And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace. – Micah 5:4
Out of my finance background the primary question was always the balance of risk and return. And the best answer for almost everybody is that you are not Warren Buffet. You will not beat the market. Accept the market return and minimize your cost through some type of passive index fund. You will not get rich quick. Depending upon how much you save, you might never get rich. But if you start putting away 10% of your income in the typical S&P 500 index when in your 20’s, you’ll be more than comfortable by retirement. And if you aren’t, it is because everything went to hell and nobody is comfortable. The psychological fact of finance is that it is all comparative. In fact if you stop saving after 10 years, you will have more than someone who did nothing during those 10 years but starts in their 30’s and does it every year all the way until retirement. Compound interest is a massive force. Of course the real question for the young and financial is: How do I get stinking rich? And all the good advice – diversification, index, low cost, compound interest – all that goes out the window. If you want to get stinking rich, you have to find the one golden egg and put everything you have in that one basket. Find the one tree that grows straight to heaven.
When I think about preaching the gospel and various biblical metaphors for it, I love the commercial ones: debt, redemption, forgiveness. Most Lutherans hang out in the legal ones: Justification, Adoption, Inheritance. I try and stretch myself to the deliverance ones – liberation, victory – because those are the way out of the pit. Those are the ones that speak to the black dog. There are others. God’s word is surprisingly robust in the various ways it speaks about what Jesus does for us. But one that I have trouble with is the core of Micah’s passage – security.
My trouble comes from a couple of items. The security is in the promise and the one who promises. It is on the far side of the victory. We can certainly know that security now, but it is less realized than redemption or forgiveness. The cross has a historical reality that makes real redemption. We have all given and received forgiveness.
Sometimes for terrible deeds. But right now, We Walk in Danger All the Way. Security seems so far away. The other reason is the financial idea I started off with. The security of God doesn’t come from diversifying. The security of God comes from the dramatic act of faith. It comes from putting all the eggs into the manger. That this babe, born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the tribes of Judah, is the ruler of Israel. And more than Israel, that Jesus is in fact God incarnate, who sits at the right hand of God Almighty and will judge the quick and the dead – to the ends of the earth. The request of God is faith. All our eggs in the manger.
Security, it’s dangerous. People want it almost as bad as young finance guys want to get rich quick. As Franklin warned, don’t trade liberty for security because you will get neither. Although fear always seems like the best motivator. But power and fear are not what God chose. God put all his eggs for saving mankind in the manger. He chose the weakest form. He showed up as a baby. And the security is a promise. The Kingdom of Heaven is near and it is in your midst. Today it hides in grace and mercy. Today the violent can take it by force. But their time is short. For soon our sad divisions cease. And the Christ shall raise his scepter, decreeing endless peace. And we shall dwell securely.
