the presidency, tens of millions of people are going to be elated and millions of others are going to be despondent. But regardless of the emotion driving them, people acting in the heat of the moment may make decisions about their personal finances that may prove costly…. For Americans grappling with a pandemic, social unrest, and electoral uncertainty, this year has been a petri dish of anxiety, angst and decisions based on fear or folly.” - From a current newspaper article by the same title.

“I was afraid I would lose your money so I hid it…” said the man in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. Fear has certainly been seeking to make inroads into our hearts, emotions, and minds during this pandemic compounded by a financial crisis, social unrest, and political chaos. Many have taken to ‘hiding’ their money in the safest place possible even if at a loss of interest.  

While it is unwise to be careless or even cavalier about whatever money we have, it is equally unwise to allow fear to drive the decisions we make regarding it. What is money anyway? Give a blind man a $100 bill in one hand and a $1 bill in the other hand and it will be impossible for him to tell one from the other. They are just pieces of paper with no intrinsic value, numbers printed on each alone distinguishing their value and that only in a culture that concurs. 

Money itself has never really interested me, rather what it can be turned into when it is exchanged for something else, from providing for my family to ministries in the churches where I worship and work to making an eternal difference somewhere overseas through support of a missionary. As always and especially now with the multiple pressures upon us, deciding what to do with our money is especially important as we seek to be driven not by fear but by prayer.

Reflective question: What drives and determines the decisions you make regarding your money?

Reflective Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:10 – “For a love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

Reflective hymn:

“Be Thou My Vision” vs 3, Old Irish hymn translated by Mary Byrne (1880-1931)

This was my ordination hymn at First Presbyterian Church, Orange, New Jersey, 1973.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance, now and always;

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart –

High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.