Monday Pope Benedict XVI took stock of the global credit crisis saying the world’s financial systems are “built on sand” and that only the works of God have “solid reality.”
Referring to Matthew 7, the Pope said, ”He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career and money builds the house of his life on sand.” He added, ”We are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing. All these things that appear to be real are in fact secondary. Only God’s words are a solid reality.”
Jesus’ two-thousand-year-old words seem very relevant today:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19-21).
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:25-34).
Amen.
Interestingly much of our culture, institutions and supposed wisdom is actually built on Christian foundations and values but always with the hermeneutic of Cherry-Picking applied. Thus you have misleading mutations ala “Don’t Worry Be Happy” where what Jesus actually said (“do not worry about tomorrow because…”) is all but lost.
Trade is good, banks and lending are good things. However gambling (stock trading), fraud and robbery (selling options you don’t have), greed (buying what you can’t pay for and probably don’t need) are bad things and it’s these things which caused the crash.
If we build our world on a partial copy of a modified copy of the Rock then of course it won’t stand.
It is no wonder that the USA is in the mess it is in. We have taken GOD out of our schools, We can’t pray at football games or any other sport, They want to do away with ” in GOD we trust” on our money, We can’t say the pledge of allegiance any more, and in most parts we lost the family values that most of us had when we were kids, like families sitting down to dinner every night, and getting on our knees and praying before bed, and saying grace when we eat. So I know that I trust in my great LORD and have full FAITH in him and all will be OK. My life was built in great soil and my kids are living the same way.