Money too tight to mention?
January can feel like the longest month of the year and an exercise in survival. 31 cold grey days with not enough hours of daylight made worse by the Christmas decorations being put away. And then there are the bills; all we put off paying in December because we didn’t want to spoil the festive mood, but which now arrive with depressing predictability. Little wonder that someone has worked out that the third Monday in January is ‘the most miserable day of the year.'
Even though January is over, the mood is still grim and grey in the face of economic difficulties that aren’t set to go away any time soon. Predictions about whether the UK will go into recession change almost daily. The crisis in the Eurozone is still there, reappearing like those credit card bills. 2012 looks like being one long January. The general attitude is one of cutting back, going without and life being ‘not a lot of fun’. And that’s just for those who have a regular wage coming in.
The Church always seems to have a lot to say about money. The Bible has even more to say, and what it says doesn’t depend on the health of the economy. God is a generous Giver and Provider - week by week we say to Him ‘all things come from you and of your own we give you.’
Yes, these days we need to be frugal, especially if we’ve been financially careless, but being careful with money isn’t the same as being stingy. And here I’m talking more about our attitude to those around us rather than the Church Building Fund; those who are without a job or ‘getting it tight’ to the point it almost robs them of life itself. Acts 2: 44-45 tells us how the believers eradicated poverty amongst themselves overnight. Do we skip these verses thinking them too impractical or plainly impossible? I prefer to think they are a word to pierce the gloom of our times and show that God’s people have something very different to say about the lavish generosity of God.
Bishop Harold, speaking at St Mark’s said that being a disciple of Jesus means being overwhelmed by what God does, even and especially in a time of limited prospects. Let’s not hold back from being generous (not even in Lent!) and think of practical ways to show the generosity of God at a time it is much
needed.
Revd Chris Matchett
