By Phyllis Strupp
Some time ago, a wealthy businessman made one of his rare appearances at church on a November Sunday and was treated to an especially heavy-handed stewardship sermon. It sounded something like this: You need to have LESS MONEY so we can have MORE MONEY. The negative energy rising up from the pews was palpable.
At coffee hour, he made a beeline for me. “Phyllis, I want to ask you something. Over the years I have heard repeatedly at church how bad money is. If money is so bad, why is it that every time I come to church they are trying to get some of mine?”
Well, the businessman asks a good question that many church leaders have not answered with clarity if at all.
The current global economic crisis offers a rich opportunity for clergy and lay leaders to offer up some inspired money talk in the church. Too often, Jesus’ teachings on wealth are ignored and it’s easy to see why. They are contrary to human nature.
When it comes to money, evolution has produced in our species a very strong gas pedal called “emotions” and a very weak brake pedal called “rationality.” Scientific findings indicate that the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain, has been evolving in mammals for 225 million years.
Through the ebbs and flows of the neurotransmitter dopamine, our emotions motivate us to seek tangible rewards for ourselves and our families. Dopamine should guide us, but it often ends up controlling us. Logic and rationality hardly stand a chance in overcoming emotionally driven money habits mediated by dopamine.
Besides, the gospel according to dopamine’s teachings are so much easier to understand and live by than Jesus’ teachings.
For example, the golden rule of the dopamine gospel is “He who has the gold makes the rules,” whereas the golden rule according to Jesus is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
You see what I mean, right? Speaking of right, dopamine says “Might makes right” and Jesus says “The truth shall set you free.”
The gospel according to dopamine encourages us to use money to enhance our status and control over people and decisions. That’s the allure of wealth: power. Any chimpanzee in the jungle could teach you that.
When we live by dopamine’s teachings, the richest people call the shots. Profits receive more attention than prophets. Sunday bible readings about the hazards of wealth are quietly ignored in practice, especially by the clergy. Stewardship season is a nagging, whining ritual, awkward and uncomfortable. Tithing is pitched as a solemn duty to God to wrench the cash out of tightly clasped hands.
Today, people are looking for a new set of values around money. The gospel of dopamine has led them astray to disappointment and despair. The time has come to take another look at the Gospel and find a way to make Jesus’ teachings manifest in us.
First, for those who are hoping to have both spiritual wealth and a large net worth, this is the most important line in the Gospel:
“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
—Luke 12:21
In this passage, Jesus points out that it’s OK to have money—if it helps you grow rich toward God.
So how do you grow rich toward God?
It’s easy—just remember the color green.
Green is the color of money and the color of life. God is the author of life. Money isn’t for picking fights and wielding power over others—money is for affirming the life that God has created in you, other people and all the living species that share the Earth.
Secondly, the gospel of dopamine says you can’t take wealth with you. However, Jesus teaches us that there is such a thing as permanent wealth:
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself, so when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”
—Luke 16:9
You have the power to help or harm people through your use of money. Turn worldly wealth into the permanent wealth of kindness and friendship—and then you can take it with you!
So next time I see the wealthy businessman, I’ll tell him that money isn’t bad when it is used to affirm life, show kindness, and make friends.
Kindness is associated with a different neurotransmitter called serotonin. If serotonin outweighed dopamine in parish life, maybe our spiritually hungry friends and neighbors would be more interested in worshipping with us.
Why spend your money on what is not bread,
And your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
And your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
—Isaiah 55:2
Phyllis Strupp is a brain fitness coach, author, recovering MBA, and Chair of the Nature and Spirituality Program for the Diocese of Arizona.