"Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” (Deuteronomy 8:11-17)
Self-made. In our culture, self-made is a thing to admire and emulate. And even if we're not self-made, if we are lucky enough to reach a certain rung on the economic ladder we may begin to think of ourselves as self-made. And even if we remember that we did not get where we are by ourselves, we may begin to think that it is up to us to maintain that level of wealth, even to increase it, so that our children and our children's children can be better off than we were.
Moses tells the Israelites never to forget that whatever level of economic comfort or excess they achieve, it is not by their own power that they got there. "If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish."
Other gods - wealth, in particular - are shiny. They give us a sense of security and self-sufficiency. We build bigger homes in safer neighborhoods.
Christians have been building bigger and better churches for centuries. We have created endowments to make sure that they last after we are gone. But do we put the same effort into building our communities? What would the world look like if we did?
No one is self-made. We all live in relationship to the world around us. Do we exploit other people and resources to "make it?" Or do we recognize that we are part of something bigger, and strive to work together for the benefit of all?
(Cathedral St. Pierre, Montpellier, France)