“But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth…If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.” Deuteronomy 9:18-19
Yesterday, in the eleventh hour, Congress struck a deal ending months of brinksmanship over the nation’s debt crisis. The deal succeeded in extending our ability to pay down our national debt, and may well provide some measure of comfort to our personal portfolios but it failed this simple Deuteronomic test of remembrance.
The ancient religious ethic asserts now, as it did then, that wealth and well-being are not private matters. They are market shares of grace entrusted to us by a generous God who expects grace, gratitude, and generosity of spirit from us in return. As God has remembered us with the dividends of a perpetual love, so we are called to remember God and God’s people each and every time we look at the bottom line.
Our financial debt crisis may have been averted for the time being, but our spiritual debt crisis will linger as long as we say to ourselves, “my power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.”
