By David Taylor, Spiritual Reflections

What is enough? With the current economic chaos and fear, it is easy to point our fingers and blame those who were too greedy. I strongly agree that greed is a major factor in our problems today. But I am not sure it does any good to point the finger, for all of us could be guilty. We live in a society and a culture where “enough” is not part of our vocabulary, and where a concern for the common good has been eclipsed by a concern for what is best for me.

When you go to a buffet, do you stop loading your plate up when you have had enough? Or do you keep going back until you get your money’s worth? If you could set your own compensation at any level, what amount would you take? Would you settle for $100,000 if you could have a million?

There is a quaint but instructive story in Exodus 16 where the Israelites are in the wilderness, but have no food. God provides quail and manna to sustain them. But the rules are that they are only to gather enough for one day, and not to stockpile it. When they follow God’s instructions, there is always enough “daily bread” for them. But when they disobey, it breeds worms and spoils. This is a story about trust, and obedience, and about “enough.”

In God’s economy, the primary concern is that all people have enough, and God provides it without cost. Well, the fact is that once they entered into the promised land and celebrated their first Passover, the manna stopped. God provided for them instead by providing a land flowing with milk and honey that would sustain them all indefinitely, as long as they took care of the land and continued to pay attention to what was enough. But once the they began to capitalize the land, to see it as a source for profit, there were increasing problems.

Today we have big financial problems, and will have them for awhile. Our government has passed a “rescue plan;” a plan to rescue the system, not to rescue you and I from the consequences of the financial mess. I hope it succeeds. And time will tell.

But, no rescue plan is going to have any long-lasting effect on the system unless there is a fundamental change in the values that shape the system. I dare say that unless there is a fundamental change in the values that shape our culture, we may “bail out the system” and get it back again. Then we can watch the gap between the very rich and the rest of the world continue to widen; we can watch the ranks of the poor and homeless swell.

No financial rescue will have any real or lasting impact on improving our nation unless we regain some fundamental values. We need to all learn to live with enough and care about everyone having enough. We need to be more concerned with the common good than with our own gain. We need to begin to find our worth not in the amount of stuff we have, but in our relationship to our creator and our community.

Jesus warns against storing up treasure for ourselves here on earth. I have found that living simply and generously brings real joy and security that so often eludes me when I never quite feel I have enough.

I hope that the rescue plan works, but even more, I hope that we can all begin to change our basic values. I hope we can all learn what is “enough” and find joy and security in it.

(Rev. David Taylor is pastor at Glendale United Methodist Church in Savage and can be contacted at www.glendaleumc.org. He is one of several area pastors who write columns for “Spiritual Reflections,” a column that is one of several opinion and commentary pieces appearing regularly in this newspaper.)