Wouldn’t it be awesome to have Jesus as your stockbroker? Along with His impressive, supremely incisive advice, would come a full range of human emotions and guess what? Even a holy sense of humor! And if there’s anything that needs a slice of humor, it’s that rattling, regurgitating, irritating, sometimes provocative stock market sticking its tongue out at you when your stocks go in the wrong direction!
Yes, many theologians have taken note of how often Jesus’ teachings contained those whiffs of worldly-wise wit, irony and hyperbole, that likely amused his followers, if they really listened.
Many scholars believe His occasional absurd hyperboles were intended to make His points acutely memorable. Take His camel through the needle analogy. It was meant amusingly to suggest that it’s sometimes easier for that to happen than it is for a rich person to enter heaven (Matthew 19:24). Just a joke, but you billionaires better not be stingy.
Can you just imagine having the Lord advising you on what stocks to buy, which to avoid and ones you’d better dump before they crucify your savings?
Sure, we all pray to our Lord Jesus for mercy when someone we love is gravely ill. And always we pray for resolution to our most pressing problems. But what about our investments? Isn’t the stock market not just super perplexing, but often vexing? Isn’t NASDAQ exasperating sometimes when it has a stranglehold on your money kneeling nervously beside you in a church pew while the market’s reeling?
How about when our stocks become gravely ill and start to slump steeply into that sin of depravity called steep losses? Can we not pray for wisdom and for guidance on whether we should bail out or stand pat? Wouldn’t it be spiritually and economically uplifting if we could just ask the almighty: what doth thou advise me to do, oh Lord?
The religious among us pray to God for everything under the sun. So, why not pray for His financial wisdom? Often, thank God, we receive for what we pray, from finding the right jobs to the best places to live or to meeting that perfect person to marry with whom we settle down so blissfully in love. Forgive those who pray just to win bets at ballgames, racetracks and on Lotto? I’ll bet they could fill churches worldwide!
Okay, let’s look at having Jesus as our financial advisor. Can you just imagine listening to what might be the dialogue over your sometimes hasty à la carte investments going from low to high, north to south, then suddenly, holy mackerel, vice versa:
“Jesus, should I buy energy stocks now while we’re at war with Iran?”
“Yes, my son, but be swift to sell when you see signs Trump’s super confident and happy as a clam.”
“How does a clam look when he’s happy, Lord?”
“Like Trump when he says the word ‘annihilated’ 50 times, beaming broadly at TV cameras and describing the war as a piece of cake citing awesome results achieved in a miniscule of time.”
“After I sell, then what should I do, Lord?”
“Then it’s time to dump Chevron and sell Shell, then load up on AVGO and NVDA, maybe MU too! Buy the chips off the old block, as how that mother earthly expression goes!”
“Really, Lord?”
“Do you think your Lord would kid you or lie about something as sacred as money? Just make sure you tip the usher during the next church collection when he comes to your pew.”
“I will, I promise I’ll empty my wallet into his basket!”
“Thank you. That’s it, my son. Now, I must bid you farewell as I have other appointments, one to placate depressed Democrats who thinks I’m a Republican who’s forsaken them, and then on to console a Governor who’s worried he’s on my excrement list. Actually, I love flying into his windy city.”
“I thank you with all my heart, my dear broker.”
“Please, call me your ‘dear Lord and savior.’ Believe me, it wasn’t easy earning that title!”
Amen
Madden, a Catholic who once taught at Loyola in New Orleans, a Jesuit University, now prays he won’t be excommunicated for this piece. He also prays his investments do well, not just those in the stock market, but in the time he invests in writing his books, blogs, and articles, plus a blizzard of press releases he churns out at the behest of his dauntless daughter Adrienne Mazzone, now president of TransMedia Group, the PR firm he created when he left NBC in New York City. At NBC Madden was vice president, assistant to the president, and some would say almost a saintly advisor to then a brilliant but sometimes rambunctious CEO, Fred Silverman. Today Madden prays that besides shedding tears over the wrongdoings on earth, Jesus also sees the infantile bombast, braggadocio and stupidity in this wacky world that hopefully triggers what many theologians believed he possessed, a keen but holy and the loftiest sense of humor.
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