We live in a society that has achieved a standard of living that surpasses the wildest dreams of most of the people in the history of the world; the most conspicuous result is that far too many of us live poor, thin, trivializing lives… So we learn to distinguish between standard of living and wealth. Standard of living simply means more money, faster cars, and bigger houses. Wealth comprises living well, having friends, exercising compassion, enjoying and celebrating goodness and beauty, and worshiping God.
Arthur Boers, Living Into Focus, from the foreword by Eugene Peterson, pp. x-xi
Peterson’s idea of ‘wealth’ is reminiscent of the Hebrew idea (actually God’s idea) of shalom. My favorite summary of shalom is given in Psalm 121. Here is the psalm as it is rendered in The Book of Psalms for Singing:
I to the hills will lift mine eyes;
From whence shall come my aid?
My safety cometh from the Lord,
Whom heav’n and earth hath made.Thy foot he’ll not let slide, nor will
He slumber that thee keeps.
The Lord that keepeth Israel,
He slumbers not, nor sleeps.The Lord thee keeps, the Lord thy shade,
On thy right hand doth stay.
The moon by night thee shall not smite,
Nor yet the sun by day.The Lord shall keep thee from all ill;
He shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord as thou shalt go and come,
Forever keep thee whole.
The idea of the psalm is an invocation, and pronouncement, of the help, providence, protection, sustenance, and blessing of God. Notice what is missing from this picture of shalom – material wealth and convenience.
Shalom has little to do with material blessing. It has been taken to mean such, but this is not necessary. The blessing pronounced upon the sojourners of Israel, as they ascend the hill to worship the Lord, is that he will keep steady watch over their bodies and souls. He will preserve them. He will keep them whole. Peterson describes it this way: “Wealth comprises living well, having friends, exercising compassion, enjoying and celebrating goodness and beauty, and worshiping God.” Let’s go a step farther and say that true wealth means doing all these things under the smile of God, as God commanded his priest Aaron to pronounce, “The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
All of this is totally divorced from an idea of ‘standard of living.’ Jesus announces that his mission is to the poor, the mourners, the prisoner, and the brokenhearted – those who grieve in Zion -and such can know wealth irrespective of any idea of standard of living. And indeed many with a high so-called standard of living can know nothing of this wealth. Tiny Tim knew much more of it than Ebenezer Scrooge (until the visitations of the spirits).
I was thinking over some of the things I see in my life that get in the way of experiencing the contentment of “real wealth.”
At least one barrier to this that I see when examining myself, is very simple acknowledgement that there can be contentment. To even begin to seek after contentment, one first has to desire to be contented. Our daily lives tend to have few if any practices that foster contentment. I wake up and have things to “accomplish.”My day is “goal oriented.” Even in leisure time, we are often engaged in some practice of “getting” things. This translates into Sunday worship as well, where often we approach church with an attitude solely of “I need” and “I don’t have.” Prayer requests are seldom praises, and sermons spend the majority of their time in exhortation, leaving little if any room for exhalation. So in all of this, where is there room to experience contentment?
Furthermore, I think it is important to realize that there can really be something True, Beautiful, and/or Good in the “money, faster cars, and bigger houses.” I think it would be ridiculous to look at the material wealth that God blessed Job with, (and blessed him with even more at the end of the story,) and pronounce it as meaningless. Solomon did just that, but you read in Ecclesiastes that “all is vanity” when one does not “fear God and obey His commands.” Yet often when we seek to practice contentment and realize the “truly important things” we jump immediately to an absolutism about material possessions that pronounces them worthless. Thinking we are being more spiritual, I think we actually end up being ingrates before the Creator of such material possessions.
I think that when material wealth is experienced in our lives under the rule of Christ, (echoing Solomon,) it can be a manifestation of His glory. Material wealth, found WITH “REAL wealth”, becomes just another manifestation of God’s glorious loving-kindness. However material wealth that is void of “living well, having friends, exercising compassion, enjoying and celebrating goodness and beauty, and worshiping God,” must only be seen to be mere worldliness.
When we lose these material things, there can be a REAL loss involved, beyond the superficial and outside of the idolatrous. This is not to say that material wealth should ever be equated to “real” spiritual wealth, but that it can exist as a temporal manifestation of it. So while we certainly don’t wan’t the gifts without the Giver, we certainly don’t wan’t to shun the Giver’s gifts. Returning then to the difficulties of contentment, I think we see at the heart of the problem a difficulty in being able to give away what has been received, and having faith that He who gave you the thing which you are now losing, is STILL taking care of you and His inheritance is still yours. This kind of faith allows for a “receiving and giving away” lifestyle, rather than a “grasping and avoiding” way of life.
To recap: contentment in “real wealth” is difficult in part because we have no daily practices of contentment. (It would seem that Arthur Boers book will be dealing in this area, primarily.) Contentment in “real wealth” does not mean a life void of material wealth, but one that understands that any value to be found in material wealth, originates in the same origin as that of “real wealth”; that is, in Jesus Christ. Thus, when Job mourns the loss of his material wealth, he is not merely being vain. When the Israelites in Egypt were told they would be given land and houses and milk and honey in Canaan, it was correct for them to desire such things and not to denounce them as “meaningless material wealth.” Had they done so, it would have been some ugly form of pre-gnocicism.
The real difference between Peterson’s “standard of living” and “wealth” is found less in value and more in lifespan. If both categories are correctly brought before the Lord’s rule, the real difference is simply that “standards of living” deal in physicality (a form which passes into dust,) and Peterson’s “wealth” describes heart-states primarily. If the heart is right, then we will deal with the temporal world before us rightly. (And a correct heart begins with humility ((Prov. 1:7))…)
[As you can see, I’m still thinking over Ps.131…]
The most famous passage on contentment (that hardly anybody realizes is about contentment) is Phil. 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me). In context, that passage is talking about ‘being abased’ and ‘abounding.’ Paul is making the argument that his relationship with Christ is ‘the secret’ of contentment. I take his point to be that he had experienced both poverty and a decent ‘standard of living,’ and that because of his relationship with Christ he was the same exact person in both situations.
Would you change as a person if you won the lottery? Would you change if you lost everything? Or would you say, in both circumstances, ‘Forbid it Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God’?
In our materialistic society, and with so much so-called ‘prosperity gospel’ all around us, I think it’s vital that we make this distinction that Peterson is making. I want to enjoy the ‘standard of living’ gifts that God has given me, but I also want to live this life as a sight-seer: http://tidesandturning.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/the-christian-sight-seer-enjoyment-without-attachment/
One thing I left out: in Ps 121, which you mentioned, we see that implicit contentment to be known in the explicit “help” of God begins with recognizing “from whence shall come my aid?” To truly know and accept this, is to humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.