How Much is Enough
I am honored to lead the Women’s Division of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries as the search for a new chief executive — known as the deputy general secretary — begins. During this period of transition, let us work together to continue to strengthen United Methodist Women.
It is fitting my first Responsively Yours column be on a subject about which I care passionately: Greed.
How much is enough?
When I was a little girl, I loved chocolate milk. My family had a ritual around that special treat. I would ask permission to have chocolate milk. If I had been good — which of course, I had been — my father would tell me to get a glass from the shelf, milk from the refrigerator and chocolate syrup from the cupboard.
I would bring the ingredients to the kitchen table, one at a time. Then I’d pour the milk into my glass. My father would smile and say, “Tell me when,” as he squeezed the chocolate syrup into the glass.
The more chocolate the better was my philosophy. But I also recognized the dynamics of power. I would watch my father’s face as he poured the chocolate. When he began to frown slightly, I knew I had exceeded the “greed line.”
My father was my chocolate conscience. When I got older and could control my own chocolate intake, greed took over. If I had not become lactose-intolerant, God knows what levels of depravity I would have succumbed to. More seriously, if I had not grown up with the theological grounding provided by my family and church, my personal and societal value systems could have been truncated by greed.
How much is enough?
A resolution on greed submitted by the Women’s Division and passed by the 2004 General Conference — Resolution No. 211 in The United Methodist Book of Resolutions, 2004 — begins:
“God’s vision of abundant living is a world where we live out of a theology of ‘enough,’ a theology based in the knowledge that we are grounded in Christ, that our sense of personal value and esteem grows from our Christ-centered life.”
How much is enough?
We live in a both-and world. There should be no dichotomy between the sacred and the secular, between Saturday night and Sunday morning in the manner in which we view theology and the manner in which we live out that theology. I believe we are called to embrace a holistic theology that addresses the spiritual and the material. There is no room in that theology for greed. We are called to action in a world that sorely needs our witness.
How much is enough?
By nature, by tradition, because of our commitment to ministries with the least of these in society, United Methodist Women is called to be a chocolate conscience within church and society. It is easy to get used to the benefits that accrue from greedy behavior and systems. They can “get good to you.”
We have to help the church and structures of society ask:
“How much is enough?”
We have to help the church and structures of society know how to say “When!”
Lois M. Dauway
Women’s Division
Interim Deputy General Secretary
