Spending or investing?

In common use, English speakers often say that they spend time. "I spent the past week with my in-laws." It is indeed monetary language, which acknowledges that time is precious. To use time is to spend it. And how we use our time is eminently important, because no person has more time than any other. To each person is allotted the same 24 hours in each day.

Not long ago, I was describing to a friend my time at home with my daughter during my wife's pediatric residency. It occurred to me that it was much more true to say that I had invested three years in nurturing and raising my daughter, than to say I had spent that time.

That realization caused me to ponder: how do we invest our time? Where are we looking for interest and dividends? A great many people invest an inordinate amount of time in work. So it is fair to ask them: Do you expect to still be part this company or organization in 20 years? Compare that to your relationships. Are you married? Do you expect to be married in 20 years? Do you have children? Do you expect to still be in relationship with them in 20 years?

Where are you investing your time?

Investing time

It is often said that the one thing of which everyone has an equal amount is time. The rich have no more than the poor in a day. On this footing, at least, we are equal.

Jesus often told stories that emphasized our role as stewards, those who care for something that belongs to one greater than us. So it is worth considering our stewardship of time. Each of us is given the same amount with which to honor the Master. Do we invest that time? Or hoard it? Or squander it?

Not long ago I was writing a blurb for a piece on Tumblon explaining my decision to leave teaching in order to provide full-time care to my daughter while my wife completed her pediatric residency. I discovered that the most helpful expression to describe what I had done was this: I took a child care leave to invest three years in my relationship with my daughter. It was a calculated investment. The return on that time spent loving and nurturing my child was far greater than what I could have "earned" as a teacher.

That experience has led me to ask more often: How am I investing my time?

House of Cards

Over the past week or so, all eyes have been on Bear Stearns, as it suffered from a "run on the investment bank." It came down on the basis, as I have heard, of rumors. If I am not mistaken, other investment banks are in much the same position. By the very nature of their business, they are not liquid, and so a "run on the bank" puts them into crisis - and either bankruptcy or buyout.

When I look at it, I am astounded by how many other industries are built around investment banking. Many real estate and service industries exist to support the investment banking industry, and a great many others derive secondary revenue from that industry. So if one bank can disappear in the course of a week, the effects will necessarily be wider than the investment banking industry.

The point is that the financial markets, with investment banking as a very important element, are a house of cards. They rise and fall on investor optimism and pessimism, and their fall will have consequences far beyond the financial markets.

More than charity

In a recent Sunday school class titled 'God and Mammon', our teachers outlined the nature of the Old Testament tithes.

1. Pre-Mosaic Tithing: In these accounts, tithing is voluntary, occasional and mentioned only briefly (Genesis 4:1-4; 14:18-24; 28:16-22)
2. Mosaic Law Tithes:
   
1. The Levitical Tithe: giving for the Levites, who served in the temple (Numbers 18:21; Leviticus 27:30-33)
2. The Festival Tithe: giving for the celebration of the festivals (Deuteronomy 14:22-27)
3. The Poor Tithe: giving every third year for the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow (Deuteronomy 14:28-29; 26:12)
   

What stood out to me was how little of the tithe God has marked out for the poor. Every third year a tenth was to be set aside for the alien, the fatherless and the widows. That would hardly suffice to carry them through the next three years until the next tithe for the poor.

The poor tithe was extraordinary care for the poor, as it did not happen often. So what were the ordinary mechanisms of care for the poor?

1. Leaving the margins: (Leviticus 23:22)
   

   “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”

   God ordained a way for his covenant people to live that provided for the poor in a way that placed responsibility with the poor. It preserved both their dignity and responsibility, and was their provision, as in the case of Ruth.
2. Lending to the poor: (Deuteronomy 15:7-8)
   

   "If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be."

   Lending, like leaving the gleanings, imparted both dignity and responsibility to the poor. It was not to be for interest (Exodus 22:25), but neither was it a handout. The expectation was that the loan would be repaid, except at the year of release (every seventh year).

I believe that if we are to address poverty in a manner consistent with the gospel, we must move beyond charity to consider how to do conduct our business in a way that leaves the margins, and lends to the poor.

Pulling out, or pressing in?

If, as I have maintained, for Christians to have integrity they must align three interests (1) the advance of the gospel, (2) provision for one's family (3) securing competent human capital to achieve the mission of the organization, does that mean that Christians ought to pull out of 'non-Christian' sectors?

Take for example, the financial services sector. My former employer had as its mission: to become the premier global wealth management firm. Their stated mission is to make the richest people in the world even richer. In contrast, Jesus said,

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

Does this mean that in order to have integrity, Christians need to pull out of firms like my former employer, or even out of the industry entirely?

To be faithful to the gospel, the Christian must act according to its truths, and not according to the stories that the financial services industry tells. I can imagine a Christian broker working for my former employer sitting down with his clients and saying,

"You have come to me as a wealth manager, and I aim to do the best job that I can for you. At present, your number one liability is the wealth that you possess. I want to help you minimize that liability."

That opening sets the stage for the Gospel: not that we do not seek profit, but that we seek lasting profit. If a person is amassing wealth only for this life, she is a fool. But if she invests her present wealth in a way that secures a more valuable and lasting return, she is wise. The Christian broker is going to approach investment strategies entirely differently from his peers. Furthermore, he is acting on faith. If he assumes that he can convince a client to divest her wealth liabilities for the sake of the gospel simply through persuasion, he has denied the very foundation of the Gospel: that it is the sovereign work of the Spirit. So the only way that he can faithfully present this investment strategy is by trusting that the Holy Spirit will open the eyes of the blind to the good news of God. If that doesn't happen, the client is going to walk right out the door shaking her head - perhaps for the Spirit to use that conversation later for her conversion.

The reality is that if the Christian broker decides to stay with the big wealth management firm, he may either be pushed out by his superiors, or simply lose his client base through the foolishness of the gospel - and it is foolishness to those who do not believe. We do not have a faith that is respectable in polite society; it is true and revolutionary or it is nonsense.

Given those two likely scenarios, what can a Christian do? Should he abandon the industry and go to work for a non-profit? Although some will be called out to 'non-profit' work, I strongly believe that rather than pulling out, we are called to press in. That individual must search out what gospel entrepreneurship means in his industry. How does he start a small business that brings the gospel to bear on his particular sector or industry? That is the question.

In the case of financial services, I think it will probably mean starting a small business built on the truth of the Gospel that does not target its services exclusively to Christians. Rather, it recognizes that it has at least 3 target markets: (1) Christians who want to store up treasure in heaven and need advice, (2) Christians who have never thought about storing up treasure in heaven, and (3) non-Christians who can only store up treasures on earth. If the new business is faithful to the Gospel, it cannot address only its first two target markets; it must pursue the third. The glory is that the only way to pursue the third market is through the gospel. The entire investment philosophy is built on the gospel, and is foolishness to those who reject the gospel. Those who form this company are going to be constantly engaged in evangelism, not because it is the path to their own profitability, but because the gospel constrains them. This is gospel entrepreneurship.