Selfishness

It's official. I'm the most selfish person I know.

Actually, I've known for a long time.

Not by choice, of course, but true nonetheless. And it takes a great deal of effort to overcome my own inherent selfishness as I go about my daily life. As a husband, as a father, as a friend...selfishness is constantly in the way of being who I strive to be.

I'm convinced that selfishness is the basis of our original sin as humans. It exerts control over every part of us, in every arena of our life, and prevents us from (or at least negatively encourages us from) loving God and our neighbors fully, as the scriptures command us to. Simply put, we're too busy loving ourselves. We can't focus outwardly, as we're too focused inwardly (which of course happens on a corporate level as well to churches).

At a recent district clergy meeting, someone floated the idea of making adjustments to our denomination-wide pension system to make it more "justice-based" rather than the present system which gives greater financial reward to those pastors serving larger churches (which in turn are able to give larger salaries, which then requires giving more to the pension fund which is determined by a percentage of salary). It's a catch-22. Pastors serving larger churches make more now and later, while pastors serving smaller churches, or pastors called to staff ministry positions (which traditionally pay less than Senior Pastor positions) make less now and later. The end result is a system which encourages pastors to "move up the food chain". It feeds into that inherent selfishness that all of us are called by Christ to overcome. In this discussion, someone put forth the notion that we should make pension payments (upon retirement) an across the board amount, so that all pastors receive equally, rather than receiving what was put in by their churches (and based on salary levels). This, as one clergy member stated, would be much more in line with a biblical model of justice. On an aside, it might also encourage more pastors to take small church calls, and allow more pastors to remain in staff ministry positions. They may still make less now, but they would receive equally later. At the conclusion of the discussions, one of the members talked about bringing this forward for discussion and action at our upcoming denominational ministerium annual meeting. It makes sense. It follows scripture. It seems right. It might even help a lot of churches.

But...what's the chance that our inherent selfishness can be subdued to the point, that many will be willing to give away what they see as "their money"?