More Sermon Thoughts

TUES., DEC. 29, 1992, 7:13 AM
FARM, STUDY

Rereading the previous Teaching you see that I have given you enough issues already, but I do want you to choose. I won’t “feel bad” if you don’t mention some thoughts, even some that I have offered profusely. You have both the sermon and the Ruminations to do this week. Fortunately, they are somewhat related.

Your culture’s economic health is based on credit. In Scriptural times it was more a matter of having debts rather than legitimately obtaining some goods or services before you had the actual money to pay for them. According to the alternate words to My prayer, as Jesus, debts are equivalent to trespasses. It is best to be debt-free… and, hence, not a trespasser. Yet you have institutionalized debt and call it credit. It makes for jobs, and it keeps the economy going, but it is not a practice that is Biblically based. There certainly are many Christian bankers and other lenders, and some bad loans are justified as giving some people “a chance.” Again, Christians can be on both sides.

Housing is another interesting spiritual issue. Socialist cultures see this as a human right and strive to provide housing for everyone, with very few citizens having more than they need. But your culture is one where freedom is more important than equality. Hence some have palatial homes, or numerous homes, while other live very crowded together or in make-shift dwellings, unacceptable to your culture’s standards, but, finally, just necessary. Actually, during My time on earth as Jesus the ethic was more like yours than like the socialist mode. The Scriptures tell little of how 13 men, traveling together, lived… where we slept and how we ate. In those times there was no middle class, with aspirations for a better home in a better neighborhood. And I counseled, “Do not lay up for yourselves, treasure on earth,” which certainly could mean expensive and lavish dwelling places.

Your Farmhouse is lavish in space, for just the two of you, but not in design. Oh, you may have to do some repairing and refurbishing in these next years, but continue to enjoy the size, mixed with humbleness.

There are forces, of which you are a small part, that urge a more holistic view of life, with particular concerns for spirit as an important factor in life and for the environment as something not to plunder. My oft-repeated message to you is that I am more concerned with the all of My creation and the balance of various forms of life than just with the welfare of humans. But what does this mean in terms of human behavior. You know that you should take better care of your place and should be less dependent on outside resources… but how can this be applied to the billions who crowd into urban areas, where dependence is encouraged and the environment is mostly of human origin?