Imagine if your wallet was unlimited and you never had to worry about having enough money. Would your relationship with money change? What would you spend your money on? Would you buy a bunch of stuff, or build a lavish lifestyle? Would your friends change? Would you bestow gifts on others, or just the people who give you something back or who you believe were worth of it? Would it change how you think about being generous? Would you give more, care more about the challenges of the world? I think that knowing your wallet was unlimited wouldn’t change your relationship with money at all. Would you care how others used your generosity, or even care? Would you worry that perhaps someday that unlimited wallet would change so you’d need to stockpile? Or if everyone had enough, how would it change your status in the world? If every hierarchy that existed based on the level of income you had was obliterated, would you feel any different? If it controls your happiness now, even in your lack of it, wouldn’t it still control you in its abundance? Just google the effect of money for people who suddenly became wealthy to start…not a pretty picture. There are plenty of people who have more money than they could spend in a lifetime, hell several lifetimes…and sit on it, and build power structures that help them continue to sit on it. Or they use it to wield power and not love.

Now image if your heart was as limitless as your wallet. Would you change how you wield love in the world? Would you love in spite of getting little or nothing in return? Would you love only those who show you love, or whom you deem worthy? Would it be conditional? Would you dole it out carefully as if it were in short supply? Would you wield it only according to certain prescriptions and rules that dictate how to get it and who deserves it? Would you participate in a hierarchy who put you above others in the world in terms of eternal life? That is the trouble with conditions and love they don’t go together at all. Placing limitations on love turn it into something else, something that may be called love, but in name only…because love does not exist in limitation…

So, if you believe in a limitless God, one that brought a savior to our world to give our hearts an unlimited source of that love, without condition…then you have to wield it as as you would if you had an unlimited wallet. No excuses…Not receiving love is not a reason to stop wielding it. Here’s the funny thing about money and love…even with an unlimited supply, would it change how you use it in the world? Again, I don’t think so. Our understanding of love is intimately related to our understanding of money. I guess that’s why Jesus intimated that they couldn’t exist in the same plane. If you’re generous with one, you have to be generous with the other. I’m sure the reverse is true as well. Anyway there are plenty of parables in the Gospels that warn us of our attachment to money and its affect on our ability to love.

So why did I title this post love and quid pro quo? I did so because quid pro quo means “something for something”. While it may seem obvious in relation to money, that we pay out and get something in return, but the value of it? We spend money on trivial things like we have an unlimited wallet, and are often miserly when it comes to extending it in generosity. Civilized society depends on a rhythm, a flow of investing, sharing and giving without a clear personal return. Too often it is also how we measure out how much love to give, but that’s not how it should work. The exact opposite is true, love should be given without regard of return, because we have an unlimited supply. It may look different in how it is applied uniquely to every individual, (remember it is patient, kind, etc.) but the expectation  is to wield it according to its nature which is free, abundant, and without expectation of payment or return. Every single lesson in scripture lays that idea out for us. You never earn God’s love, its yours for free. And the thing I learned from this unbelievably challenging year? How I spend money and wield love in this world has nothing to do with never having enough…because somehow in the moment I always do. That is what faith is supposed to look like…walking your path and working on building faith that you have enough, you are enough and to face challenges that arise in your life with the belief that God will never abandon you, that God will never give you a stone when you ask for bread, that God can be seen clearly in every gesture of love, and never, ever in any other action.

This was my most difficult post to write, not only because I am talking to myself as much as I am talking to you, but because I have been challenged this year to dissect my relationship to both love and money, and while grateful for the lessons learned I am also full of sadness at the deep anger and hateful divides in this world. It is direct opposition of all that I have learned, believe and hold dear…not just in our country, but in those institutions that are supposed to represent and be the fountain of God’s unlimited supply of love to this world. They are being corrupted, and we must join together as warriors of love to turn things around. You may not agree with my method, but you have to agree that something must be done….because love dissolves corruption, it shines a light on lies and manipulation, it bears all things and never fails…