The Honest Sinner, aka, How to Get Rich

Desire. What do you actually want?

For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth. Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them. And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

— Bible, Pslams 73:3-13

Pictured: Poor people trying to be holy.

Pictured: You just figured out how to deny 34,000 cancer patients adequate coverage.

Question:

Which does God love more?

The standard response, the one almost every pastor, priest, or pop-church e-influencer will give you is, obviously, the top one. “The poor,” they will say in unison. Of course, the only problem with that is the immediate follow-up question. “Oh. Okay. Then… why does he make their lives so shitty?”

By every single human definition of “Love”, God, by all accounts, appears to love the rich more. He gives them better food, better houses, they live longer, they have more attractive partners, they have fewer worries, they enjoy more life experiences, they get the best education, they attain political power, and the poor, by contrast…

don’t.

They don’t get any of those things.

If you or I had two children, one called, say, James and the other Jordan, and we lavished gift after gift upon James but made Jordan live in squalor in the basement…

It would be pretty damn hard to convince anyone that we, as parents, loved Jordan more.

Yes? Right? Am I crazy here?

And yet (for “““““reasons””””” that sound increasingly unhinged and desperate), that exact behavior is what we’re supposed to believe about God by default. That’s what the theologians tell us. God loves the poor and all those apparent gifts he showers on the wealthy are fake blessings. “If you knew the whole story you wouldn’t really want what the rich have,” they say. “Oh, yes, sure, right now it may look like God is favoring them more but just you wait… after they die… Oh ho ho! After they die they’ll go to Hell and you’ll go to Heaven, and then the situation will be exactly reversed!”

…

Is it just me or… does such a narrative reek with more than a hint of jealousy?

??

I mean, streets of gold? Really? Bit too on the nose, don’t you think? All that talk of mansions and palaces and buildings crusted over with jewels… The standard description of Heaven is just a poor person’s idea of what wealth is like. Gaudy and unrefined. At points the entire message of the gospels can seem like little more than a Revenge Fantasy wearing a pious face. There’s even a whole parable about it. Dives and Lazarus. You know, “sure, it may look like God loves the person in the fancy robe who lives in a palace more than the guy on the street covered in boils but… HA! Gotcha. Look. They died and now the whole pleasure of Heaven is that Lazarus gets to be fed fancy food while staring at the rich man burning in flames! See!? Justice.”

Weird Justice. I also like how, apparently, part of the rich man’s punishment was being turned Black. I didn’t make the icon. Don’t blame me. Talk to your friends about anti-racism or whatever.

Easy to see why the religion took off so readily with slaves and servants. The last shall be first. The first shall be last.

…

But isn’t that quite the conundrum? You know, when you think about it?

Aren’t you supposed to not want riches? Aren’t you supposed to give whatever you have away? How is the idea of being served by angels for eternity any different than the desire to have slaves? At times it seems like the entire morality of The Gospels is built on hypocrisy, as there’s apparently no difference between the hearts of the rich and the poor at all. They both want vast amounts of wealth and, apparently, the only sin of the rich person is actually getting it. Or, at least, getting it now. If he’d waited to be handed it all after he died… he’d be hunky-dory. But the poor fella was simply too impatient. He withdrew his 401K early and now he has to roast forever in the fires of Hell.

Does that make sense?

You see this same hypocrisy all the time in politics. You know, “Eat the rich”, “class warfare” and so on. The instant those people get a dollar suddenly taxes are too high. The folks who got all that money from donations to Black Lives Matter protests? Instantly used it to move into gated communities. The freed slaves of The South often went on to purchase slaves themselves. If God judges men not by outward appearances but by their hearts, why would there be any difference in his judgment between rich and poor since both quite obviously desire the exact same things? What? The poor don’t want money? Is that going to be your position? They don’t want lives of leisure? They don’t want a big house way up on the hill?

Of course they do.

On the inside, Dives and Lazarus are just the same.

Most poor people (meaning, over 90% of them) are not poor because they’re intrinsically moral, refusing to participate in illegal schemes and hording whatever they get from charity or what have you. If that were true, then domestic violence, rape and theft wouldn’t correlate so highly with low incomes. And, despite what you might say and feel you should believe, I think you probably agree with me, which is why you get nervous every time you’re driving through the ghetto but feel welcome and safe in your rich friend’s home with the granite countertops. Wealthy people are actually nicer than poor people… most of the time. This isn’t even close to universally true, no, but it is a general trend. The people in The Hamptons are far more polite and less likely to stab you than the people in Compton. That’s simply a fact.

So what gives?

I want to suggest that maybe God is trolling you a little bit. Seeing where your loyalty lies. Weighing your heart against a feather and all that. Are you genuinely…