Tag Archive for: Money

Super Sunday II

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Armodoxy for Today: Super Sunday

It’s that time of year again. It’s Super Sunday! Everything gets put on hold for this Sunday. Hostages are still being held, wars are still be fought, rogue nations are still developing plutonium for bombs, and on the streets, fentanyl is destroying lives and politics continues to divide families, communities and the nation. But for a few hours on Sunday, at least here in the United States, two of the best football teams will battle it out for the championship title. Everything else will be forgotten for those few hours as the Superbowl takes center stage and puts the world on hold.

The Superbowl is a multi-billion-dollar operation. The average cost of a ticket is close to $7,000, even though the best seats are relatively inexpensive considering that the game is televised and streamed on many platforms throughout the world, affording fans an opportunity to huddle together with friends and acquaintances to share chips, dips, bar-b-cues, and drinks that make the Superbowl another opportunity for comradery and partying.

Businesses and companies have studied and know the power of this event. They will spend millions to grab your attention during the Bowl game. This year they will be spending $15Million for a minute of advertising. Think about about how many bottles of beer, or how many potato chips, or how many policies a company has to sell to recoup an investment of that size. The mere fact that they advertise at the Superbowl tells you that they have thought about how many cans of soda they have to sell and they know their investment will pay off.

It’s simple business practice: It takes money to make money. And Jesus brought it down to this: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

In Armodoxy we refer to this Sunday as Super Sunday as well, but in reference to another event.  It’s the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s celebrated every Sunday and so we refer to every Sunday as a Super one. The Resurrection is the event that overshadows every other event in human history. Unlike the football game (which is actually the story of a ball going from one team to another, from one side of the field to the other for a few hours)… everyone has an opportunity to win, everyone has a best seat in the house, and everyone can invest in it for a large return.

“I am the resurrection and the life,” says Jesus, “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Happy Super Sunday.

A prayer from St. Gregory of Datev, O Mighty one, You formed in lordly fashion the complete natures of all things out of nothing, of all beings, of all existences out of no existence. Through you shall all these your creatures be renewed at the resurrection, in that time which is the last day of this life and the first day in the land of the living. The first-born Son, being your kin and of the same essence of the Father, obeyed you also with oneness of will, as he did his Father. While in our likeness, he proclaimed you as true God, equal and consubstantial to his mighty Father. He declared blasphemy against you to be unforgivable and he stopped the impious mouths of those who rebel against you, as of those who fight against God, though he forgave blasphemy against himself, the righteous and the spotless one, finder of all, who was betrayed for our sins and rose for our justification. Glory to him through you, and praise to you with the Father almighty, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Choices: The Lure of Riches

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Armodoxy for Today: The Advent Series – Riches

To continue with the Sermon on the Mount, today’s statement from Jesus is, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24) The word mammon literally means riches, in Aramaic.

Today’s message is presented in an axiomatic manner, just as were the last two statements he about treasures in heaven and the light of the body. I would venture to say that it is because you have gone through the Advent Journey for the past month that this statement is accepted without contest. You cannot serve God and riches. Still, Jesus provides a brief argument, that given two choices, we will favor one over the other. The lure of earthly riches is so much greater than the spiritual treasures gained from serving God.

The operative word in today’s teaching is “serving.” Introspection will reveal that we often “serve” our riches, that is the creation of money for the sake of having more money.

Money only finds value in its ability to do work. A million dollars in the bank is merely a one with six zeros following it. No matter how much you serve the money and how much it grows it has no value until it is used. A million dollars in action, that is, in use, is education, books, medical care, food on the table, housing, shelter, assistance to others, etc.

To put it another way, serving money is valueless. Using money gives value to riches. Serving God gives value to your life. Using God, demeans the value of your life.

The lure of earthly riches is so much greater than the spiritual treasures gained from serving God because earthly riches are tangible and occupy our reality. Jesus has now moved the spiritual treasures into this life, so that they is tangible by the good deeds and share our reality.

For today, we pray St. Nersess Shnorhali’s 12th hour prayer as he “confesses with faith. Lord, who wills that which is good, and are the director of the will, let me not follow the inclinations of my heart, but lead me to live always according to Your good will. Amen.

 

Labor & Work

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Armodoxy for Today: Labor and Work

Here in America, we pause from our busy schedules every September to give a nod to our work. In other countries, they have worker’s days honoring the laborer, but here we honor the work itself and refer to this holiday as Labor Day.

For most people, I would say work is something we do because we have to. We like to eat, have a roof over our head and enjoy time with family and friends. Those things take money to acquire and so, to raise that money, we work. From early on, we make calculations and pass those calculations on to our children. If you want to live this particular lifestyle, you will need $xxx. Job xyz can provide you with enough capital to sustain that lifestyle.

A small number of people will select their life’s work based on their passion, even if the monetary rewards are insufficient to live on. And the truly blessed people are those who enjoy their work, and the monetary reward from the work is enough to sustain them without needing supplemental assistance – whether a second or third job, or a hand-out.

This may sound a bit like economics and philosophy mixed together and one may wonder what this has to do with our Christian faith. Well it has everything to do with it. Work provides certain rewards. When the rewards outweigh the purpose of the work, then desire for those rewards become the motivating force for work, for labor, for doing what we do.

Think of this: some say that gambling is wrong. Why? Every time we leave our homes, every time we sit in a car, we are gambling with our lives. Life if full of uncertainty and we gamble with our lives and much more. But the reason why gambling for money winds up high on the negativity scale is because it distorts our perception and understanding of what is valuable. Money is no longer a means by which we acquire the things we want, rather it becomes the object of what we want, our desires. It gives value to something that has no intrinsic value. A million dollars in a bank account only exists on paper. It is the number one with six zeros behind it. But when $1,000,000 is used, to buy shelter, an education, health services, act of charity, then it has a value! Money is not the object of our labor, it is the means by which we accomplish those things we need to accomplish.

Catholic and Protestant work ethics have evolved through the century. Here in the West, the Protestant work ethic, developed from the time of Martin Luther and John Calvin, is the struggle between discipline, frugality and taming the wants and the desires of a person. In the Armenian Church (and traditional Churches) we label these as seven deadly sins – anger, lust, gluttony, laziness, covetousness, pride and envy – all connected to the struggle we engage in daily.

Labor Day is a holiday and like most other holidays, the meaning is lost in vacations, excursions and sales. But for us, we will take this moment for introspection, asking ourselves the hard questions – the what and why of our work. Purpose and meaning come from this introspection.

We leave with this mediation from our Lord Jesus Christ, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

…Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty… Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever… (John 6)

Staying on Track

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Armodoxy for Today

Staying on Track

Our Advent Journey continues and our first stop is confronting the parable of the ‘Rich Fool,’ as told by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12.

“The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.  But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then who’s will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” – Jesus (Luke 12)

Remember, Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas, to understand the holiness of the holy day. Right off, Jesus tells us the preparation is about laying treasures and uses this parable to illustrate the importance of not losing sight of the prize. We are on a journey to Christmas when we proclaim that Christ is born and revealed among us. Along the way, it will be easy to be sidetracked. The rich man of the parable begins as an entrepreneur who uses his wisdom and knowledge to bring him profit. When his work yields a bumper crop, he loses sight of the purpose of his labor and falls into the trap of losing sight of the destination. Further, Jesus gives him the designation of a “fool” because he had labored and not set aside treasures beyond himself.

St. Paul refers to the love of money as the root of all evil. Money itself is merely a tool. It has value when it is used, otherwise it is merely a figure of lines, circles, dots and dollar signs on a ledger somewhere. When money is used, an in particular to the aid and benefit of others – your children, your parents, your loved ones, your community, your church, and yes, to those who you don’t know – it picks up value because now, it can be measured by the terms that are understood by others beside yourself.

It always amazes me when I hear someone boast of himself or of his child, proudly proclaiming that they “know the value of a dollar.” In fact, a drug dealer knows the value of a dollar. So what? The parable is about finding true value for money which translates to the value of life.

We pray the prayer of St. Nersess the Gracefilled, from the 23 hour: All-merciful Lord, have mercy upon all Your faithful, on those who are mine and on those who are strangers; on those whom I know and on those whom I know not; on the living and on the dead; and forgive all my enemies, and those who hate me, the trespasses that they have committed against me; turn them from the malice which they bear towards me, that they may be worthy of Your mercy. Amen.

We continue tomorrow, on the Advent Journey. I look forward to being together to take the next steps.

Is all money, money?

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Several years ago (around the early 90’s) the infamous arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian was making headlines in the Armenian press by donating to Armenian organizations and churches.
He had appeared on CBS-60 Minutes at the time and was internationally known for his sale of arms and weapons to a variety of different clients.

When there was talk that Soghanalian might donate to the churches, one of our overly righteous, self-appointed defenders of the ethical virtues of the church (a priest, no less) cried foul. How dare we, the church, take “tainted” money from this man? Ill-gotten gains, he claimed.
On the surface, this reasoning sounded good. After all, the church is an agent of peace and there’s a definite incongruity in peace efforts being funded by money coming from the sale of weapons of war. But, what got me thinking deeper on the subject was that the priest who raised the issue was serving in California’s Central Valley. In other words, his congregation made its money by working the land. And so, you have to wonder, how much of the money that came into his church’s plate was from farmers and land-owners who had exploited migrant farm workers? (Yes. Coincidence that tomorrow is Caesar Chavez day?)

And so, we have a double standard here: somehow money from guns is dirtier than money produced at the expense of people who might not rate a spot on the 6 O’clock News? Mexicans risking their lives, crossing the border for a chance to make a few bucks. They live in sub-standard conditions, and because they will, they work for very little wages. And if someone exploits these people they are called shrewd and good businessmen – after all, they are turning over a buck for less than what it would ordinarily cost. How is this any less ill-gotten or tainted than the money from the arms dealer?

So my question – isn’t money, money? If you go far enough, isn’t there some factor that will always put the money in the tainted category?

I bring this up now because I’m concerned about the role of money in our efforts. I have always insisted that we have a product that is worth funding. (Check out the “Miller Interviews” on the In His Shoes area of YouTube.) In other words, we have to stand by our product and believe in it to the point that we can (and should) ask for money for the product. If we are engaged in a ministry, we should ask people for money for the ministry. If we are engaged in helping children of war, we should ask people for money to help children of war. And so on…

What would you think of a store which sold light bulbs, but every time you walked into that store they kept handing you oranges and insisted that those oranges were good oranges? Well, for a while you’d be confused and then you’d get use to it. You’d start coming to the light bulb store to do your shopping for oranges. And eventually, the employees themselves would be convinced that their job was to promote and sell oranges. But, the savvy shopper will figure out that there are better oranges at the produce store and since you’re unsure of your main product – light bulbs – then certainly the better light bulbs must be elsewhere as well.

This is what has happened in our church. We’re selling all the wrong things. We have a product called Armenian Orthodoxy, and instead we’re selling Debutante Balls, Fashion Shows, and basketball games. So what happens – people come to our church searching for the ancient truth that they can ONLY get from the Armenian Orthodox church. They walk in, like they do to the light bulb store, and we tell them, here, have a debutant ball: this is the mission of the church. Or our children come looking for identity and we say “Join our team! We belong to a great basketball league!” Well – what do you suppose will happen? At first, people will be confused but eventually we will have a steady clientele ready to consume the products we offer. Some people will come thinking this is the Debutante store. Others will come thinking it’s the basketball store. Many of the employees will forget what the product is. BUT the savvy shopper, will figure out there are better basketball courts at the YMCA and there is certainly better places to learn about faith than a place that doesn’t want to give it to you.

In your own experience – I know we can all relate to this – you tell non-Armenians that you belong to the Armenian Church and what do they tell you? “You have some great food.” “I love the bakalava… or is that the Greeks?” In fact, just in the Los Angeles area I can tell you if people want the best pilaf it’s at one of the churches, the other has the market on kufta, and still, the other is known for its topig!

Which are the successful ministries? The ones that offer a product they believe in. Does that mean they don’t sell anything else? Certainly not. We’re all realists and we know that money is the necessary tool to get work done. But there are certain ratios that need to be agreed upon from the beginning. Albeit, these ratios may be arbitrarily established, still they are there to guide us. For instance, I have set up an arbitrary ratio in my own ministry between outreach and time allocated to admin. The same can be put in place for funding. If we can raise 80% of our funds from donations directly to our ministry then we can justify 20% of the money coming from non-ministry functions. I think this is reasonable and we’re doing it in our small corner of the world.

In His Shoes and the St. Peter Youth Ministries has been funded primarily by people who believe in the mission we’re engaged in. Even the occasional dinner dance, or concert is supported primarily by people who are supporters of the ministry, so that the events don’t come off as fund-raisers, as much as opportunities for the community to get together and enjoy fellowship and each other’s company.

Now we are engaged in raising money for poverty. Our annual Famine, raised awareness and money for world hunger. Most of the money comes from direct donations – people giving to the cause, that is, to aid world hunger. A percentage of the money comes from indirect solicitations, for instance, the sale of lemonade on the street corner – with proceeds benefitting the Famine. We have to admit that the person buying a glass is more interested in quenching his own thirst than hydrating the dehydrated children of Africa, still, in a small way awareness for the big cause is heightened.
This balance between direct and indirect solicitation is important. It will be the difference between a sincere effort to do our mission and selling oranges, just because we don’t believe in our light bulbs.

A few months ago, we saw a raffle ticket that was being sold by an Armenian organization to bring aid to the Refugees of Iraq. This was a hard one for me – because behind each of those words is a mass suffering. It’s another one of those incongruent situations where people vying for a chance to go to vacation in Hawaii might also be saving a life in the war zone. As I read the raffle ticket I wondered if the Jewish Diaspora during World War II was selling raffle tickets to vacation in New York, with proceeds benefitting displaced persons in Europe? Or even worse, if we had a large enough Diaspora in 1915, would we have raffled off a Ford Model-T so that proceeds could be sent to aid Genocide victim families and survivors?

Obviously, there are many for whom these issues – poverty, ecology, torture, violence, environment, immigration – are not important. And there are many in these categories that have money. And I would even venture to say, once that money is not used to bring aid and comforted, it falls into the earlier tainted category. AND, so the challenge is on us – the Robin Hood challenge – to take from the rich and distribute to the poor. It’s a challenge. It’s also ethically challenging because we ourselves don’t want to be tainted in the process of doing this. So it’s important that we hold our mission always in front of us and not lose sight about what we’re doing and the reason why we’re doing it. And along the way, we need to police ourselves, in case it does get out of hand. I think this is an area that we need to develop as we grow and as we expand. Certainly, if nothing else, I think the addition of these blogs and the dialogue that follows either on line or in our Questions in Faith discussion, is a step in this direction. We don’t want to be like the light-bulb store employees, who have gotten so use to the idea of selling oranges that we’ve forgotten that we have a product that is worth pushing, promoting and selling.