“..Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness..” 2Pt2v15-16
🐴 Nm22-24 Balaam was a seer. Balaam gave oracles from God. Balaam was offered money by a foreign king. Balaam obeyed God by not going. Then, Balaam obeyed God by going. Then God was angry, because he knew Balaam’s heart?
I think I could study more on Balaam - it strikes me that he embodies precisely the ambiguity of money, obedience, prophecy and condemnation.
👈 “..they..”
Who are they but we? Of being middle class:
Being middle class - it’s what you do with it that counts. Is it? Impact metricised ends justify means?
Being middle class - it’s where it comes from that counts. Is it? Proved provenance launders lifestyles of poorly prioritised distraction?
Being middle class - it’s why you do what you do with it that counts. Is it? Obedient giving is not enough, God looks at the heart?
💷 “..gain..”
What is gain? Who gains? Who measures? Who cares? An ungrateful world condemns an ungrateful world - we’re all on a spectrum, and, at least those within the sound of my voice, we’re all in the 5%
🦹♂️ “..wrong doing..”
What is wrong doing? What am I but a haggler prophet negotiating cash for hermitages? I’m unscrupulously acquisitive albeit for intangible property, coveting a life of easy coherence, stoically striving for the right things for the wrong reasons.
🐴 “..but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness..”
Is wealth Mad, Bad or Sad?
I’ll own all of the above, but. What of madness? And what of morality and mental health?
The prophet’s madness. How should we then think? How should we know what we know as it pertains to calibrating our wealth? Which way is up? Why do I do what I do? Is this prophetic? What’s the counter to counter culture?
Late capitalism is madness. Big church is madness. Small church is madness. Sanity is tight-rope walk. Danger is everywhere. Prophecy is a gnat’s breath from lunacy. There’s no downward mobility in zero-gravity. There’s no love in trustless trust, no sacrifice in the losslessly mediated, there is no orientation for mental health in a church psychology untethered from the real.
Balaam beats his donkey with a stick, picture:
A picture for us all in this era.
POST SCRIPT on Wealth
“no one who has wealth does not trust it to save them, unless they have reclassified their wealth-ownership as gift-couriership.” Mk10v29-30
“Flee from wealth's trappings, be ware the tendrils of entitlement, the poppy field of mild-mannered privilege, the slippery slope of creature comfort. Those fallen parts of me are quick to debate for my exceptions rather than calibrating the principle of the matter, I'm quick to caricature ascetics, to bogeyman iconoclasts, to paint as irrational and unsustainable those who advocate abstemious Christianity. Whilst I wallow in the ill-gotten fullness of petrol-fed beef and slave-sewn brogues. Mine own comeuppance is coming. But more than that, wealth is its own comeuppance. I am robbing myself of adventure in the now, the good life in the now, the buzz of the downhill slalom of faith, the nimbly unburdened and balletically uncluttered life.” Lk6v25-26
“I define "Wealth" pejoratively. "Wealth" happens instantly in the identity of the holder when stewardship becomes ownership. Wealth is never passive, you are always responsible for your self-identity. .. I would characterise the church as being stern on "greed" and disparaging of the "love of money" but permissive of "Wealth" and it is satisfied with this distinction. By this dichotomy, so-called-righteous-wealth and inherited-wealth and appreciated-assets-in-the-lottery-of-London's-land-prices are all sanitised in a fog of language under a banner of that-which-is-not-greed-per-se. This "Wealth" qua wealth-which-is-merely-not-active-greed has no equipment to make a distinction between revenue and profit or between capital and turnover. A word of such crippling opacity is a huge hinderance to holiness. “Mere Wealth" is a linguistic coup by the enemy. Beware. Wealth is deceitful, she is no inert matter. Wealth has branded herself as a propitious accident, as if wealth-just-happens-sometimes..” Lk16v23-24
“..“Wealth” is not merely unfortunately ambiguous, it is actively problematic. “Wealth” can and should be excised from a vocabulary of legitimate Christian pursuits, in favour of a notion of value-stewarding which carries more intrinsic generosity. Because “Wealth” has already been clearly defined in the popular imagination. Presuming to be merely neutrally “Wealthy” and remaining a Christian, is extremely difficult. And, I would argue, impossible. I want to acknowledge the range of meanings for “Wealth” and suggest that within that range there have been both good and bad meanings. However. Because this ambiguity is exploited, linguistically and so in life, by individuals trying to sell wealth products, and by the enemy trying to whitewash a deep pathology - we must strongly, critically restrict and reform the use of the term. Thus, I want to provoke, by a pejorative reading of “Wealth”, a revocabularisation of how we speak about money's danger and responsibility.
The range:
“Good Wealth” is Value. “Wealth-creation” is Value-creation, we are value creators, dazzling displays of the fruitful stewards bring about rich and flourishing commons, over and against all that devalues, distorts and destroys. "Wealth" is a reflection of justice in production and distribution, wealth is shalom is heaven is abundance. "Wealth" is poetic, it's a sunrise, its a rainbow, it is the commonwealth of the common good.
“Bad Wealth” is stored private equity. “Wealth” is an unfettered license to build bigger barns for the hoarded accumulation of private capital. “Wealth” is always a comparative wealthier-than, it is always relative to the lower-middle-classes, “Wealth” won over and against the Joneses. “Wealth” is GDP. “Wealth” is the entrenchment of the marketisation everything and the rendering of everything as fungible and the defining of all humans as producers and consumers only.
The ambiguity:
“Wealth” is a seductive word, it conjures comfort easily won, it suggests the business of high level abstraction. Would a dairy farmer identify as a “Wealth-creator”? would a mid-wife? would a dancer? ~ “Wealth” is a flabby vague idiom, comfortably blurry at the edges..” Lk18v23-24
“..In the words of Dennis Moore, wealth redistribution is complicated.. Sixfigure-earning charity-execs caroling chugger squads to squeeze sporadic guilt-offered gleanings from card-carrying have's whilst a chronic Welfare State eats itself having exponentially multiplied both a rash of embittered feral fatherless free-loading dependents on the one hand, and a smarmy callous entitled class of tax avoiders on the other. Society is a body. Wealth moves through veins between organs. Individualism clogs the arteries, and a mindset of scarcity bloats bigger barn tumours stock piling inert Wealth. Against this, compassionate remedial disaster-responsive charity is synthetic blood in a bag, piped in to starved limbs..” Rm15v25-26