Last night at our team meeting we began looking at the book of James and discussed chapter 1.

Its always interesting to see where a conversation gathers energy and where it dithers along. Usually my approach to leading this type of meeting is to do a heap of background study and throw it open and see what people want to discuss. There was no aspect of James chapter 1 that was ‘gripping’ me personally, nor was I feeling like I needed to really press something home to us as a team in any way. I arrived hoping that others had been inspired or that the Holy Spirit would take us somewhere none of us had expcted.

After 20 minutes of fairly uninspiring discussion we began to look at verses 9-11.

The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. 10But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. 11For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business

The conversation that came out of this stirred the room a little more.

You see, we are all rich. Some would even say filthy rich. It depends on who we compare ourselves to I guess. We are a bunch of middle income Australians – probably averaging $70K / household some with average mortgages, some renting and decent cars all round (except for us!)

By world standards we are wealthy. So are we people of ‘low position’? Is our wealth something of a hindrance to following Jesus in this world? Ought we try to extricate ourselves from our possessions?

Maybe…

Now… before you trot out all the reasons why its ok we own stuff – that the world needs the wealthy as well as the poor – that if we gave it all away then we would be poor – the early church had to own stuff to share it – yada yada yada, just stop for a minute and consider how gripped we are by our wealth and how it shapes our lives. (Or is that just me?…)

As we began to explore the (hypothetical) possibilities of giving it all away and moving into a different suburb and then living at a different socio-economic level it was interesting to see our struggle. When I was a teenager I would have given it all away in an instant. Easy.

Now I am 41 year old with a lot of stuff, a family and a way of life that I am familiar with and that I enjoy. I am deeply wedded to my lifestyle and at times I feel infuriated by it. At other times I am really grateful for what I have.

We were discussing how difficult it is to help middle Australia really engage with the gospel. People who are ‘almost there’ and will (apparently) soon be content once they have a bigger house/better car or whatever else are rarely looking for meaning outside of possessions – at least it sure appears that way.

We asked the question if middle Australia is so difficult to penetrate maybe we ought to pull stumps and go to a really rough suburb where folks are poor and maybe more open to hearing Jesus good news. (Just for the record – we don’t feel God taking us anywhere – anytime soon) As we discussed this and the possibility of selling our stuff and giving it to people who need it more than us we struggled to really have a decent conversation. Its hard to really think clearly when you are so mired in your own wealth, worldview and background.

We agreed that for all of us to go somewhere downtrodden would be quite difficult for us as we would be engaging with folks from a very different walk of life to ourselves. We probably would struggle to be accepted and connect in conversation easily due to our vastly different life experiences and backgrounds. (This has been some of our experience here in Brighton.

Even to help the poor and needy round here seems like a lame option at times when millions of people in other parts of the world die from inadequate resources.

I really don’t think there are any easy answers here – if there were we would have found them a long time ago. My answer to this sort of stuff often seems to be the same these days – do what you feel the Spirit is leading you to do.

That’s not a cop out. Its the only safe way to go without creating a legalism.

So, could we simply walk away from the affluence we have at this stage in life? Probably not ‘simply’. but I’d like to think we could make that choice if genuinely faced with it.