"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (v. 21). Jesus follows up by teaching about earthly possessions, concluding with this exhortation: "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (6:33).

We in the United States in the 21st century know very little about ancient kings and kingdoms. James Brownson, in a provocative new book StormFront: The Good News of God, in The Gospel and Our Culture Series, reminds us of the role of king in the ancient world. The king was basically the richest person around. "The king commands most of the resources in the country," Brownson writes. "The king's power, however, comes essentially from generosity." The king provides all livelihood and daily bread for his people, and his people in turn offer allegiance to the king. Brownson continues: "This interaction between generosity and allegiance not only binds the people to their king; it also binds them to one another ... The Bible uses the terms "steadfast love" (chesed) and "faithfulness" (emeth) to grasp these twin values that define social life as God intends it, both in our relationship to God and to each other."

In this kind of relationship to a king and belonging to a kingdom, richness is not possessed in your bank accounts and portfolio. In that kingdom you do not get richer by stuffing more and more possessions into your bigger and bigger tent. Richness is instead secured by a relationship with the king. If the king is good and rich, and if your allegiance is pure, then your riches rest in the king's generosity. Richness like this is not yours to horde. You are not the master of your solitary financial destiny. Your richness inheres in the community of subjects who give allegiance to the good and generous king.

God chooses to bless some people with great earthly wealth, but a great responsibility comes with this. Faithful stewardship of wealth requires much prayer and attentive allegiance to the Lord of all creation. Stewardship is about sharing and relationship, not about selfish accumulation.

Writing this column, I researched kingship in the ancient world, found data on advertising, looked up Bible passages, and much more—all on the Internet. The wealth of the Internet is shared across a network of storage computers called servers, strewn all over the world. If I tried to horde all the Internet's information on my hard drive, the cost and bother of such unnecessary individualism would be unbearable. What a ridiculous and costly hard drive that would require!

Our approach to wealth can be just as ridiculous as accumulating ever more wealth in our storage devices.

Instead we can choose to participate in the richness of God by virtue of allegiance and belonging to the network of God's kingdom. "The earth is the Lord's, and all that is in it" (Psalm 24; 1 Corinthians 10). By allegiance, and not by our ownership, all this can be ours.

Next month:
A new way of working