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SERMONWhat Would Jesus Say When the Dow Drops 700 Points?In the midst of any kind of crisis, do not be anxious; nothing of ultimate importance has changed.Mike Woodruff
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Text: Matthew 6:19–24; 2 Corinthians 4:16–18; Philippians 4:4–7; 1 Timothy 6:3–10
Topic: How to live Christ-like lives in the midst of a financial crisis
From the editor
What would Jesus have us do in the midst of economic crisis? Mike Woodruff offers answers to that question that push us to gain new perspectives on the issues involved. Along with the sermon manuscript, Mike offers a helpful preface, explaining the background to the message. If you would like to listen to the sermon as you read along, click here.
Introductory Comments from Mike Woodruff
As I was preparing my message for Sunday, October 5, 2008, I realized I would be looking into the eyes of some folks who were quite scared about the economy. Some had recently lost their job. Others were working in the financial markets and dealing with clients who were starting to panic. The 700-point drop in the Dow clearly had peoples' attention. Though I had planned to preach on another topic, I changed my plans on Wednesday morning and decided to try to answer a critical question in a different sermon: "What would Jesus say to those who are worried about our economy?"
I wrote the message on Wednesday afternoon, and I immediately sent that draft to three folks who work in the financial sector and a couple of the other pastors on our staff. Their feedback was helpful and led to a few modifications. The most prevailing thought was that I was not being as merciful as Jesus would be. I thought that was ironic—especially since my initial motivation for preaching on this topic was to offer hope. I did a bit of restructuring. If CD sales are any indication of when a message connects with people, this one did a better job than most I preach!
Introduction
Over the course of the last few weeks, many who watch our financial markets have gotten motion sickness from the sharp ups and downs—mostly downs. Insurance companies have teetered. Investment banks have folded. Stock prices have plummeted. This has led to a lot of sleepless nights. It has led to some gallows humor about corporate executives taking second jobs flipping burgers. Retirees are cashing out their 401K plans in order to fill their car with gas. The financial crisis has also led to some anger. People are mad at the system, mad at the banks, mad at those who defaulted, mad at the business leaders who didn't see it coming, and mad at Congress for their lack of regulations, wrong regulations, or too many regulations. Many of us have experienced some sleepless nights due to fear and anxiety. I'd like to weigh in on the matter. I realize that you've heard a lot about all of this already, and that you might not want to hear anymore, but I'd like to share what I think Jesus would say at a time like this.
I'm not going to cover what Jesus might say about our economic system per se. I'm a bit conflicted about capitalism. It is clearly the best economic system; it has generated wealth that has helped many people; it has created disposable income, much of which is directed to the poor. There are clear upsides to the system. But as Adam Smith points out in Wealth of Nations, it is largely based on self-interest. Those who understand capitalism know that it can fuel greed, and when left unchecked by Christian conviction, it can get even uglier.
Though there are things that might be said about the declining sense of personal responsibility we now face, I am not here to examine what Jesus would say about that issue. Societies such as ours are built on trust. At the end of the day, we rely on each other to act with a sense of honor and responsibility. When people or institutions take on more debt than they can possibly manage—just because someone has made it easy for them to do so—there is a certain belief that they will honor their commitments. I am not an economist, but I get very nervous when we rely more and more on individuals or the government to make things right.
All the questions we have about these issues are important, but I want to talk about what Jesus would say specifically to you. In particular, what would he say to those of you who have had a very anxious week? I want to spend our time together reminding you that God is sovereign—he is in control and loving. You are not to be anxious for anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, you are to make your requests known to him. And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind. With that in mind, I have four things I think Christ would point out in the midst of our economic situation.
Jesus wants the downturn in our market to remind us that this world is not our home.
First of all, I suspect Christ might point out that the downturn in our market has not really changed anything important. The simple-but-frequently-forgotten truth is this: the world is broken and our systems are fragile because the world is populated by fragile and broken people. Many people try to do the right thing, while others do not. All struggle with their own selfishness and greed and limits. There are periods of time when we forget that our world is broken, and we start to believe that we are going to work everything out—that the wonderful advances in science are going to keep us going, that hard work and goodwill can promote peace, that the market will only go up, that stocks will only grow in value. But terrorists and cancer and 700-point drops in the market have a way of reminding us that this is a broken world. They remind us that things are not as they were before sin entered the scene—and things are not what they will be when Christ returns!
It's not an all-together bad thing to be reminded that we are not home yet. In his famous sermon "Learning in War-Time," delivered at Oxford in October of 1939, C. S. Lewis wrote about how little war changes things—how it forces us to face certain realities that we try to avoid. In commenting on the fear war often generates, Lewis said:
No man—and specially no Christian who remembers Gethsemane—need to attain a stoic indifference about these things. But we can guard against the illusions of the imagination. We think of the streets of Warsaw and contrast the deaths there suffered with an abstraction called Life. But there is no question of death or life for any of us; only a question of this death or of that—of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later. What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent. One hundred percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased. It puts several deaths earlier, but I hardly suppose that that is what we fear. Certainly when the moment comes, it will make little difference how many years we have behind us. Does it increase our chance of a painful death? I doubt it. As far as I can find out, what we call natural death is usually preceded by suffering, and a battlefield is one of the very few places where one has a reasonable prospect of dying with no pain at all. Does it decrease our chances of dying at peace with God? I cannot believe it. If active service does not persuade a man to prepare for death, what conceivable set of circumstance would? Yet war does do something to death. It forces us to remember it. The only reason why cancer at 60 or paralysis at 75 do not bother us is that we forget them. War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past.
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