On my BBC world news page I learned the exciting news today that Kylie Jenner is now the youngest billionaire. I am so, so glad to know that a child of privilege had her name slapped on something by other wealthy people and so is recognized as a titan of industry.
These kinds of stories pop up all the time. How much is Mark Zuckerberg or Martha Stewart worth? Is Donald Trump really just a bunch of leveraged debt? Is Apple or Facebook or Amazon going to be worth the trillions that some have made them out to be?
I always thought that I had something of an eye towards business until I realized that much of what counts as business today is simply accounting. Put enough numbers (real or not) in one column, create the right kinds of spreadsheets, and you, too are a paper billionaire.
Nobody would look at me and think that I have much at all, and that's OK. A few years ago a friend of mine was shocked that the members of the church can look at my yearly salary from the church, that it's not a private thing. I told him, I don't really care if everybody knows what I make. I am not defined by how much is in my bank accounts or my stock portfolios, even though I'm doing fine and have never worried for more than a day about how to pay a bill.
Maybe this is why the Bible so often speaks about the dangers of people getting too caught up in it, whether it's the love of money being the root of evil (1 Timothy 6:10) or the dangers of those who keep adding wealth at the expense of others (cf. Isaiah 5:8). It's not just the people who do these things who are engaging in sin; it's about the rest of us who will never come close to such wealth who obsess over the wealth of others. Whether it's simple resentment or jealousy, or a greed that never finds its success, or even a hostility towards material things, stuff is never to be that which defines us.
I don't know that it's ever a good thing to keep reporting on what others have; prophets can surely speak against those who flaunt their prosperity, but obsessing about what others have or don't have is never the Biblical intention. Rather, let us hear again these words, "...let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Amos 5:21) If we would all pursue these things, we'd no longer care what spoiled heiresses are worth, or even care about what they sell. And that, I think, would make this world a better place.
