JESUS and MONEY

As for [the seed] sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

Jesus of Nazareth

In this Reflection, I will mix metaphors but I do it on good authority. John wrote of Jesus, ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of men’. Two weekends ago, we reflected on Jesus saying that he was ‘the light of the world’ while he stood in the Temple treasury. John records Jesus’ words on another occasion: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (see John 1:4 & 8:12). The metaphors I’m mixing are light and life because they help us put into context Jesus’ words at the start of this Reflection.

Jesus of Nazareth told the parable of the sower often and we have versions of it in Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8. A man goes to sow seed on an area of uncultivated, common land. Some seed fell by the public footpath to be eaten by birds; some fell on rocky ground where it began to grow but, because it couldn’t push roots far down, it withered when the sun came up; some fell among thorns which choked the life of out of it; some fell on to good soil and grew to maturity to produce a crop of up to hundredfold – that is, 1,000%. As Jesus explained the parable, I won’t repeat him here.

I suspect this was Jesus’ favourite story for explaining both his essential message and his method for spreading it. Jesus described the process again when he said, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him’ (John 12:24-26).

The life of God, in Jesus, is the light of the world; the time of his glorification was the moment of his death. It’s no different for his followers. When Jesus met his disciples after his resurrection, he told them, ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you’. To spread the good news of Jesus, to be the light of the world (to quote Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount), we have to die. Jesus’ way is the way of a Christian.

The life in a grain of wheat is barren unless it goes into the ground, where it begins to disintegrate. As it falls apart, losing its own shape and form, gradually something new sprouts and grows and breaks through the earth. In time, it forms a head that contains many more grains of wheat, each with its own life that is the life of the original grain. And when those grains go back into the earth, the process is multiplied.

That’s how Christians die and live. To live as any person’s disciple is to forsake our own lifestyle, to ‘die’ to it, and to adopt the teacher’s ways. We see this in the Gospels, where Jesus’ closest disciples were repeatedly out of step with him. They criticised those who anointed Jesus with perfume, they wanted to call down judgment fire on the towns that rejected him and they thought the coming of the Kingdom of God meant the immediate end of Roman rule. Again and again, they had to adjust and adopt Jesus’ ways of thinking and doing.

But this sort of dying to self is not at all the way of the consumer societies in which most of us live today where we're easily choked by its thorns: the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things the cares and the pleasures of life. We may not have the spiritual life choked out of us to the point of spiritual death but neither do we grow to maturity to produce a crop.

Christians are to be ‘the light of the world’ but if we're disciples in name only, not really living as Jesus taught, lost among and largely indistinguishable from the thorns growing around us and limiting our own development, then we cannot be light and we lack the lifeforce necessary to mature to produce more grain, more disciples. I want therefore to conclude this Reflection by encouraging you to take the time necessary to examine your own lifestyle, to see if your spiritual life is being choked by the environment where you live and work.

For the next month, track all the money you spend: list the payment of every bill; list every chocolate bar, magazine, coffee and snack you buy. List the cost of your food and fuel and clothes. And list your regular giving and the coins you drop into a charity box. Record every single penny and cent you spend or give away.

This exercise is what people must do to take control of their money if they’re struggling to make ends meet or already in debt. But I have a deeper reason for suggesting it, even if your income comfortably exceeds your living costs.

Tracking every penny helps to bring alive the reality of our lifestyle, especially those of us who live in a society where wealth is venerated. It reveals our true priorities and shows the gap between who we think we are and the person we actually are. It also shows the gap between who we are and who we ought to be as disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. It shows how entwined we are among the thorns!

I’ll explain what to do with the information next weekend, when we reflect on treasure in heaven.

© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.

JESUS and MONEY

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus of Nazareth

A rich young ruler approached Jesus with a profound question: What must I do to obtain eternal life? As the story is told in three of the four gospels (Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31 & Luke 18:18-30), it’s important.

I doubt it was the first time the man had asked the question or that he had ever received an answer that satisfied him. He may have taken the courage to ask again, watching Jesus’ openness and kindness in welcoming young children. He may also have heard Jesus tell the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the Temple and how the latter ‘went down to his house justified’.

Jesus gave the young ruler what was probably the same reply he had heard many times before: keep the commandments. By that, Jesus meant the Ten Commandments. The man replied that he had done that since his childhood and Jesus did not seem to doubt it. As a Jew, the man was not claiming any moral or religious perfection, free from all sin and wrongdoing, only that he had lived a sincere and devout life. Jesus then said something new, ‘But you lack one thing’, and told him to give away his wealth to the poor, so that he would have treasure in heaven, and to follow with his disciples.

I plan to look at treasure in heaven later in this series but now I want to focus on what the young man lacked. Some have assumed from Jesus’ words that he lacked poverty and have concluded that this is the preferred situation for all ‘true’ Christians. This, however, cannot be correct because the New Testament mentions rich Christians and there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that it is wrong to be wealthy (only to love wealth).

The thing the devout ruler lacked was trust: unequivocal trust in God. Jesus’ words revealed that the man’s trust in God was incomplete but he could not bring himself to complete it by transferring to God the trust he had in his inherited wealth, by giving it away.

As the rich young ruler walked away, sorrowful, Jesus told his disciples just how hard it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God: harder than for a camel to crawl through the eye of a needle! This startled the disciples. ‘Who then can be saved?’ they asked. I expect they were thinking of themselves because none of them had come from poor families. We ought to be just as startled and concerned!

By comparison with our grandparents and with most of the people living in the world today, those of us living in consumer societies are rich! We may not consider ourselves rich compared to the people we see on television and in magazines but our affluence is sufficient to occupy us with secondary things. When he don’t worry about where our next meal is coming from, we worry about how it will taste; when we have many clothes to choose from, we fret about our image; when we have too much leisure time, we strive for novelty. This keeps our perceptions anchored in the material dimension, so that we tend to think of the ‘spiritual’ as no more than an appreciation of literature, music and art. Although the ability to appreciate these things do distinguish us from animals, and is evidence of how we are created in the image of God, it's only by being ‘born again’ – or ‘born from above’, as Jesus’ words to Nicodemus could be better translated – that we are able to see and enter the spiritual dimension.

In Money and the Meaning of Life, Professor Jacob Needleman, writes, ‘Theoretically, philosophically, I may be quite willing to accept that there is a higher reality… But when it comes to money – ah, that is usually quite a different matter… Everywhere [money] is still understood, often even more forcibly than in matters of illness and death, as representing the “real world” – the “bottom line”.’ I think that describes the situation of many people today: whatever they believe about ‘God’, they are persistently distracted and kept earth-bound by the immediate demands of money and materialism. ‘Who then can be saved?’

Jesus assured his disciples that what is impossible for people is possible for God. Sometime later, they saw the truth of this when they met Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector who had prospered from the corrupt practices of his profession (see Luke 19:1-10).

As Jesus passed through Jericho, a crowd gathered. Zacchaeus was a short man who could not see what was going on and, because of his reputation, nobody would let him through to the front of the crowd. He therefore ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a tree. As Jesus passed by, he paused, looked up, and asked Zacchaeus if he could stay at his house.

We don’t know what Jesus and Zacchaeus talked about but we know the result: Zacchaeus publicly promised to give half of his possessions to the poor and to repay everyone he had cheated four times over. Did this amount to what Jesus had told the rich young ruler to do: to give away everything? I don't know but Zacchaeus was an accountant and, if he began to do his job honestly, he knew it was the end of his affluent lifestyle. He realised that money would not be nearly as important to him anymore.

Jesus’ interpretation of Zacchaeus’ commitment was, ‘Today salvation has come to this house…’ Did Zacchaeus hear what the rich young ruler had wanted to hear? If it was, it was because Zacchaeus was prepared to do what the ruler would not.

Even after people commit themselves to living as Jesus’ disciples, old ways can be difficult to shake. In the parables of the sower, Christ likened the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this world, the pleasures of life and covetousness to thorns that choke the Word of God and spiritual growth. That is the subject of next week’s Reflection.

© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.

JESUS and MONEY

I am the light of the world.

Jesus of Nazareth

After last weekend’s Reflections, it’s fair to ask, How can money have been the root of all evil? Would Lucifer have used money in eternity? Did Adam and Eve use money, even on the most literal interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis?

A tool is defined by what it does, not by what it’s called. Money is a means of valuing goods and services and of exchanging them; of getting things and getting things done. Whether people use seashells, gold coins, paper notes or computer data, it’s all money. I cannot say what Lucifer used to fulfil his ambition of autonomy and self-aggrandisement but, whatever it was, it was effective. He was realising his ambition and many angels were banished from heaven with him.

When Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, they set about fending for themselves. Generations later, Nimrod was ‘the first on earth to be a mighty man’ – a king. Nimrod means ‘to revolt’ and when Genesis says that he was ‘a mighty man before the Lord’, it does not imply he served God but quite the opposite. He gained ascendancy over his neighbours and founded a settlement called Babel where the people decided to ‘make a name for themselves’ by building a great tower high enough to reach even to heaven. That building project failed but the city continued to prosper and became Babylon. All of this was before money as we know it was invented but there nevertheless existed a means of trading and accumulating wealth that fed their ambition.

This sort of ambition had crept into the lives of the religious establishment in Jerusalem and was the basis of Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees that we reflected on last weekend. He criticised them for exalting what is an abomination before God: the love of money.

With this in mind, we look at Jesus’ great statement, ‘I am the light of the world’. When Jesus said that, he was standing in the Temple treasury. This was the place where the people bought their offerings: it was where the rich liked to impress people by giving huge sums of money and it was where, later, Jesus watched a widow throw in her last coins in dependence on God. Historians tell us the metal containers were designed in such a way that the money made a lot of noise on its way in, so that it was obvious whether someone gave much or little.

During the great religious festivals, the treasury was kept illuminated 24 hours a day. Jesus was there the day after the Feast of Booths had ended and so the lighting had been turned off when he stood there he stood to announce, ‘I am the light of the world’.

Traditionally there were two sources of light in the Temple: in the Holy Place, the light from the candlestand with seven branches where a special oil burned, symbolising the Holy Spirit; in the Holy of Holies, where God’s own glory shone between the golden angels on top of the Ark of the Covenant. But when Jesus was there, there was no divine glory in the Holy of Holies because the Ark had been taken from there a long time before. And so the most brightly lit place in the building on important occasions was the treasury.

The love money, the root of all evil, grows in dark places but when the fruit and flowers push through into the light, it’s the light of the treasury, not the glory of God from the Holy of Holies. Just as today the brightly lit shop displays tempt us to accumulate stuff we neither need nor wanted until the brightness dazzled us, so television, movies and magazines illuminate celebrity vices as if they were virtues we should all share: pride, pretention, boasting, conceit, vanity, ostentation, covetousness, extravagance, immodesty, lust, sexual immorality, innuendo, filthy language, jealousy, bravado and callous ire.

Jesus is the light of the glory of God and John wrote this about him: ‘The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.’ It's in our nature to shun the light of Jesus and it’s no wonder he said that it’s harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle, which is the subject of next weekend’s Reflection.

Postscript

Jesus is the light of the entire world, not only the Jews, and the treasury was not only a false focus in the Temple. Traders and bankers were allowed in the Gentile Court, turning into a marketplace the area where foreigners were permitted to come in their search for God. I have often wondered how much the Temple authorities charged for the market stalls.

I think the Gospels record Jesus chasing out the traders and bankers on two occasions. First, early in his public ministry, as recorded in  John 2:13-1; again, a few days before his crucifixion, as recorded in Matthew 21:12-14, Mark 11:15-17 and Luke 19:45-46. Of these, Matthew recorded something important that happened afterwards: ‘And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.’ Jesus was a light to the Gentiles and he returned the glory of God to the Gentile Court!

Revised 16 March 2014
© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.

JESUS and MONEY

Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth.

Jesus of Nazareth

After telling a story about a dishonest estate manager who conspired with his master’s debtors to reduce the amounts they owed, Jesus said, ‘Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth’ (see Luke 16). I plan to look closely at the story of the dishonest manager and Jesus’ subsequent comments in a later Reflection but now I want to focus on the phrase, ‘unrighteous wealth’. The original Greek word for ‘wealth’ could be better translated as ‘mammon’ and in last week’s Reflection I explained that mammon is money personified, money that seeks to motivate and control us.

The Pharisees probably accumulated their wealth illegally or unethically. On another occasion, Jesus accused them of devouring widows' houses, and covering it up with a pretence of long prayers, and of neglecting both justice and mercy. That sort of behaviour was bad enough. But what made their wealth profoundly unrighteous was the way they loved and used it for their own glorification. Even when they gave to the poor, they turned it into extravagant pageants. Jesus warned his followers, ‘When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do…that they may be praised by others’.

Paul of Tarsus later described the love of money as the root of all evil (see 1 Timothy 6:6-12). Although modern translations tend to dilute his warning, saying that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils, so leaving open the possibility of other roots and other evils, I think the traditional translation accurately expresses what Paul meant. We can see this when we look at the Bible’s explanation of the origin of evil.

The Jewish prophet Isaiah likened King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to Lucifer, who was once God’s favourite angel. ‘How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! … For you have said in your heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.”' (Isaiah 14:12-14).

Lucifer had it all. Or almost! But his ambition was to be like God. He did not want to be God but to be like God. He wanted autonomy and self-sufficiency; he didn’t want all that he had and enjoyed in dependence on God but with independence. He therefore fell from his exalted position and became the devil.

When the Bible explains the origin of evil in the world, it has the devil, in the guise of a serpent, tempting Eve with the same ambition: not to be God but to be like God (see Genesis 3). To some degree, that same ambition, to be like God is in all of us. This is sin at its most fundamental! It motivated Nebuchadnezzar’s grand projects to develop Babylon and his desire to conquer the holy city of Jerusalem. It was the self-sufficiency and self-fulfilment the devil sought to provoke when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness. In James’ epistle, the boasting of the businesspeople who made their plans for prosperity without reference to God is branded not just arrogant but ‘evil’!

The great tragedy of the Parable of the Prodigal Son is that neither of the brothers realised how well off they were on their father's estate. The younger took his inheritance early and went off to live independently; the elder stayed at home but saw himself more as a slave than a son. The sad truth is that we are more flawed than we like to believe and unable to see just how much God loves us; the great wonder is just how much he does love us in spite of that, as illustrated by the father in the parable. (See Luke 15:11-32.)

When Jesus told the Pharisees to use their unrighteous wealth to make friends, I do not think he meant to imply that they should continue to accumulate more, only that they should use what they already had well. How to do that is the subject of a later Reflection on what Jesus said about treasure in heaven.

Paul’s use of the metaphor, the root of all evil, is graphic. Roots usually are ugly tangles that grow underground, out of sight, from where they feed flowers and fruit that are very different. The love of money is a root that grows in our unconscious minds, out of sight and rarely thought about, that feeds our desires. We see some of its fruit and flowers in the greed, vanity, excess, pretention, ostentation, snobbery, selfishness and so many other vices that the celebrity culture admires as virtues.

I plan to explore this subject further next weekend, when we look at Jesus’ announcement, ‘I am the light of the world’. I think it’s particularly relevant that he said it while standing in the Temple treasury.

© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.