Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 19

Of Wealth and Foolish Kings

Two passages struck me from today's appointed readings from The One Year Chronological Bible, as I had my daily quiet time with God.

First: Psalm 14:6, where David writes, "...evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge."

It reminds me of the parable Jesus tells of a poor man, Lazarus (not to be confused with his friend, Lazarus) and an unnamed rich man in Luke 16:19-31.

The rich man in Jesus' parable had everything he wanted in this world, the false idols of self and money that he craved...and worshiped. He passed poor Lazarus every time he went in or out through the gate of his home, evidently not giving him a second thought. Clearly, Lazarus was thwarted from enacting any plans he might have for improving his life or gaining healing by the care he might have received from the wealthy among whom he lived.

In the course of the parable, Lazarus dies and so does the rich man.

Lazarus, who has trusted in God despite his suffering, is taken by the angels to occupy an honored place next to Abraham, the patriarch of Israel who had believed in God and God's promises even though he couldn't see God.

The rich man, meanwhile, who had lived only for himself, his ambitions, and his desires, is tormented in the fires of Hades.

The rich man, evidently not much changed by the eternal condemnation under which he is living, calls out to ask Abraham to send Lazarus to serve him by giving him water. Abraham says that won't be possible: There is a chasm between God's heaven where those who have, in this lifetime, turned from sin and trusted in the God we now know in Jesus, on the one hand, and the place where those who have turned from God and trusted only in themselves or in the dying things of earth, on the other.

When the rich man finally thinks of someone other than himself, he asks that Lazarus (notice that once again, the rich man wants the beggar to serve his desires) be sent to his brothers to call them to repentance and faith in God so that the brothers won't suffer eternally as he is. The rich man figures that if they see a once-dead man in the flesh, they'll repent for their sin and believe in God. Abraham says that won't be possible either. Jesus, Who, of course, will die and be raised from the dead, says that Abraham tells the rich man, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." (Luke 16:31)

This parable surely underscores what the Psalm teaches. Even if and when evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, evil need not be the last word over their lives. God promises that all who turn from sin and trust in Christ will be with Him for eternity.

But the parable also indicates that those who spurn the freely offered gift of new life for all who repent and believe in the God revealed in Jesus, face a horrifying, eternal, and permanent prospect of separation from God and the life that only Jesus can give. Meanwhile, those who trust in Jesus, God the Son, will live with God at their sides, both in the imperfections and difficulties of this world and in the eternal perfections of life beyond our own death and resurrections.

Every believer in Jesus will be interested in caring for the poor and building others up as a matter of course. When you know that by God's grace through faith in Christ, you belong to God forever, sharing the blessings God has given to you isn't odious, it's an involuntary act of gratitude for God's goodness given in the crucified and risen Jesus.

2. "Surely I have acted like a fool and have erred greatly." (1 Samuel 26:21)

These are words spoken by Israel's first king, Saul. He has been trying to kill David, the man God clearly has in mind to be Saul's successor. Saul is consumed with murderous jealousy because he understands that while he has become, in an old phrase, "yesterday's man," David is "tomorrow's man."

Saul speaks the words cited above after David had spared Saul's life even though he could have killed the sleeping Saul with the king's own spear.

For a moment, Saul recognizes how foolishly he's acted. Consumed with himself and his desire for glory, he has sought to kill a virtuous man. (David wasn't always virtuous. But that's a story for another time.) More than that, Saul was seeking to thwart the plans of God to make David king. And so, Saul expresses regret for his foolishness and errant ways.

It's refreshing when leaders can say things like, "I'm sorry. I've been foolish. Please forgive me. I take the blame." In this moment of honest repentance and humility, Saul showed more greatness than he had at any other time in his life.

But it wasn't to last. Soon, he would be chasing after David again. Repentance and faith do not come naturally to we human beings; they only happen when, by the power of God's Holy Spirit and the Word of God working on us, we can lay aside our inborn aversion to God and trust in Him.

Father, help me to be a person humble enough to confess my foolishness and to know that having others' respect and esteem isn't important. All that matters is that I trust in You. Help me to do that today. And, God, in our world, grant us leaders who are humble enough to change course when they've gone wrong, who will listen to Your call to repentance, confess their sins, receive the forgiveness available to those who turn to Christ, and trust in You alone. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

If Britain were a U.S. state...

...it would be the second poorest of the nation.

Let that sink in. Britain isn't exactly a Third World country. Even in this era of income disparity, an issue being identified by politicians on both sides of the aisle, the United States is incredibly wealthy by both world and historical standards and most Americans derive some benefit from that wealth. We still have a large, if embattled, middle class.

Spiritually, wealth can be an enormous challenge, often amping up selfishness, diminishing compassion, and contributing to a sense of entitlement.

Biblically, money is not the root of all evil. It's the love of money that's a problem: "...the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (1 Timothy 6:10).

I have seen more marriages--and the love and devotion in them--killed by one or both spouses' love of money than by adultery.

I have seen many friendships ruined, many siblings alienated from each other, all because of money.

The call from God is to see our money and our possessions as gifts to be used to God's glory. First Corinthians 4:7 asks, "...what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" And Ephesians 4:28 says to the reformed thieves in the first century church in Ephesus: "Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need." This tells us that the function of wealth is to be useful to others, not to be an idol in control of our motives and aspirations. 

Jesus teaches us, in the Lord's Prayer, to ask for "our daily bread." In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther defines the meaning of this prayer petition: "God gives daily bread, even without our prayer, to all wicked men; but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to know it, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving." God supplies the world's inhabitants with more than enough of what they need; the problem is that we don't like to share what God supplies.

To have a life with God and a life of significance, we need to hold on loosely to the things of this world and hold on tightly to Jesus Christ. This is one way to live out Jesus' command that we love God and love our neighbor. (HT: Eric Swensson)

The 17 Year Old Who's Made $72-Million on the Market NOT

He's got a Beamer he can't drive yet because he hasn't gotten his license and he's got a Manhattan pad which he can't move into for another year, but this bright kid has amassed a fortune trading penny stocks.

It's an amazing story, but also a bit disturbing to me:

"It all comes down to this," Islam told New York. "What makes the world go round? Money. If money is not flowing, if businesses don't keep going, there's no innovation, no products, no investments, no growth, no jobs."

It's true that the flow of money can lead to innovation, new products, and new jobs. Those are important things. But money doesn't make the world go round. That distinction belongs to the One Who made the world, I think.

You might like to look at the following pieces:
Your Money or Your Life
"How Many Loaves Have You?"

[UPDATE: Turns out that the young man hasn't amassed a fortune.]

Giving From What We've Been Given

[This was shared during worship with the people (and guests) of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Luke 16:19-31
The parable that makes up today’s Gospel lesson was told by Jesus in the face of mockery directed at Him by Pharisees after He told the parable on which we focused last Sunday. At the end of that parable, Jesus said that it is impossible for us to serve two masters. Money cannot be our ultimate loyalty; that place must be reserved for God alone.

The Pharisees mocked Jesus because, Luke tells us, they were “lovers of money.” The Pharisees spiritualized their greed, employing a few proof texts from the Old Testament to support their idea that God gives good people (like themselves, the Pharisees would say) money.

You can hear the echoes of this notion even today. A friend told me about attending a small group Bible study one night at which six of the eight attendees insisted that they had their nice homes in suburbia because they obeyed God’s rules. Like the Pharisees, the people at this small group Bible study also insisted that poor people were poor because they were sinners.

Yet the Bible--in both the Old and New Testaments--is filled with examples of people rich and poor, who were right with God, not because of their goodness, but because they trusted in the God ultimately revealed to the world in Jesus Christ.

People who think that their wealth or success in this life prove their worthiness of God’s favor, ignore certain fundamental truths.

One of those truths is that none of us is worthy of God’s favor. We are all born in sin and deserve nothing but condemnation and death.

The other is that God loves us any way and sent Jesus to die for our sins and rise from the dead so that all who believe in Him may live eternally with God.

Pastor Dale Galloway once wrote memorably, “Jesus never met an unimportant person.” He might have added, “And He always punctured the egos of those who thought themselves more important than others.” You can see Jesus elevating those considered unimportant by the world while puncturing the egos of the proud in today's lesson.

Please go to it, Luke 16:19-31. Jesus begins: “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.”

In Biblical times, tyrian purple was the color of royalty. That’s because it was prohibitively expensive due to the rarity of the dye. It was made from the secretion of a particular specie of sea snail, hard to find. So, Jesus is conveying that this rich man was really rich, like a king.

Our impulse at this point is to check out, thinking this is a parable directed at money grubbing rich people, not at people of our financial station. Do you want to hear something daunting? The other night, I found a web site called Global Rich List. It allows you to type in a level of yearly income and see where it stacks up with the rest of the world. I typed in $23,000. I did this because the Department of Health and Human Services says that in the US, a family of four making less than $23,550, is living in poverty. I don’t doubt that’s true. But the Global Rich List says that an American making $23,000 a year is wealthier than  97.75% of the global population! The point is that by global standards, most of us in this sanctuary this morning are among the wealthiest people in the world. We can’t dodge Jesus‘ parable so easily. We--you and I--are among the world’s haves, like the rich man in Jesus’ parable. Please read on.

“But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”

This Lazarus is not the friend of Jesus who Jesus raised from the dead. This is a fictional character, the only time Jesus ever gave a name to such a character in a parable.

By doing giving this character a name, Jesus is turning the world’s usual way of doing things on its head. The poor, after all, are often a mass of faceless, nameless people in the eyes of the world, people passed by at freeway off-ramps or in walks through usually rough neighborhoods after concerts or ballgames. But by naming the beggar in His parable, Jesus is telling us that the poor among us, are real human beings, with thoughts and feelings and needs no less important than ours.

That’s why donating food to the CHAP emergency food bank, helping with the upcoming community dinners Saint Matthew will be doing with Trinity Lutheran Church, or donating health kit items to Lutheran World Relief, as coordinated by the Women of Saint Matthew, are so important. The poor may be invisible to the eyes of the world. But God sees them and God calls His people to see them and to serve them, just as God has seen and served us in Jesus Christ!

The Lazarus of Jesus’ parable is in a pitiable state. He is full of sores, presumably due to being malnourished. Our text says that he was laid at the gate to the rich man’s estate. But this is a dainty translation. The verb translated as laid is more literally rendered as thrown. Who threw Lazarus away, we don’t know. But Jesus says that Lazarus, this thrown-away man, would have been satisfied with the scraps from the rich man’s table, that he was so weak that dogs, not domesticated house pets in first century Judea, but wild animals, licked his open sores and Lazarus was unable to fend them off. It’s not a pretty picture. Please read on.

“So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.”

Lazarus was carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom. Abraham, the Old Testament figure whose descendants became the nation of Israel, “believed in God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Despite the torments and poverty of his earthly life, Lazarus also believed in God. Because of his faith, he, like Abraham, was counted righteous, worthy of being at the heavenly banquet with God.

Please look at what happens next. “And being in torments in Hades, [the rich man] lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.  Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.'”

The rich man was, like Lazarus, a descendant of Abraham. But, unlike Abraham, he had not put his trust in God. Clearly, his trust had been in his money bag. Had he trusted God and not mammon, the beggar outside his gate, Lazarus, might not have starved to death. A good work done for Lazarus would not have saved the rich man, of course. Only the God we know in Jesus Christ can save us from sin and death as we trust our whole lives to Him. But the clear implication of Jesus’ parable is that if the rich man had truly believed in God--trusted God--rather than his wallet, he would have found it easier to part with some of his money to help people like Lazarus.

The Bible teaches that one of the reasons God gives us money is precisely to help the helpless people of the world like Lazarus. In Ephesians 4:28, those who once made their income by stealing but had come to faith in Christ are told: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” In torment in Hades, the place of the dead, the rich man calls out to Father Abraham in heaven for help.

Verses 25 and 26: “But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.'”

Abraham could offer no help to the rich man. Nor could Lazarus. The rich man’s time on earth was done. His wealth, stubbornly held onto, had not made him acceptable in the eyes of God. Nor did his wealth prove that he was better than anyone else, not even a poor man who had been thrown at his gate. Having refused to trust in God while on earth, he was now separated from God’s eternal feast. Habakkuk 2:4 reminds us that we are right with God not because we have fat paychecks or even because we do good works. “Behold the proud,” it says, “his soul is not upright in him. But the just shall live by faith.”

Now, the rich man becomes a beggar. Verse 27: “Then [the rich man] said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"

One of the key themes that Luke hammers away at in his telling of his gospel’s story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and in Acts, his history of the early Church, is this: The God of the Old Testament is the same God we meet in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. In both Testaments, God hates sin and injustice, calls people to faith in Him alone, promising forgiveness and life to those who believe in Him, and warning of condemnation--self-condemnation, really--for those who turn their backs on the life only God can give.

In Jesus’ parable, Abraham tells the rich man that if the rich man’s brothers didn’t pay heed to the will of God to trust in God, to love God, and to love neighbor when they heard and read about it in “the law and the prophets,” that is, in what you and I know as the Old Testament, neither would they pay attention to God or repent for their sins and trust in God alone for life and hope, if someone who had been dead should rise from death and appear to them.

Some Christians, in a Pharisaic mood, may see Jesus’ words as applying to Jews who refuse to trust in the crucified and risen Christ. But if they do so, they miss Jesus’ point.

The God disclosed to all the world in Jesus Christ has given His witness to Jew and Gentile alike. As tempting as it is to put our trust in things we can see--things like money and possessions--our call is to trust in God alone and then, from hearts brimming over with gratitude for the freedom from sin and death we enjoy as the gift of God to all who live the trust in Jesus Christ, live the faith we confess here on Sunday mornings.

God’s earth produces more than enough to provide for every person’s need for daily bread. We live our faith when we dare to share what God has given to us with those in need.

And we needn’t be afraid that we’ll have less of what we need if we give to others. There is no limit to the bounties of God’s grace or goodness. The God Who loves to give will also empower us to give to others from hearts filled with God's infinite storehouse of love. Amen

[This sermon is really a companion to the one given last Sunday. You might want to check it out here.]

What Money is For

From today's installment of Our Daily Bread: "The challenge of riches is living with thankful hearts to God and open hands to others." See here.

Money itself isn't condemned by the Bible. 1 Timothy 6:10, in the Bible's New Testament is often misquoted to claim (or accuse) the Bible of this attitude. (Even by Pink Floyd in the song, Money, on Dark Side of the Moon.) Money is not the root of all evil. The misquoted passage says that, "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains."

Jesus does say that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the eternal kingdom Jesus came to bring to those with faith in Him. He says this to His disciples after telling a rich man to sell everything he has, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus.

But Jesus isn't saying that wealth is intrinsically bad. It just happened that money was this young man's particular idol of choice and it becomes such for lots of people.

The simple truth is that not everyone can handle wealth, no doubt far fewer than actually have wealth. The rich young man who incited Jesus to use His "camel through the eye of a needle" metaphor, was apparently not handling his wealth in a way that had him in sync with God. (Matthew 19:16-26)

Because wealth buys so much in this dying world, it's easy for the wealthy to delude themselves into thinking that they are, in a sense, gods in themselves.

Or, they can develop a material notion about life itself, thinking that anything that can't be bought, sold, touched, or manipulated, isn't real, even God Himself, Who, after all, has been revealed materially only once, in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Savior.

Yet the Bible is filled with wealthy people who retained their faith and their wealth. Because God came first, they were able to use their wealth in a way that honored and loved God and gave practical expression to their love for others. The list includes Abraham and Sarah, Lydia, Matthew, and Joseph of Arimathea, to name just a few. And the fishermen who followed Jesus--including Peter, Andrew, James, and John--were at the least, members of the upper middle class of their time.

Each came to see their wealth as a gift from God over which they were to exercise good management. The Biblical word for this is stewardship.

In another part of 1 Timothy, on which today's installment of Our Daily Bread, quoted and linked above, is based, the apostle Paul writes:

Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy (1 Timothy 4:28).

Paul is not saying that everyone who has acquired wealth stole it. He is saying that the thieves who had come to faith in Christ needed to leave their sins behind by learning the true object for acquiring money while we live on earth.

And this is it: We acquire wealth so that we can take care of the needy.

The needy, of course, can include the neediest people of all: those who have never come to know or follow Jesus Christ. Proclaiming the good news that God so loves every person on this planet that He gave His Son Jesus, so that all who will turn from sin (repent) and believe in Jesus (surrender their lives to Him) will have everlasting life is the job of every Christian. Even our money should be marshaled in the effort to help others to fill their need for Christ.

But the needy also include the poor, whether in our own community or around the world.

The needy also include the victims of disaster, wherever they live.

Understanding why God entrusts our wealth to us, no matter how wealthy we may be by world standards, should alter the decisions we make about how we spend our money.

Followers of Jesus Christ, grateful that God has already saved them by His grace through our faith in Jesus, are set free from the temptations of money and can ask themselves each day, "God has given me new and everlasting life through Christ. God gives me my daily bread. In response, how can I use what God has given to me in order to address the needs of others?"

Maybe one day I'll be content with how my life daily answers that question. But I haven't gotten there yet. God is still working on me.

Are Tiny Houses the Wave of the Future?

My idea of roughing it is a night in a Holiday Inn.

And one of the complaints I have about the home in which my wife and I raised our two children--in which we still live--is that there really is no place to which I can "get away."

Without the doors that used to subdivide the first floors of homes, there's no place on our home's first floor where I can read in silence if someone else wants to watch television.

So how to account for my fascination with the Tiny House movement? I mean, here I am lamenting not having more personal space, yet being drawn to the notion of living in a forty, sixty, or seventy-square foot place.

My interest in micro-homes began when I listened to an interview on NPR with Jay Shafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, back in 2005. He described his tiny houses, one of which was his residence at the time, a small home set among the giant California Redwoods. Intrigued, I looked up the company web site and looked over the photos of the various models offered by Tumbleweed.

I suppose, in part, the homes appeal to the little boy in me. In my growing-up years, I loved building club houses and forts.

Once, I remember, going to a local appliance store and begging a clerk to give me several large cardboard crates in which refrigerators had been shipped. After he complied with my request, I went to a nearby lumberyard and convinced the people there to give me their wood scraps.

I used some of the lumber as the internal frame for one box. Then I cut a hole in the bottom of the other one--to act as the passageway to the second floor, nailed the larger pieces of wood to my frame, and stacked it onto the first. .

Later, I covered the whole thing with Saran Wrap I commandeered from the kitchen--unbeknownst to my Mom--in the hopes of saving my cardboard structure from the rain. That didn't work. But for several days, I had a little pad of my own out behind the garage where the garden used to be.

An only slightly more practical reason for my interest in micro-homes was the thought that while not living in such a house, it might be a great "place away" out in my backyard, somewhere that I could read and write.

I even made a half-hearted attempt to pitch the idea to my wife, who is much more conversant with the limitations of our family finances. "I could get all of my books out of here," I told her. "And that little house might add to the value of this house."

But I knew that I was getting nowhere with her, even when I suggested that we might be able to get two tiny houses, one for my study and one for an art studio for her, something of which I've always dreamed. She didn't even go for the idea when I leavened my presentation with a little humor: "They would cut down on how much yard I have to mow, too."

Truth be told, the primary market for tiny houses are probably not people trying to add to their possessions. Rather, I'd guess that their appeal is more to people with a well-developed social conscience who love being close to nature. Or people who want to right-size their lives.

Shafer, the founder of Tumbleweed Tiny Homes is probably among these kinds of people. He explains on his company's web site:

...since 1997 I have been living in a house smaller than some people's bathrooms. I call the first of my little hand built houses Tumbleweed...My decision to inhabit just 100 square feet arose from some concerns I had about the impact a larger house would have on the environment, and because I do not want to maintain a lot of unused or unusable space. My houses have met all of my domestic needs without demanding much in return. The simple, slower lifestyle my homes have afforded is a luxury for which I am continually grateful.

According to this article in today's New York Times, a growing number of people are opting for tiny homes. That includes people like those whose story leads the article:

John Friedman and Kristin Shepherd of Berkeley, Calif., purchased 160 acres in the mountains near Telluride, Colo., it was with the intent to build — just not right away. Before designing a small, ecologically sensitive second home they wanted to spend a year or two visiting the land to determine the most suitable building site. But at an elevation of 9,600 feet, living in tents was out.

So, early last summer, Mr. Friedman, 69, an industrial photographer, rented a truck and trailered a pre-built 65-square-foot Tumbleweed Tiny House up mountain roads, into a meadow and parked. To compensate for the lack of interior space, the couple cook, entertain and, for the most part, live outdoors. “We live in our view rather than look at it,” said Ms. Shepherd, 58, a retired youth counselor and an avid hiker. At night the two nestle in a sleeping loft with three feet of clearance, gazing at stars through a skylight. “It’s shelter, pure and simple,” Ms. Shepherd said.

According to the article, even families are buying these places:

Stephanie Arado, a Minnesota Orchestra violinist, said that it took living in a tiny house to learn how little space she really needed. For about $45,000, she bought a 392-square-foot weeHouse with no electricity and no bathroom as the solution to a siting problem on her 32 acres in western Wisconsin. Ms. Arado, who has two children, planned to use the tiny house as a springboard to building something bigger.

But four years have passed, and she now has no intention of supersizing. “Something happened,” Ms. Arado said. “I started to see the beauty in how it works.” There is a queen-size bed for her and a bunk for her two children. When friends visit, sleeping pads and cots are pulled out. “The glass walls make the house feel much bigger than it is,” she said. “People are surprised to hear it’s only 14 feet wide.”

And, the article points out:

The tiny-house movement complements another vacation-home trend: buying land with an eye to conservation. John Friedman and Kristin Shepherd will return to their Tumbleweed Tiny House in Telluride this spring, not only to hike, but also to observe wildlife patterns and work to ensure that the land, which they purchased with the express purpose of conservation, remains protected.

Of course, these folks are bucking an ongoing trend toward bigger and bigger new homes. A November, 2005 article in Demographia.com noted that a US Census Bureau report showed that in the preceding year:

...house sizes continued to increase. The median single unit (detached and semi-
detached) housing start was on course for a record 2,461 square feet (229 square meters) in 2005. The median multiple unit size was also on course for a record in 2005, at 1,262 square feet (117 square meters).

By international standards, Americans live in larger housing and receive superior value for their money. For example, the average new house in the United Kingdom is just 76 square meters, two-thirds smaller than the median US new multiple unit. The median new single unit house in the United States was nearly three times as large as the average new house size in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the increase (more than 80 square meters) in median new single unit house size since 1973 exceeds the size of a new house in the United Kingdom. Australian new house sizes are almost identical to the United States figure.

I wonder if we Christians might not eventually get caught up in the tiny house movement. Jesus once told a story that would seem to say that we ought to at least cast a wary eye on getting caught up in the McMansion trend:

Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:13-21)

Maybe I should begin thinking about a tiny home not as a place to get away, but as a countercultural way to follow Jesus. A way to downsize and rightsize, remembering that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy person--and all white middle class Americans are wealthy people by world and historical standards--to enter the Kingdom of God.

I don't know if I have the guts to try moving into a tiny house. But I wish that I did!

(UPDATE: In response to one person's question: Yes, the bathroom does have a door. But the bathroom isn't a very comfortable place to read for long stretches of time.)

[THANKS TO: Andrew Jackson of SmartChristian.com for linking to this post.]

[THANKS ALSO TO: TeachingMom.com for linking here.]

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