Posted by Jay Dampier | Posted in Environment | Posted on 05-03-2009
Tags: Exodus, fish, Israel, Luke
Source: flickr.com, Michael Holden
God communicates an important principle to the nation of Israel. While the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God miraculously provides provisions for them. As God provides, he places an important limitation. The Israelites must not take more than they need for that day. It’s like God is saying, “You need to rely on me. You mustn’t forget who is providing for you.” The Israelites follow their emerging pattern of disobedience found throughout the Torah. They disobey God’s edict not to be pack-rats and find out the hard way the results of their disobedience.
I think this principle – taking only what you need, taking only what God permits – is a good principle. From this story, I get the sense that God doesn’t want people to be greedy. A principle that naturally can lead to more sustainable consumption; taking only what we need.
Jesus’ teachings echo this principle as well. Jesus tells the story of a rich man who was enamored with collecting more and more stuff. Little does the rich man know that his accumulations are in vane, as his life will be taken from him.
In financial terms, capital can be described as any source of profit while interest can be described as a sum paid or charged for the use or borrowing of money (or perhaps capital – I know I am stretching this a bit).
Why is it so hard for us to not live only on the interest of nature’s bounty. In the 1990s we saw Canadian Atlantic fish stocks crash. We were dipping into nature’s capital, not nature’s interest. As we gobbled up the capital of the cod fish stocks, our actions caused what some call a negative a cascading effect.
It’s hard to tell someone, who believed all their life, that money or material goods are not important as living happily when so much of life requires these things to live (say pay your rent, buy food, pay your utility bills, buy clothes, etc). Too much greed will definitely always cause anyone ruin. Look at today’s financial crisis, so many rich and “powerful” got too greedy and we all paid the price for their lack of self control over money and anything material.