Have you ever bought a lottery ticket? ‘Fess up, now... Most of us are human enough to think that life would be a whole lot easier if we just had a little more money. And let’s face it... while money can’t solve all our problems it can certainly take care of the basics, can’t it? Food, clothing, shelter…not to mention medical bills. None of those are really unreasonable wishes, either.
Passing the million-dollar mark used to be a really big deal, but it isn’t any more. Nowadays you have to break the billion mark to be considered seriously wealthy. After all, how big an income can $1,000,000 generate, after all? Even if you could invest it at 10%, $100,000 just doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Well, back to that lottery ticket. Say you’ve bought it. And you begin to fantasize, just a little, about what you would do it you won. Have you ever promised God that being rich wouldn’t change your devotion to his cause or your dependence on his grace?
I’m not asking to be Elon Musk, after all, I’m not greedy. I’d be happy with a measly million. Even though a million dollars just isn’t what it used to be, it’s still a lot more than you and I have. Can you honestly tell me that you have never thought, “Why not me?”
Once that thought has taken root, it’s a pretty short step, isn’t it, from “Why not me?” to “Why them?” Did you know that in many high-income enclaves in California and Colorado the public school teachers who teach the new millionaires’ children can’t afford to buy houses within commuting distance? It doesn’t seem fair. And it isn’t.
And one way to rationalize the unfairness is to idealize poverty and demonize wealth.
There are two ways to be miserable and rich. Liberation theology – and Marxism, where it came from - teaches (more or less) that if you’re rich you’re an oppressor and God (or the proletariat) will get you one day. The other implication of that theory is that “God has a preferential option for the poor” which means more or less that God cares more about the poor than the rich, and that millionaires are about as likely to get into heaven as a camel will squeeze through a needle’s eye. Maybe anyone with a 401K, if you compare us to the rest of the world.
And then there’s what I call the sour grapes theory of economic disparity, namely, that poor people who love Jesus are always inevitably happier than rich people who don’t. Rich people will sooner or later discover that possessions are meaningless and that they are really unhappy underneath, and therefore you, being poor, should be grateful you don’t have the curse of wealth keeping you from having a relationship with God.
But it’s not that simple.
Finding Jesus doesn’t neutralize the basic unfairness of life. Finding Jesus doesn’t turn off your humanity. Finding Jesus doesn’t mean you’ll never argue with your spouse or lose your job or build on a flood plain. And there are, believe it or not, one or two people who don’t know Jesus out there who are nonetheless happily married, gainfully employed, and volunteering at the homeless shelter.
No, it’s not that simple. Although the sour grapes approach does work pretty well in the short term. If you really believe that rich people can’t be happy, it offers some protection against the sin of envy. But it’s hard to hang on to such a belief in the face of the evidence, isn’t it.
Today’s Psalm offers us a much more complex picture of the struggle between the disparities of wealth and faith. It was written by a man named Asaph, whom King David appointed the chief Levite, the leader of temple worship. He is a gifted, godly man, a seasoned, mature, spiritual leader. He wrote 12 worship songs that still survive today. Yet, in spite of all that, Asaph confesses in this psalm that there was a time when he almost walked away from God.
And what did it for him was what he saw right in front of his face every time he looked around. It was something that he couldn’t explain away, or deny, or doubt the reality of. What got to Asaph was the same question Jeremiah asked 500 years later, “Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? [Jer 12:1] Righteous Jews and faithful Christians have wrestled with that issue throughout our common history with God. And it doesn’t work to say to ourselves, “They’re not really prosperous,” or “they really aren’t thriving.” Because the evidence of our own eyes tells a completely different story.
"... I saw the prosperity of the wicked,” says Asaph, “They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to humans; they are not plagued by human ills ... They scoff and speak with malice ... This is what the wicked are like – always carefree, they increase in wealth. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning."
You see how that progression works? “Why not me?” leads to “Why them?” which slides into “God isn’t fair!” and then some nasty little voice in your mind starts whispering “Following God is for suckers!“ And the next thing you know you’re wondering if you can trade in your ticket on the soul train for a ticket on the gravy train.
Asaph was probably a whole lot like us. And so we too need to learn what Asaph learned as he wrestled so long ago with his God, and ours.
The first thing Asaph does is turn back to his basic loyalty, his community of faith, and remembers his responsibility to the family of God. In verses 15 and 16, he speaks to God: “If I had said, "I will talk on in this way," I would have been untrue to the circle of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task.” Sometimes it is easier to grasp hold of the solid, visible reality of the people we love, who depend on us, who trust us to remain faithful, than it is to grasp hold of the reality of God. But that response is vital, for two reasons.
First, Asaph doesn’t want to harm his community. If he allows his emotions to run wild and says everything he is feeling, it is likely to damage the developing faith of the little ones, the children and others weak or new in faith. It would, in fact, be an act of betrayal. But though his concern for God's people outweighs his own internal struggle, that still doesn’t address his own crisis of faith. He can’t see God's purposes in his daily circumstances, doesn’t understand how the good and bad could possibly fit together.
And that is why the second reason to turn to the community is so important. Because Asaph's crisis of faith drives him into worship. And in worship he receives a glimpse of God which completely shifts his perspective. We see that as v 16 moves into v 17: “it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctu¬ary of God.”
Asaph encounters God in the sanctuary. Up until this point, the prosperity of the wicked has filled his vision. From now to the end of the psalm God himself, the God of the sanctuary, fills Asaph's sight. When Asaph enters the temple, the central place of worship, the place of meeting with God's people, he surrounded by the symbols of God’s greatness, by reminders of God’s goodness, by proofs of God’s eternal presence and power. And he is overwhelmed.
For the first time he sees that although the wealthy wicked really do enjoy their toys, they won’t get to keep them. He sees that those brief moments of pleasure or power are so outweighed by what will come to them in the end that they might as well never have existed at all. “...then I perceived their end. Truly thou dost set them in slippery places; thou dost make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! They are like a dream when one awakes, on awaking you despise their phantoms.”
In verse 3, Asaph saw, and he envied. But in verse 17, Asaph sees and understands. He finally gets a long-term, God’s-eye perspective on reality. The apparent power, freedom and stability of the wicked is illusory. Their real fate, their afterward, is terrible. Since the material world is all they have, let us not begrudge it to them, because it will be lost. It is real, but it is temporary. And our sufferings - whatever they may be - are also real, but they, too, are temporary.
The green-eyed monster of envy, and its children frustration and bitterness, grow best in an enclosed space, one that is walled in by a preoccupation with our own small lives. But the minute we open up our eyes, our hearts and our lives to the rest of our community, and the minute we give ourselves to our common experience of God, the One who is stronger than the world can lift us above it.
