Praying for $1,000,000 (A reflection based on on Mitch Albom's Book, "Have a Little Faith")

Cover of Have a Little Faith: A True Story

I was given Mitch Albom's book, "Have a Little Faith: A True Story" to read by a new friend in Girdwood.  He thought I'd enjoy it and, being told it contained "a church with a hole in the roof," I thought I would be right at home in reading it.  I haven't made it through all of it yet, but there are moments of great inspiration here as the author weaves the story of being asked to do a eulogy for his childhood rabbi with the story of a church in Detroit.  There's a lot of grace here.  There's a lot of love.  And there is a lot to learn from both the main characters.

There is a whole chapter about Reb (the rabbi) which asks the question, "What is rich?"  It's a question I've asked myself and I struggle with (as anyone who reads this blog knows).  I struggle with wanting more than what I have.  I struggle with wanting to know how much money I'd have to save to be "OK" later in life.  I struggle with wanting to give more to my church, for its work and for its construction.  There is so much to give to in this life and the voice of the world keeps telling us that we don't have enough, even just to get by.

What is it that I've heard?  Everyone, no matter what their income, believes that if they JUST had 20% more than what they had now, they'd be OK.  20% more for the welfare family.  20% more for the millionaire.  20%!

According to Albom, "The Reb had never been big on stuff.  But then, he'd never had much of it."



He goes on to recount Reb's childhood of poverty.  He didn't have fancy toys or fancy food.  He had two sets of clothes...one for weekdays and one for the Sabbath.  He recounts how reb was embarrassed to learn that the nice suit that he was given for his Bar Mitzvah was a hand-me-down from his cousin.  And his father, when questioned about this "injustice" answers in a singsongy Yiddish:

God and the decision he renders is correct.
God doesn't punish anyone out of the blue.
God knows what he is doing. (p. 115)

And Reb, from that day, never judged life by what he owned.

It allowed him to relish simple things.  He was easily impressed.  He was...satisfied.

And this carried over into his work at the temple.  Here's how Albom describes it:

For years, his wife had to pick up his paychecks, or else he'd never bother.  His starting salary at the temple was just a few thousand dollars a year, and after five decades of service, his compensation was embarrassing compared to other clerics.  He never pushed for more.  He thought it unseemly.  He didn't even own a car for the first few years of his service; a neighbor named Eddie Adelman would drive him into Philadelphia and drop him off at a subway so that he could take a class at Dropsie College.

The Reb seemed to embody a magnetic repulsion between faith and wealth.  If congregants tried to give him things for free, he suggested they contribute to charity instead.  He hated to fund-raise, because he never felt a clergyman should ask people for money.  He once said in a sermon that the only time he ever wished he was a millionaire was when he thought about how many families he could save from financial sorrow. (Have a Little Faith,  By Mitch Albom, Hyperion Press, p. 116)

It's that last line there that got to me.  I have wished that I was a millionaire over the last few years.  It's not been for a mansion for my family or a flat screen TV or even for complete college funds for our kids.  I've wished I was a millionaire so I could write over a big ol' check to Girdwood Chapel and pay off our building.  This has been a long road for our church and we really need to be in it.  It's been a long road for me as well.  And, if I just had an extra $1,000,000 lying around, I could come in and "get 'er done."

But such thinking does a couple of things.

First, I'm not sure that's really the healthiest for our congregation.   If "that which is easily attained is not worth having" is true, then this building is definitely worth having.  It should be difficult.  It should require the work of many people and many hands, both here and around the US.  While this process is hard, I do believe that this is good for us.

Second, there is a lot of sorrow in the world that could be relieved by $1,000,000.  I know that we plan on our church being a place where financial sorrow, among other sorrows, is relieved.  But we can't lose sight that we have a God who demands us to work for justice in the world.  Buildings can become idols.  And they can become idols while we're building them too.  I pray that the difficulty of the process keeps us focused on the larger purposes of God in this world.