“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ” —Luke 16.19-31
We have been colonized by wealth.
Under the rule of capitalism, wealth has captured our imaginations and our hearts. We are convinced that wealth is of utmost importance, because without it we can’t live.
I know for myself, when the bank accounts are low, empty, or negative, I panic. I begin to plot and scheme how to get more money, how to have the security of wealth so that I know my family and I will survive. I actively have to talk myself down from the edge of anxiety and remind myself that God will provide for us just as God always has.
But the mentality that money is security is a hard one to shake.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to provide for yourself and the ones you love. We have to think about surviving the hellscape of capitalism, which requires money for food, shelter, clothing, and (it feels like) breath. Money makes the capitalistic world go round, and without it we will be crushed and discarded, no matter how sorrowful that is.
The problem is our grip.
The heart of the matter is the love of money. And this is where the colonization of us by wealth has sinisterly crept in. Because of our dependence on money in a capitalistic society, we have been convinced that wealth is good.
We have been brainwashed to believe that gathering resources for ourselves—401 (k)s, larger paychecks, stock portfolios, even a healthy savings account—is not only necessary but that it is good and is a healthy sign of maturity and responsibility.
This is what I mean by saying wealth has colonized us. Our imaginations have been captured and shaped by the concept that wealth is good. When we picture a good life, one of the first things we imagine is financial security.
And we don’t think of it as wealth. We think of it as a modest living—nothing opulent, nothing extravagant, nothing exceedingly excessive. Just being comfortable, being well cared for, being so secure that we don’t have to rely on assistance or other people for our daily bread.
It’s not just opulence either. It’s easy for us to claim that wealth hasn’t colonized our thinking because we’re not dressed in purple robes and fine linen. We may not have designer clothes and accessories. We may not be feasting sumptuously every day.
But this isn’t about how great our wealth is. It’s about how we live with that wealth.
In this story Jesus tells, the rich man has more than enough, and he lets Lazarus die at his gate. The rich man’s posture wasn’t one of others centered, co-suffering love. It was about his own security, his own comfort, centered on his own wealth being his.
But what if wealth exists only because some people are in poverty? Wealth is a consolidation of money and riches. When we love the money we have, we hold on to it tight, seeking to accumulate more and more. When we accumulate wealth, we do so at the expense of other people’s resources.
One of the ways that Mammon colonizes our imaginations is through scarcity. The idea of scarcity tells us that there isn’t enough to go around, so we must hold on to what we have so we don’t have to go without. But, in that framework, that means that other people will have less or nothing because I hold all the resources.
But there is enough to go around. The rich man had more than enough to open his gate and give Lazarus medical aid, food, and clothing. There was more than enough to use the resources to lift Lazarus’ dignity out of the ash heap. There was more than enough… if the rich man could live generously.
This is the heart of the issue. An imagination colonized by wealth can’t imagine living open-handed, giving away and using the wealth it’s acquired for the good of other people. It can’t envision a world where everyone has enough because when we serve and love Mammon, we are told that the only way to succeed, to be secure, is to hoard what we have, seeking to gather all we can into that hoard. It’s about my upward-mobility lifestyle. Bigger house. Better car. And gates to keep the poverty-stricken away from my wealth.
This is the natural course our colonized imaginations will go if we don’t interrupt the colonization and actively work against falling in love with money.
But how do we work against it? We live in a capitalist culture that relies on money and wealth for value, for survival, for security. Everywhere we look, everywhere we go, there are voices clamoring to tell us about scarcity and wealth. We are offered shiny new toys to activate the dopamine centers in our brains. The cost-of-living keeps rising. Other people are getting better things—hello mimetic desire—that seem to make their lives better.
We are bombarded with these messages in advertising, on TV and in movies, in books, and by friends and family. What do we do? How can we fight this love of money that is all around us, colonizing us, compromising us, calling us to a life of tight-fisted scarcity?
We lament.
We let our hearts break open. We weep. We wail.
But not over capitalism. No, we lament over the people caught up in the love of money. We lament over us all. We lament over poverty and the reality that the tight-fisted living of the few is crushing and stealing food from the many. The opulence of our oligarchs is doing nothing but fueling the colonization of our minds and the exclusion of the poor. The upwardly mobile living we are told is the American dream is literally killing us, creating more and more people in crushing debt as we strive to keep up appearances of wealth.
Lazarus is waiting at our gates as a witness of what the love of money is actively doing to people.
This is what we lament. This is what our hearts break over. This is why we weep. This is why we wail.
People are starving.
People need medical attention.
People are dying.
And we all turn a blind eye because we need to take care of ourselves and gather our own wealth first.
This is hard to say. This is hard to hear. I don’t know how to live it out. I write this on a laptop bought with wealth. I’m listening to a subscription music service I pay for with wealth. I don’t want to excuse my complicity in this system by saying, “It’s okay because I don’t love money.”
The truth is, I do. I love the security it gives me. I love the fun stuff I can do with it. I love being able to pay rent and get groceries and buy my kids back to school clothing. Even as I lament, my heart is still colonized to the love of money.
I must repent.
I have to turn away from this love of wealth and the colonization of my imagination by Mammon.
Repentance is more than a heart orientation. Repentance is action. I actively have to fight against the love of money in my own life and in the surrounding culture.
How do I do this?
I live out the anti-love of money. Instead of close-fisted, scarcity-driven hoarding, I must live open-handed with what I have, even when it feels like it’s not enough to go around. No matter how much or how little I possess, in order for it not to possess me, I have to treat it as if it belongs to us all. I can’t hoard for security and safety, giving out of excess. I have a responsibility to love my neighbor, no matter what I have.
Maybe part of this repentance is getting away from the idea that the only way I can help others is with money. Can I bake them bread? Can I sew their damaged clothing? Can I wash their hair? What can I do to restore dignity and grace to those around me?
If I am going to repent of the love of money, then I can’t assume that money fixes all the problems people have. Community is more than money. Community is presence; it is welcome and radical hospitality. It is building a bigger table, not more gates.
This is entering into solidarity with people. This is sitting with people in their pain, their oppression, our captivity to Mammon. This is loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Maybe the redistribution of wealth isn’t about throwing money at everyone. Maybe it’s a reimagining of what we value together, in solidarity with each other. Maybe it’s seeing and calling Lazarus by name, welcoming them into our lives, into our spheres, into our hearts. Maybe it’s the value of dignity and health. Maybe we use money only because it is the currency of this society we are all in, but not because money brings value.
This is how we lament and repent. Let your heart break over the poor, over poverty, and over the poverty of spirit and imagination we all have because we are trapped by our love of money. Then, we act. To solidify our solidarity with the poor, with the poverty-stricken, we need each other.
This is going to require uncomfortable choices and sacrifice. This is truly becoming countercultural. But it is only through lamenting and repentance that we can get free from the colonizing force of money.
I am in the process of becoming a community chaplin with The Order of St. Hildegard. This program is designed to help form people into spiritual leaders that lead from the margins and serve the margins. It’s for the people who don’t quite fit with the traditional church because of trauma, disability, or identity. If you, as my community, would like to help me fulfill the financial obligation this chaplaincy program has, you can give at the link below. Thank you for the myriad ways you support me.