I was up on the ladder last month cleaning our gutters and noticed our 30-year roof that was installed 18 years ago already needs replaced. The month before I had replaced our 80,000-mile tires after 49,000 miles, and just before that I replaced a half dozen LED light bulbs I was assured would last a lifetime. There’s a roofer in our town, so I phoned him, asking for a bid on a new roof. When he arrived, I told him I hoped he’d discover our roof had hail damage and our insurance company would pay for it. I mentioned that two other roofing companies had knocked on our door in the past month to tell us our roof was hail damaged and replacement was free.
My ladder was still leaning against the house from when I’d cleaned my gutters, so the roofer went up on the roof, looked around, then came back down to deliver the bad news that my roof wasn’t hail-damaged, and the cost of replacement would fall squarely on me. Then he told me my gutters also needed replaced, which I guess is what happens when you let trees grow out of them.
I said, “I thought gutters lasted a lifetime.”
He said, “Yes, that’s what gutter salesmen will tell you. But they lie more than roofers.”
I like self-deprecating people, so it made me a little less suspicious.
The roofing man has been in business 39 years. He lives in a nice house just outside of town, so it’s clear he’s done well. You can’t remain in business in a small town if you’re not honest. If you’re dishonest, you can become the President, but you can’t be a roofer in a small town. Not if you want to last. He enjoys a lovely home and a sterling reputation, both come by honestly.
I find that encouraging, since too often the opposite is true, that wealth and prosperity attach themselves to decadence. For the past several weeks, we’ve been thinking about our relationship with money, its role in our culture, and its power in our lives. Today, I invite us to think about how often wealth leads to excess and overindulgence, which then leads to moral decadence. There is no clearer contemporary example than the abuses of Jeffrey Epstein and his secret client list. From the names already made public, we know the rapists share at least one trait in common–they are men of wealth and privilege who believed their prosperity exempted them from the laws, norms, and morals that govern the rest of us.
It is the story of King David, the richest, most powerful man in Israel, lusting for Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. Wanting Bathsheba for himself, and without the slightest moral qualm, Kind David sent a note to Uriah’s commander saying, “Send Uriah to the front of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.” And so Uriah died, Bathsheba mourned, and David pounced.
We’re familiar with the Quaker priorities of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, and equality. These values did not arise simultaneously or in a vacuum. One of our earliest ideals was integrity. The first Quakers believed truth-telling was a formative value in religious formation, so they made it a point to “let their yes be yes, and their no be no.” Consequently, Quakers, despite being scorned for their rejection of the Empire’s religion, nevertheless developed a reputation for honesty. Heretic or not, when you have a reputation for honesty, people want to do business with you, whether you are a farmer selling grain, a grocer selling food, a carpenter building houses, or a roofer roofing homes. Early Friends prospered because of their commitment to integrity. It’s been said of early Friends that they went out to do good and did well.
As that happened, Quakers went from being working-class to middle-class, and in some areas even upper-class, fueled by their success in business. Thus, another virtue emerged—simplicity. Its purpose was to counteract the dangers of prosperity. We are not to use our wealth to live lavishly or selfishly. We are to live simple lives, using our wealth for the common good, not for our own enrichment, but for the betterment of society. For the Quaker, simplicity became the antidote to corrupting, corrosive wealth. Wealth distracts; simplicity focuses. Lavish displays of wealth were considered sinful, as an indication of venality and pride, as a distraction from the presence of God.
Early Friends knew all too well the destructive power of wealth without conscience, knew all too well the tendency of wealth to corrupt our highest ideals, knew wealth’s tendency to harden our hearts, even if we knew better. The U.S. President, Herbert Hoover, rose to national prominence after leading the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and serving as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, following World War I. Even a man as virtuous as Herbert Hoover remained blind to the suffering of the Depression Era poor, dismissing their need. As some parents in Arkansas were feeding their children dandelions to keep them alive, Hoover said, “If a man has not made a million dollars by the time he is forty, he is not worth much.” How’s that clueless?
Wealth can blind us, if not coupled with compassion and simplicity. Wealth poses this danger because its presence causes us to believe we are uniquely gifted and deserving and therefore exempt from the rules that govern others. Privilege becomes our due, something owed to us for our diligence and intelligence. So we therefore feel free to promise someone 80,000 miles, but only give them 49,000. Worse, wealth makes us think that just because we enjoy prosperity, so do others. I had a friend growing up whose parents were well-off. I had outgrown my bicycle and he said I should have my parents buy me a new one. When I told him I had to pay for my own bicycle, he couldn’t believe it. He said it was abusive and that I should report them to the police. Wealth, if not checked by simplicity, creates an attitude of entitlement.
You and I know plenty of folks who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Let that not be said of us. Wealth without generosity is the greatest poverty of all.