Good as Gold
What does God want me to do with my money and ability to earn money? How will he judge me when I stand before him at my death? All the questions fall under the seventh commandment, “Thou Shall Not Steal.” Jesus has a lot to teach us through the Church about work and money and the economy. So this is the third meditation in our series on a crash course in God’s economic principles that He expects us to use in our personal lives, homes, businesses, and in our country.
One
What backs the dollar?
The history of American currency is a fascinating narrative. From the many currencies that circulated throughout the 19th century, to the debates about the gold standard at the turn of that century. Then, to going off the gold standard domestically during the great depression, and then entirely off the gold standard in the seventies. To the point that the US dollar is now the global currency, even though it seems to be pretty unstable to a lot of folks.
This is a very interesting history, and politicians, analysts, and economists argue about it all the time.
But it should prompt the deeper question among Christians, why do we have money at all? And if our money doesn’t signify gold, what does it signify?
Two
Why do we have money at all?
People with economics backgrounds say more technical sounding stuff like “money is a medium of exchange,” or a “store of value” or a “metric of value.” But most of us, if our kids asked us, “Why do we want money?” we would say, “So that we can buy things.” But then the kids would ask us, “Okay, but why would anyone give you stuff for little pieces of paper?” And we’d say, “Because they want to buy stuff with those pieces of paper.” And then, because kids are smart, they’d say, “But why is everybody willing to hand over stuff for little flimsy pieces of paper.” And we might say, “Well, everybody just is. And you’d better hope they keep on being willing to hand over stuff for little flimsy pieces of paper or we are all going to be in a lot of trouble.”
But actually, that’s not really what’s going on. What’s going on with money, even our modern currency is actually a very sane thing. It’s a very good thing. It’s even a very beautiful thing.
What’s happening with money, or what happens a lot of the time, anyway, is that money helps us keep track of all the good all the different members of society do for one another. Money is meant to be a measure and a record of the good we do and how we all take care of each other.
Did you catch that? The reason we work is to do good for others. And money is supposed to be a measure of the good you have done.
Three
Doing good to another
The Church teaches that private property is meant to be the result of human work. But human work is largely about doing good for other people.
So, for instance, say a person works as a nurse at a hospital. Or a teacher at a school. Or an Uber driver. They spend their workday trying to do good for people, trying to serve them. The people they work for give him money and so the money becomes a symbol that a certain amount of good has been done for somebody else. This worker then goes home and when his wife goes shopping and the man at the store gives her groceries, she gives him some money so that now the grocer has this symbol showing that he has done a certain amount of good for someone. Then, maybe the grocer takes some of this money, and when the man at a car dealership gives him a car, he gives the car dealer some money to show that the car dealer has done somebody a certain amount of good. And then maybe the car dealer pays his insurance company, who pays the original nurse working at the hospital. And so the circle of good action is completed.
Do you see what is supposed to back the dollar? It doesn’t have to be gold or threats from the government, and it certainly doesn’t have to be nothing.
Like everything human, what backs our economy is supposed to be justice, love, goodwill, and the resolution to create a society where we help each other. But if we start making money by actions that don’t help people, actions that are not good, then we are destroying the meaning of money. We are destroying the foundations of our economy.
So, the first question we should ask ourselves is this: what good for other people and for the world am I doing for my work? Because we work to do good. That’s the motivation, not just to make money.
Four
Making Money by NOT doing good to another
The reason we work is to do good for others. Money is supposed to be a measure of the good you have done. If you forget what money is supposed to mean, if all you think about is what money can get you, then you’ll start looking for ways to get it any way you can. If you forget that money is meant to symbolize that someone has done good to someone else, then you start lying, cheating, and stealing to get it. Then our whole economy becomes one great fraud, where the pieces of money don’t stand for anything good at all. We get it by selling bogus products, doing meaningless work, or trying to swindle as many people as we can before they catch on.
In other words, unless we make sure that money remains a symbol of good done to another, we will turn our whole society into one great violation of the seventh commandment. We will steal our neighbor’s money in exchange for something valueless. And then we will use that same valueless money in exchange for a different neighbor’s goods and services.
An economy like that, where we scheme for ways to get benefit from others without doing real good to others, an economy like that is what Christ drove out of the temple. An economy like that is a den of thieves and robbers.
Five
How are you making your money?
So, how are you making your money? And, if you’re a young person who hasn’t started a career yet, ask yourself: how are you planning on making your money?
Will you be able to say, before God, “I earned my paycheck honestly. I really did serve people, I helped them. My work did make other people’s lives better.”
If you can’t say that, then really start to pray about what you can do differently. Because we were put in this world, and into this economy, to serve others through our work. To follow Christ in making the world a better place.