A young man I know is completing his Master's degree as a fisheries biologist. This past summer he spent several weeks with one of his professors on the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon studying an endangered fish called the Humpback Chub. This species of fish has a very localized natural habitat, the swift flowing waters of the Colorado River and its tributaries. But because of the number of dams that have been built on the river and the dumping of mining and other waste into the river, the flow and temperature of the Colorado River has been dramatically changed. 
With its habitat so altered, the Humpback Chub is now an endangered species. The fish that was designed for swift currents and white water, is not adapting to the slower moving, warmer, polluted water. To thrive the humpback chub needs pure swiftly flowing water.
Hearing about the plight of the humpback chub and its need for pure swiftly flowing water made me wonder about us as Christians. A fish swimming in water is not aware of the fact that it is in water, but when the water is unhealthy it certainly feels the effects of it. What is the environment that we need in order to really flourish as Christians? And what are some of the challenges, the unhealthy pollutants and stagnant water that endanger our ability to live as disciples of Jesus?
I think one of the biggest challenges to our health as Christians is the materialistic me-centered culture that completely surrounds us. It is just about impossible to live here in the Boston area and not be immersed in materialistic culture that says this world is all there is and I have to get all I want out of it while I’m here. It really is like the water we swim in because it is so much the fabric of our lives that we are barely aware of it. Now I know that we may work very hard at not living a materialistic life and struggling against the flow of the culture around us, and that is very important. But even if we are able to do that, there are still hidden ways that we are may be caught in the materialist trap and don’t realize it. I’ll just give a couple of examples.
First, something we likely do is to measure our value according to material things. Now I know we may not consciously do that but how often have you walked into another person’s house and compared it to your own—Oh, mine is nicer than this—I feel good about myself. Or mine is not nearly as nice as this—I feel bad about myself, I feel inadequate. Do you ever do that? Maybe you like to have people over partly because your house gets admired and that makes you feel good. Or maybe you don’t ever have people over because you feel your house isn’t good enough for company.
Or perhaps you are more prone to do that with cars, checking out what the other guy is driving. We can be this way with just about anything—clothes, physical beauty, how tall you are, your weight or fitness, level of education, employment. What are some things in your life?
But we Christians are also good at doing the reverse. When we see someone who has finer things than we do, we judge them as more worldly than we are and then we feel righteous and good about ourselves that we haven’t succumbed to those worldly temptations. Speaking for myself, when I do that it’s usually more of a sour grapes kind of thing, where I’m fooling myself into thinking I don’t want what the other person has when really I do want it. I’m envying them! When we compare ourselves to others and evaluate ourselves according to these external material things, we are immersed in the materialistic worldview. We are evaluating ourselves and others according to material wealth. We are caught in the materialist trap.
Another way that we might be caught in that trap is that we are addicted to things, or at least we are acquisitive and possessive. There are so many different kinds of addictions these days, and you probably know what your weaknesses are—what the things are that you don’t need, but you've got to have them and you can’t say no to them. These are usually material things or sensory things, that we use to distract us from our fears and anxieties rather than addressing them inside of ourselves. Our American culture creates and exploits our addictions in order to make money from them. The advertising world operates on the assumption that it can convince us that we absolutely must have something that in fact we don’t need and probably isn’t even good for us. Our economy runs on selling us stuff we don’t need. It’s practically un-American to think of not buying all that stuff that we don’t need. So we are caught in the materialist trap.
Although as Christians we may imagine that we are in some way removed or outside of the cultural norms and not caught up in it, the reality is that we are swimming in it just by virtue of living where we live here in America rather than on a desert island somewhere. But the water of materialistic culture is like a polluted scummy stagnant pond for our poor little fish. We swim around in it breathing it in with our gills without realizing that it is actually toxic to us. It is deadly. Like the poor humpback chub, we need to find our way to swiftly flowing pure water.
The verses from James 4-5 certainly seem to describe the worst of the greedy materialistic culture that we live in. Surely the revelations that have come into the open over the past year have left us stunned, as we see the tremendous greed, corruption, and selfishness that has been the driving force behind so much of our economic boom years. James says, “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.”
The passage is really a prophecy of judgment upon those who have made money and wealth their god and have forgotten and even abused the poor and the laborers. I can’t help but hear those words in judgment of our own country that by its greed-based economy and hyper-inflated markets has brought so much suffering not only in our own country but around the world. And of course those who feel the pain of the current economic crisis the most are not the wealthy, but the poor.
We ourselves may not have been directly involved in the worst of the corruption and greed of our economy, but I cannot help but ask myself how I too have participated in it simply by agreeing to it, by literally buying into it. It was Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement in the 1930’s, who said, “If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.” She was just saying what we are taught in the gospels. That is what Jesus taught, isn’t it? And what if we have 3 or 4 coats? We must ask ourselves, “In what ways has my own self-centered life and life-style caused suffering to others, deprived others?” It’s one of those very tough questions that I personally will do a lot to avoid. Nevertheless, God challenges us through the words of James, to ask ourselves that question. “How have I failed in being a godly steward of what God has given me? How have I sold out to materialistic culture? And then what can I do to change?”
It would be so easy to let ourselves off the hook. Here we are swimming in our cultural stagnant pond, and it is very difficult to see what one little fish, little ole me, can do about anything so big. Surely Jesus understands my situation. It’s just not practical to think of making any serious changes in the way I live or in my relationship to money and things. There are many ways that we can try to justify ourselves so we don’t have to change. But that is not what God is asking us to do. God is asking us to surrender our lives to Christ, including our relationship to money and things, and to trust him. As we deepen in our surrender to Christ, it is as if our little fish is guided towards the narrow outlet in the pond that leads into the pure clean free-flowing and healing stream of the Holy Spirit. As we live more and more in the water of the Holy Spirit our vision, our understanding, and our desires become clean and pure and whole.
What are some of the ways that we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit as he leads us out of the toxic pond and into pure water?
First, pray—talk to God about money, about how you feel about it, how it makes you feel to have it or not have it. Where do you feel controlled by money and material things? Where do you need to be liberated from your attachment to them? Ask God to help you find true freedom in your relationship to material things, so you can be like Paul who was able to say in Philippians 4, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:11-13). In other words, Paul’s happiness and contentment had nothing to do with how much he had, or his situation, but had everything to do with his reliance on Christ.
So the first thing to do is to pray about your relationship to money and your desire to be a godly steward of what you have. But I know that most of us need encouragement from others in order to be able to grow and change in our Christian walk.
Secondly, be part of a fellowship or prayer group, or Bible study where you can strengthen, encourage, challenge one another, and hold one another accountable. One little fish in a great big scummy pond may not have the courage to look for the way out to the clean water. But a bunch of little fishes, a school of fish, can learn together and can help each other follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Thirdly, you can step out in faith. Is God putting an action on your heart that you need to take concerning your relationship to your money or material things? Is there someone in financial trouble whom you can help? Do you need to reorder your spending priorities so that they are truly God-centered rather than self-centered? Are there ministries that need your support? Is God calling you to more godly stewardship? Maybe you simply have a second coat that you can give to someone who has none. Don’t minimize that voice or brush it aside. Listen to God’s voice speaking to you and act on it. Step out in faith, and God will greatly bless you, and others through you.
In case you have been worrying about the humpback chub, the good news is that the conservation efforts in the Grand Canyon and along the Colorado River have been quite successful and the chub is making a comeback. Its prospects are greatly improving.
The Holy Spirit is our Conservationist. He is working hard to bring us to the pure, free-flowing waters that will heal us and free us to live fully in the joy and happiness of God’s love for us. May we seek to follow him as he guides us to that freedom and joy.