Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying, “‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on?’ Will not your creditors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their prey. Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.” Habakkuk 2:6-8
“We are callous and blind to the world’s naked and hungry, be they our Christian brothers and sisters or our fellow human beings. While a devoted Christian woman is bothered because she cannot find her hair spray before setting out for her Sunday School class, a Sudanese mother is watching her baby’s eyes settle into the empty stare of death.
There are two sides to the question, of course. It would be unjust to accuse the Sunday School teacher of murder by hair spray. There are huge economic and logistical problems about the transfer of wealth and food from rich nations to starving ones. We need not feel condemned because we are surrounded by abundance. Rather we should praise and thank a bountiful God who pours unmerited blessings upon us. On the other hand, we have not right to brush the problem aside because of the complications.
At the heart of the matter lies our dependence upon material things. We take them for granted. We accumulate them. We go into debt to acquire them, work longer hours to earn them. They enslave us. They enslave not only our bodies but our hearts which no longer have room for the crying, the needy, the starving and the dying.”
John White in Money isn’t God: So why is the church worshipping it? (IVP: Leicester, 1993) 44-45.
White brings a prophetic voice, much like Habakkuk, to the issue of debt seeking to awaken the church from slumber. While his “death by hairspray” word picture sounds harsh, he pinpoints the heart of the matter. We depend on things rather than God. The world tells us we need them, and we believe the lies. We take on debt, become enslaved, and though we are “surrounded by abundance,” we do little to show care of the needy, convinced the issues are too challenging to address.
The question we who are surrounded by abundance must ask ourselves is do we depend on things rather than God? Will we be like everyone else, and as slaves to debt, do nothing but squander abundance? Or will we live differently, avoiding debt and materialism so that we can minister to the starving? The prophets would remind us that God is watching, and our actions reveal whether or not we are people who depend on God and understand our role as His servants.