Tag Archives: Scrooge

Holiness, Heart, & Hearth

December 23, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

…then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.
Deuteronomy 14:25-26 (NIV)

Year-end approaches. For Wendy and me, the already busy holidays are layered with even more good things. Wendy’s birthday on the 21st and our wedding anniversary on New Year’s Eve means the three biggest gift giving events of the year for my wife all happen in 10 days. Believe me, I’ve learned to think ahead. And there’s more than just the holidays.

Year-end also brings decisions that have to be made in the area of our business and personal finances. Giving, savings, and future planning must all be discussed and decided in meetings with various professionals who assist with those things. The dizzying world of taxes and finance produces endless questions. Navigating our labyrinthine tax code feels less like stewardship and more like trial by minotaur. Ugh! Underneath the Spirit and meaning of Christmas and New Years there remains the grind and realities of how life is managed day-to-day.

Speaking of finances and how life is managed, Wendy and I are looking forward our annual tradition of watching Guy Pearce’s dark and intense portrayal of Scrooge in FX’s version of A Christmas Carol. I highly recommend you put it at the top of your Christmas movie watch list. It cuts like a knife to the heart of the matter. What do matters of daily life, personal finance, and relationship look like when the Message and Spirit of what God did at Christmas fail to penetrate the human heart?

That same question lies at the heart of today’s chapter. God through Moses reminds his children and grandchildren that their identity as God’s treasured people is made visible in how they live, what they do with their appetites, how they manage their finances, their generosity, and how they do community each day, each season, each year.

Today’s chapter also has an interesting connection to Jesus’ Story. Moses tells his people that someday, when there is a permanent Temple established it may be that it will be far away from where they live. Transporting all of their stored up tithes and offerings may not be practical. So, there was a provision to sell those tithes and offerings for silver. They could then bring the silver (easy to carry with you) to the Temple. There the silver could be used to buy what you needed for your prescribed offerings and sacrifices.

By Jesus day, the religious establishment had discovered in Moses’ rather simple financial principle a money making scheme. Poor Hebrew pilgrims making the long journey to the Temple did bring with them silver to buy what was needed for their offerings and sacrifices. The Temple established its own currency which the establishment demanded for the purchase of offerings and sacrificial animals. The local currency the pilgrims brought would need to be exchanged. With that exchange came fees and taxes and an entire industry of moneychangers. Jesus approached the Temple—meant to be a place of community, celebration, generosity, and feasting—only to find it had become a spiritual subsidiary of Scrooge and Marley, Inc.

[Cue: Jesus picks up a whip He sees lying on the ground next to the cattle pen.]

Today’s chapter is easily read as simple prescriptive rules regarding diet and religious offerings. But the directives were intended to point to matters of heart and Spirit. God through Moses is teaching his toddler nation that holiness is anchored in restraint.

Desire without boundaries becomes chaos; desire with limits becomes intimacy.

Clean and unclean are not moral categories but symbolic ones—teaching God’s people to pause, to choose, to remember God even in the most ordinary act: eating. The tithe is especially striking: food given to God is not burned, but eaten—by people—with God present. Holiness tastes like wine, bread, and belonging. God is saying “You don’t drift into holiness. You practice it daily, with fork and cup.“

Tent to Temple to Table.

Which, in the quiet, brings me back to Christmas…and anniversary…and New Year’s…and year-end decisions of business and finance. Today’s chapter whispers to me of God’s heart: generous, selfless, and servant-hearted. From the beginning God’s prescription for Life flowed from His Spirit of intimacy, community, and generosity in the simple acts of gathering, celebrating, and eating.

In the coming days as Wendy and I gather with loved ones, as we watch A Christmas Carol, as we finalize business matters, I pray that it is that Spirit that rules my heart.

I have no need for the ghosts of Past, Present, and Future to awaken me in the wee hours.

God bless us, every one.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Promotional graphic for Tom Vander Well's Wayfarer blog and podcast, featuring icons of various podcast platforms with a photo of Tom Vander Well. — These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

The Point

May 25, 2021 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.
Ecclesiastes 6:3 (NIV)

As I have been contemplating the words Ecclesiastes’ Sage this past week, the character of Ebenezer Scrooge has repeatedly come to mind. It happened again in the quiet this morning as I read today’s chapter.

Scrooge is such an embodiment of the person that the Sage describes when he writes of one who has everything and doesn’t enjoy it as he lives life “squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, his body is a musty cellar.” (see Matthew 6:22-23 in The Message). When he describes a man with many children who nevertheless dies alone, unremembered, with no one to give a proper burial, I can’t help but envision Scrooge asking the ghost of Christmas future to show him a single person who felt something, anything at the news of his death. The ghost takes him to the home of a couple who were his tenants. The emotion they felt was one of elation that their merciless landlord was dead as they now had time to get their finances in order.

It’s easy to sound too Hallmark sappy when it comes to expressing the en-joy-ment of life. Yet I find the Sage contrasting those who live in joy and contentment with those who live in misery and discontent no matter their lot in life. I can’t help but hear the echoes of Paul’s words in his letter to the followers of Jesus in Phillipi:

I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself contemplating not only Scrooge’s reputation, but also his transformation. Isn’t it ironic that when I hear the name “Ebenezer Scrooge” my first thought is about what he was, not what he became? I wonder how often I do that with people I’ve known along my life journey. But the transformation is the point of Dicken’s story. It’s the point of the Great Story:

“If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. Old things pass away. New things come.”
2 Cor 5:17

And the one who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I’m making all thing new.”
Rev 21:5

Here I am at the beginning of a new day. Where will my heart and eyes lead me this day?

Misery and discontent?

Joy and contentment?

The further I’ve get in my spiritual journey with Christ the former becomes more-and-more of an impossibility, and the latter comes naturally with each breath.

The point of the journey is transformation.

Speaking of enjoying life. Wendy and I are off to enjoy the start of summer at the lake, and I am taking a break from the chapter-a-day journey. I plan to be back on the path June 7. If you need a fix, please visit the index or the ol’ archives. Thousands of chapter-a-day posts to choose from. Cheers!

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Theatre Journal, Tom's Photos

The Dickensian Men

December 12, 2014 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

It was Spence Ver Meer’s idea to get all of the men from Union Street Player’s production of “A Christmas Carol” together for a photograph in costume. I’m glad he did because they turned out to be fun photographs. I set up my trip-pod and remote control before Sunday afternoon’s closing matinee for this group shot. I used Snapseed to rough it up and give it a vintage, old photograph feel.

Theatre Journal, Tom's Photos

Marley’s Ghost Appears

December 9, 2014 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

I captured one of my favorite moments from this past weekend’s production of “A Christmas Carol.” Scrooge (expertly performed [and I don’t use those words lightly] by Lonnie Appleby) arrives at his home unknowing that he stands on the threshold of a fateful night filled with four visitors. As Ebenezer approaches his door (complete with an amazing gargoyle-like, lion’s head door knocker painted by set designer Mat Kelly), the ghost of Marley (hauntingly performed by Pat Moriarity) appears in a apparition and foreshadowing of things to come.

I loved standing outside the theatre during performances to hear the gasp of both children and adults as they found themselves as surprised as Scrooge himself. I love the magic, live moments that theatre creates.

Chapter-a-Day

Will the Real Scrooge Please Stand Up?

December 8, 2014 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“Is not your wickedness great?
Are not your sins endless?”
Job 22:5 (NIV)

Along my life’s journey I have bumped into a few individuals who seem convinced that they hold the office of Special Prosecutor of the Almighty. Their mission, it appears, is to charge me (and others, to be sure) with my many sins and shortcomings. Job’s so-called friend, Eliphaz, now reveals himself to be one of these junior prosecutors.

In today’s chapter, Eli’s argument takes a decidedly prosecutorial bent. Not only is Eli convinced that Job is suffering for his many sins, he is now going to write an indictment and list the specific sins that surely must have precipitated such divine retribution as Job is clearly suffering. With Special Prosecutor Eliphaz, justice works in reverse. He first looks upon what he deems to be divine punishment and then decides what laws must have been broken to deserve such a sentence. Eliphaz comes up with quite a list. In fact, as I read it on this chilly December morning it sounds a lot like Ebenezer Scrooge:

“You demanded security from your relatives for no reason;
    you stripped people of their clothing, leaving them naked.
You gave no water to the weary
    and you withheld food from the hungry,
though you were a powerful man, owning land—
    an honored man, living on it.
And you sent widows away empty-handed
    and broke the strength of the fatherless.”

Bah. Humbug. It seems to me that Eliphaz reveals himself to be the one being miserly with wisdom, love and compassion.

Here are three problems I have with individuals like Eliphaz who wish to indict me of all my sins and shortcomings:

Believe me, it is not necessary for anyone to convince me of my failures. I know them all too well.
At least half (probably more) of the things you charge me with are simply not true.
You don’t know nearly half of the things of which I am truly guilty.

Jesus was pretty adamant that “special prosecutor” was not part of the job description for those who wish to follow him. Love is at the top of the list. Forgiveness is up there too, along with compassion and kindness. We’re supposed to lift up those who are down, not stand over them and convince them why they fell.

Chapter-a-Day

Parade of the Downhearted

November 29, 2012 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 68

God places the lonely in families;
he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.
Psalm 68:6a (NLT)

“Christmas is such a happy time of year,” Wendy said to me as we drove to rehearsal the other night. The Christmas lights on the businesses along Franklin Street were shining bright in the crisp night air and the Vermeer Windmill was decked out with all of its holiday decorations.

I wasn’t trying to be a Scrooge, but the first thought that came to my mind and my response to Wendy was “It’s not a happy time of year for everyone.” I know that the holidays can be incredibly stressful for some. For those who have lost loved ones or who struggle with loneliness, the holidays can be a time of increased anxiety and depression.

I can tell in the quiet this morning that my heart and mind have made the turn toward Advent. Advent comes from the latin term meaning “revealing.” It is traditionally the season followers of Jesus prepare their hearts each year to celebrate the birth of our Jesus on Christmas Day. Psalm 68 is a song of procession and was meant to be sung as people paraded to the temple to worship. It made me think about all of us who are making a procession towards Christmas. As I read the lyrics of the opening stanza of Psalm 68, I found it interesting those whom it describes in this processional to praise:

Fatherless
Widows
Lonely
Prisoners

How appropriate, I think, for the downhearted to be called out for this parade. The whole reason for Christ to come as a baby, to live among us, to die for our sins, and to be raised back to life, is that which is broken in all of us might be healed. Consider that in His first public message, Jesus proclaimed his personal mission statement when He quoted these words:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This morning I’m thinking about the upcoming Christmas holiday in relation to the downhearted, the lonely, the grieving, those in bondage to their destructive thoughts and behaviors, and those who are suffering emotionally and physically. As we proceed toward Christmas, I’m praying that those of us who are suffering. Instead of experiencing increased levels of loneliness, isolation, anxiety and pain, I’m praying for us all – myself absolutely included – to find the healing and hope which can be found wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.