I’ve been thinking a lot about money lately.
Katie and I began working with a financial advisor for the first time a few months ago. It was a more emotional experience than I anticipated.
In the past, I’d managed our retirement savings myself. I figured, how hard can it be? But as the complexity of our finances multiplied, we felt that the attention of a professional could be worth the management fees.
Once we started sharing the details of our financial lives, though, it came home to me how vulnerable the process was. Details that only Katie and I (and perhaps some obscure servers at the Internal Revenue Service) had known before were now under the proverbial magnifying glass.
One moment in particular made me feel exposed. While Katie was finishing grad school, we had been selling off some previous investments to hold us over until she was gainfully employed as a Nurse Practitioner: pulling money out rather than putting money in. Even though I felt it was a responsible choice at the time, when our advisor (kindly and professionally) asked us about it, I felt like I had answered a question wrong on a test. “I know you’re supposed to leave the money alone!” I wanted to say. “I’m not an idiot! This was a short-term thing.”
My inner defensiveness in that moment is a reminder of just how tangled our money and our sense of identity can be, even as followers of Jesus. Our self-estimation often turns on how much money we make, how we spend and save and give it away (or don’t), and what the consequences are for us and for our loved ones.
Is there some way to disentangle that knotted mess of money, ego, fear, and ambition? What would genuine spiritual freedom look like when it comes to our belongings?
Answering that question is a lifelong process for each of us. But the Benedictines, with their unusual take on monastic “poverty,” can help us along the way. Even if we don’t take vows like theirs, we see in them a model of freedom from possessiveness that we can imitate.
[Thanks for reading. This post continues our series Monastic Wisdom for the Marketplace. Check out our other posts on faith and work and spiritual growth for more resources on living an integrated Christian life. Subscribe to get the next post in the series in your inbox.]
Voluntary “Poverty”
The Benedictine tradition is unusual among monastic orders, in that it does not require monks and nuns to take the common vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Instead, as Abbot Dan Nobles explained in an earlier post, the Benedictine vows are of obedience, stability, and conversion of life.
However, it is generally understood that poverty and chastity are implied in the vow of conversion of life. This “poverty” is not, as we often use the term, a life of hardship imposed by insufficient resources. Rather, it is giving up one’s own say over resources. Once he enters the life of the community, the monk embraces an arrangement where everything is held in common, and the Abbot has authority to distribute resources according to community and individual needs. This kind of poverty, like the whole of monastic life, is voluntary.
Freedom from Possessions
That doesn’t mean it’s easy. In his Rule, St. Benedict forbids keeping personal possessions in terms that make it clear monks sometimes tried to circumvent their vows:
The beds, moreover, are to be examined frequently by the Abbot, to see if any private property be found in them. If anyone should be found to have something that he did not receive from the Abbot, let him undergo the most severe discipline.
And in order that this vice of private ownership may be cut out by the roots, the Abbot should provide all the necessary articles: cowl, tunic, stockings, shoes, girdle, knife, pen, needle, handkerchief, tablets; that all pretext of need may be taken away.
A quotation like this one confronts us with the gap between our standard cultural assumptions and that of many of our Christian forebearers. When was the last time you heard someone refer to the “vice” of private ownership?
Lest we be distracted by macroeconomic arguments about communism and capitalism (necessary though these are in other contexts), an economic theory for all of society is not what’s at issue here. In this context, the reason that private ownership is “vicious” is that it contradicts the vow that the monk has taken.
At the same time, when a monk takes his vows and renounces personal possessions, he is not committing to austerity for austerity’s sake. Monastic “poverty” is not, as we might be tempted to imagine, a necessary evil the monk must endure. St. Benedict presents it as a positive good. The monk is better off because he does not have personal possessions. He is unencumbered with the distractions and responsibilities of personal wealth. He is free to pursue his work and prayer with complete abandon.
Voluntary poverty is a form of freedom: freedom from possessions and all the ways they entangle the human soul.
Freedom from Possessiveness
But how can this model of voluntary poverty help us? In our jobs, with our paychecks and our mortgages, and the clutter of possessions that populates our homes?
For most of us, our circumstances and responsibilities prevent us from taking a literal vow of poverty. (Although the radical self-restriction of Christians like Rich Mullins prove that it may not be out of reach even for those whose vocation carries them outside a monastic community.) But consider the essence of this vow for a Benedictine: The monk voluntarily gives up his say over resources, and in doing so enjoys a spiritual freedom from possessions. We may not literally give up private ownership, but we can voluntarily surrender much of our say over our resources, and in doing so enjoy a spiritual freedom from possessiveness.
This approach to wealth means holding it loosely rather than tightly. It consists in being willing to share decisions and cede control. It heeds Jesus’ warning, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15 ESV).
How to Let It Go: Giving With No Strings Attached
In practical terms, how can we surrender control of our resources, without giving up the responsibility to oversee their use for God’s purposes?
One eminently practical way to get free from possessiveness is to surrender some of our possessions: to give away belongings and money with no strings attached. Proverbs warns us that “the borrower is the slave of the lender” (22:7 ESV). Unfortunately, many people think of philanthropic or charitable giving more as a loan than a gift, with the donor commanding the subservient beneficiary. It’s easy to fall into this way of thinking even as disciples of Jesus: We wonder, “How did that church / organization / person use my money?”
But we find a different attitude entirely among the earliest Christians: “as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:34-35 ESV). When you lay something at someone’s feet, you are surrendering control. You are ceding authority. It’s not your money anymore; it belongs to the community to be distributed by the appointed stewards. It is a gift, not a loan. No strings attached.
This is not to say we should eschew accountability for such stewards or transparency about how they are using funds. Far from it. Only that each of us in our hearts must question if we’re pushing for appropriate accountability and transparency, or for the kind of personal control God is inviting us to let go of. It is to our benefit to let go of money and simply be done with it, to give something away and not seek to influence its use any further.
Even if we don’t renounce all private ownership, we are all invited to renounce our possessiveness every time we give something away.
How to Let It Go: Sharing Decisions
Another practical way to get free from possessiveness is to share decisions about resources. Just as the apostles commissioned trusted leaders to distribute food and Benedictine Abbots delegate inventory and budgeting to a Cellarer, we may also have occasion to share authority over how some of “our” resources are used.
Consider the story of the Barnhart family of Barnhart Crane and Rigging in Memphis. Rather than maximizing their private profits, early on in leading the company, they set a limit on their personal income. They also made a commitment to divide profits in half each year: Half would go back into the company for growth, and half would be given away to charities designated by a committee that included employees from throughout the enterprise.
Millions of dollars have gone to serve thousands of people around the globe because of this decision. But not only that: Many Barnhart employees have been empowered and ennobled in sharing the responsibility to determine how the fruits of their labors can be most generously used. Like many other business leaders, the Barnharts could have taken a bigger cut for themselves and then made personal gifts out of their wealth. By choosing to instead share resource decisions with a broader group of people, they made it clear there were greater purposes for that wealth than their own personal aggrandizement.
The Barnhart family’s decision to hold company wealth lightly demonstrates a beautiful freedom from personal possessiveness even in the context of private enterprise; no monastery required.
Voluntary Freedom
We may not embrace a life of literal voluntary poverty like the monastics. But, like them, we have an opportunity to volunteer, to choose one way over another. We can embrace a life of possessiveness, where we hold onto what’s ours tightly and try to control all outcomes even of our “generosity.” Or, we can learn to let go even of what’s ours, giving it away with no strings attached and sharing decisions about how to best use it for kingdom purposes with trusted co-stewards.
When we choose to let it go, we’re choosing spiritual freedom. We are better off without possessiveness. We are less encumbered with the distractions and responsibilities of personal wealth. We are free to pursue our work and prayer with abandon.
Reflect and Practice
Take a moment to consider your own mind and heart.
What do you own? How tightly do you hold onto it?
Do you agree that the monks who take a vow of poverty can be truly better off because of it?
Jesus said, “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15 ESV). How would you put this teaching in your own words?
Are there new ways you could give away belongings or money “with no strings attached”?
What would it look like for you to share decisions about resources with others, at work or in your personal life?
What is God inviting you into in regards to your money and possessions?
Series photo by Bs0u10e01 on Wikimedia Commons, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Post photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
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