Why I didn't thank God for all my things last Thanksgiving

Dave Schrock-Schenk

When I was a child, my family always attended Thanksgiving worship services in a Mennonite church. We listened to sermons, prayed and sang hymns. We thanked God for everything we enjoyed--our religious freedom, healthy bodies, close families and all our things. "Thank you, God, for the material blessings You have given us," we would pray. "Help us use our material abundance to bless others."

Those prayers seemed right. We had worked hard and lived frugally. God had created the earth that many of us farmed. And didn't Jesus tell His disciples that God would supply all their needs if they sought God's Kingdom? So wasn't God responsible for our material goods?

Sometimes I wish I could recapture the certainty of those childhood prayers. But on Thanksgiving Sunday today, even though I'm quite wealthy, I do not thank God for all my things.

There's blood in our sugar

Experiences in the Philippines began to erode my belief that people have material abundance because of God's blessing. During our term of service there, my wife Carolyn and I often visited the province of Negros, where hundreds of thousands of people worked on sugarcane plantations.

Once, we met a young woman who stopped to buy supper for herself and her three children at a small grocery store--a small tin of sardines and a half-pound of rice with the 25 cents she had earned for hoeing sugarcane for 12 hours in the tropical sun. Standard economic theory calls this a fair price, since it was "what the market would bear". But this woman, with little education and no other job skills, was "willing" to work all day for 25 cents only because if she did not, her children would starve.

Although God created the earth this woman was tending, God was not responsible for the starvation wages she received. Nor was God responsible for the handsome profit the plantation owner received from selling the sugarcane she and others had grown. There was sin in the economic relationship that determined her wages and his profit.

The plunder of the poor

My experiences since returning to North America have further eroded my belief in the material-goods-are-a-blessing-from-God equation.

Carolyn, our son Caleb and I live in a beautiful row house in Lancaster City, Pennsylvania. Our house allows us to offer hospitality to our family and friends. It feels like the fulfillment of God's promise in Isaiah 65:21-22 that God's children will "build houses and live in them".

Yet most of the families on our block do not own the houses they live in, even though many are also Christian. And many of the houses are shoddy--with peeling paint, leaking roofs and windows that do not keep out winter winds. Every month, they pay exorbitant rents to their landlords, most of whom live in Lancaster's suburbs. Many of these landlords are Christians. Some are Mennonites.

Last year, while Carolyn and I were renovating our house, we bought a microwave oven at a yard sale and talked with the woman selling it. Upon discovering we were both Christians, she shared an experience she said was an answer to prayer: "When my husband lost his job, we worried about how we would survive. But we used his pension money to buy properties in Lancaster City. Now we have a good income. God always provides for His children."

I continue to ponder her words. Is her husband a responsible landlord? Or does he own some of the run-down houses on my block? Is this family's income an answer to prayer, or is it the plunder of the poor? (Isaiah 3:14)

The questions come home

The questions are not just for "wealthy people out there" because I, too, am a landlord. When Carolyn and I adopted Caleb, we moved out of the house we owned to a house down the block with a backyard. Carolyn wanted to sell the house we had lived in, but I insisted we keep it--even though being a landlord complicates my too-busy life, sets me apart from my neighbours and causes discord in my family. I tell myself I want to "keep that corner of the block clean", to have money for Caleb's college and to have financial security when we get old. Those are legitimate impulses. But I must acknowledge I keep that house largely because of my desire to become richer than I am.

The problem runs deeper than my overt desire to get rich. My place in the global economic system enriches me at the expense of others, even when I'm only trying to get life's necessities.

Our family enjoys pineapple, bananas and dried mango chips. These foods are cheap and abundant, even though they come from thousands of miles away. Actually, they are cheap <I>because they come from thousands of miles away. The sugar I used to can peaches last year may have been grown by the woman I met in the Philippines. I thank God Caleb will have food this winter. But are my cheap peaches a "blessing from God" when the woman who raised the sugar I used to preserve them doesn't earn enough to buy decent suppers for her children?

Last year, our family paid a bit more than 5% of our income for food. Because our food was so cheap, we had more money to go on vacation and to add to our savings account. We also had more money to give to our church. But did God take food out of Filipino children's mouths so we would have more money for church? I don't think so.

The main reason I am wealthy is not that God has blessed me, but that I live and work in a wealthy country. The wages Carolyn and I receive place our family in the global upper class. Our wages are high largely because wealth has flowed into North America from around the world for centuries. Goods we buy are cheap, in great part because the people who make them receive less than an adequate wage, and the processes used to make them degrade God's earth, not being subject to pollution controls.

I did not create the global economic system that sets the price of sugar and determines the wage I receive. So I will not feel guilty about that system.

But it is sinful that the people who grow the food I eat do not earn enough to feed their own family. God does not will that these people go hungry. So I will not thank God for the money in my bank account that results from an unjust and sinful economic system.

I do not know how to best respond to the fact that I live in a wealthy society. I do have some sense of the direction I want to head.

I will try to live with my fair share of the earth's resources. Jesus did promise that God will supply our material needs. I will thank God for the clothes I wear, the food I eat and the house in which I live. I believe God is pleased to take responsibility for supplying my material needs. But after I have enough, I will not say God is responsible for my abundance which impoverishes others.

Living with my fair share means Carolyn and I could give much more than a 10% tithe to the church. I will ask God to remove the anxiety and greed that makes me hesitant to give away money I do not need, money that would not be in my pocket in a world that was more just.

I will ask God for the strength to work for a just world. Making changes in the global economic system seems an impossible task. But I can read about how global debt affects Christians in Third World countries. I can write letters to my legislators about legislation that affects poor people in my country. I can buy coffee from an organization that ensures the people who grow it receive a fair wage, and vegetables from organic farmers that preserve God's earth.

Being content to live with enough in a society designed to provide me with too much is not easy. We need the help of family and friends, and the counsel and wisdom of the wider church. May the God who wants all people to live an abundant life give us grace to move thankfully to that good place of enough.

Dave Schrock-Shenk works as a global educator for Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, Pa. Trek, a resource that explores the issues discussed in this article, is available from MCC.

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