The Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite:

Once a rich young ruler came to Jesus, wanting to know what it took to be "good." 'I've kept all the commandments since my youth,' the young man said, bragging a little. Well, Jesus replied, "there is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money." But the young man, "who was very rich," turned away. Jesus' comment? "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (Luke 18: 21-25)

All too true. It's also easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a bill with the rich paying their fair share of taxes to get through Congress. Not gonna happen.

But that's the moral thing to do. Our tax policies in this country are a way to help our neighbors who are the "least of these," as Jesus also notes. We "distribute the money" so that we can help those who are the most vulnerable like children, the sick, those with handicapping conditions, and the elderly. It's a way to "distribute the money" to those of our citizens who want to work and can't find it. We give unemployment benefits to people thrown out of work while they struggle in hard economic times to find another job. We pay taxes to educate our young, keep our bridges from falling down, and support our troops.

Politicians love to pontificate on how we need to restore "Christian values" in the public square, but that's mostly limited to denying equal civil rights for gay Americans, or controlling women's bodies. When it comes to what the bible says about wealth and poverty, however, you'll never hear that touted as morality in the public square. No, no. That's "private."

Baloney. The bible is filled with references to the religious imperative to "remember the poor" (Galatians 2:10) and "the worker deserves his pay." (Luke 10:7) When Jesus went to Jerusalem, he "sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury." (Mark 12:41) Jesus watched what people did with their money. He sees the money-changers in the temple charging pilgrims an exorbitant rate of exchange and he turns over the tables in anger, saying, "'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of thieves." (Matthew 21:13)

For those who have eyes to see, the real moral values in scripture are about loving God with our whole heart and our neighbor as ourselves, and that includes what you do with your money.

Full post.