JESUS and MONEY

For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard.

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus likened the Kingdom of Heaven to many things, including seeds and banquets, but in the Parable of the Vineyard Labourers he again likened it to a business. As the parables were stories of daily life, meant to help people understand spiritual truths, they mirrored Jesus’ own understanding of how life should be lived as well as the spiritual truths he was illustrating. As the lifestyle he described is very different to contemporary society, it follows that Kingdom citizens should not think about money and use it like everyone else. If they do, it defeats their own prayers to God that, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’.

The parable is recorded in Matthew 20:1-16. The owner hired labourers at 6am, 9am, noon and 3pm. He promised to pay the first ones one denarius each for their day’s work. That was the standard living wage at the time and what reputable employers would pay. He promised to pay those he hired later ‘whatever is right’ and I expect that they anticipated receiving less than a denarius. As there were 16 assarius to one denarius, those who started at 9am would probably have expected to be paid 12 assarius; those at noon, 8 assarius; those at 3pm, 4 assarius. But at the end of the day, the vineyard owner paid them all the same: one denarius each.

Those who had begun at 6am complained about what they thought was unfair treatment by their employer. The same would probably happen today. But what does that say about our concept of fairness? The owner had promised to pay each worker what was right and he thought it right to pay each one the standard daily wage. He knew that he was being generous by society’s standards but he was ensuring the welfare of all the workers and their families, for the good of society as a whole. Whether the workers had worked twelve or three hours, they all needed the same wage to provide for their families that day.

By contrast, Jesus said that a farmer with an abundant harvest was foolish to hoard it to finance his early retirement. He should have thought about the needs of his workers, their families and the community as well his own future. In Proverbs it says, ‘The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it’. The use of the word ‘sells’ is significant: there was nothing odious in selling the abundance for profit. The farmer’s offence was not that he failed to give away the excess. What he did wrong was to hoard it in order to manipulate the marketplace for his own benefit! (See Luke 12:16-21 & Proverbs 11:26.)

In another parable, by the gate of an unnamed rich man sat a poor, sick man called Lazarus who wished to be fed by the leftover food from the rich man’s meals. I think the rich man gave Lazarus the leftover food and that's why Lazarus stayed there. Lazarus might even have been given old clothes and other bits of 'rubbish' that would otherwise have been thrown out. The rich man did not abuse, mistreat or even ignore the poor man sitting by his gate: his offence was that he didn't inconvenience himself to help but kept him at the perimeter of his estate! The two men may have been at opposite ends of the social spectrum but although they were, quite literally, neighbours the rich man did not love his neighbour as himself! I commend the entire story to you in Luke 16:19-31, as we’ll return to it in a later Reflection to consider the rich man’s future.

The responsibility to meet need extends far beyond immediate commercial interests, far beyond the needs of the workforce or even their families, to embrace the entire community. This is something the vineyard owner understood and it’s how Jesus expects his disciples to behave.

With this in mind, look at how you’ve spent you money in the past few weeks. I suggested this exercise in the Reflection posted on 28 March and the following week explained how to categorise spending under three headings: survival, lifestyle and giving. If you’ve done that, compare how much you've spent since then on lifestyle with how much you give to help poor and vulnerable people.

Please don’t interpret my point too narrowly or legalistically. Survival costs include more than just the very basic things we need to live, like food and shelter, but incudes leisure and recreation. I am not suggesting that God expects us to eat poor boring food or dress shabbily. God does not except us to live with unnecessary austerity but to maintain a degree of comfort for our families and ourselves if we’re able to. But the issue is this. When we have met our own needs, is it right to spend more on our own comfort and entertainment than helping those less fortunate than ourselves to meet their needs or to enjoy the degree of comfort that we take for granted?

St Paul understood this very well. His rationale for thieves to reform was not so they could provide honestly for their own family and relatives only but to help all people in need. ‘Let the thief no longer steal’, he wrote to the Ephesians, ‘but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.' If we fail to do this, can we claim to be loving our neighbours as ourselves? Can we pray effectively to God that his will be done, 'on earth as it is 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.

A Personal Explanation

I thought that for Easter I would interrupt the series of Reflections to give a personal word of testimony, explaining especially for new readers my background and why I write about the influence of money.

I became a Christian nearly 46 years ago. I'd been attending a youth group at a local church where each week there was a short talk about Jesus. As I lay in bed one Tuesday night near my 14th birthday, it struck me that if Jesus was really who I thought he was, that I needed to get right with him. I repented of my sin, committed to living as his disciple and then (as far as I can remember) fell asleep.

I began attending church regularly and getting involved in church activities. In time I got married, moved to the outskirts of London and had two daughters. On 19 June 1983, my family visited Westminster Chapel in central London. Dr R T Kendall, who my wife and I had first met a few years before, preached on 1 John 3:16 and it remains the sermon that has made the most impact on me, although I cannot claim to have lived up to it very well. I quote the verse as Dr Kendall did that day: ‘Hereby perceive we love because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.’

On 11 August 1996, I again visited Westminster Chapel. Dr Kendall was on vacation and the guest preacher was the Rev’d Tommy Watson. As he neared the end of his sermon, I felt an overwhelming premonition that what he was about to say would apply to me. ‘God has something you can do’, he said. ‘And by the way, perhaps you’re the only one who can do it. Or you’re the only one who God has earmarked to do the job. And if you don’t do it, it will be left undone.’

As he spoke, I was thinking, Is he really looking at me or is that a trick of the light reflecting off his glasses? Later, I concluded that it was just a trick of the light. Nevertheless, I soon began to pray about what his words might mean for me. A year later, I resigned from the civil service (government) department where I had worked for 26 years and started along the path that has led to where I am now.

As a civil servant, I'd specialised in the enforcement of court orders for debt. I continued with this specialism and after a few years it brought me into contact with a group of people who wanted to set up a charity to help people stay out of debt. I agreed to handle the administration and, unexpectedly, soon found myself visiting schools to teach 15-18 year olds personal finance skills. It was a very steep learning curve!

I wanted what I taught to be consistent with what I believed as a Christian and so began a Bible study that I doubt will ever end. Ten years later, I joined All Souls Clubhouse and it was there that I begin writing these Reflections. I don’t see myself as a minister teaching what Paul called ‘the whole counsel of God’ but as a catalyst, adding a little something to stimulate ingredients already there. Whenever I teach about money, I want people to end up thinking less about money and more about Jesus.

Jesus describes the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for possessions as thorns that choke the spiritual development of individual Christians. More recently, two subscribers to the Reflections encouraged me to think how to express this in the corporate life of the Church, the Body of Christ. I struggled with this until last Friday.

Some readers will know that I've been unwell since November and that, if I hadn’t been, it's unlikely that I would have begun the series on JESUS and MONEY. Last Friday, after nearly five months without a diagnosis, we had a breakthrough when an MRI scan revealed two problems with my spine, one in just the place to cause the various problems in my lower abdomen. As I thought on this, I wondered if it might illustrate problems in the Body of Christ.

Christ is the head of the Church – no Christian doubts that – but in a strategic place on the Church’s ‘spine’ is the influence of money, disrupting the signals from the brain, or head, and causing parts of the body to malfunction. Like the problem with my spine, the point of disruption may not be significant, or large, but strategic.

I think James saw this. He wrote the first of the New Testament epistles and addressed it not to one but to many local churches where the influence of money was causing problems. Rich Christians were indifferent to the plight of poor Christians and the poor Christians were impatient with their rich brethren. That’s why James wrote about perseverance through hardship, the barrenness of faith without works, the responsibility and humility that should accompany wealth, favouritism based on economic status, the need to control our tongues and ‘wisdom from above’ – all of which are fundamental to authentic Christian discipleship.

We all need more light on this. When I finish the current series of Reflections, I may begin a series on James’ epistle, to explore three themes. (1) How should the Body of Christ function? (2) What is the influence of money that prevents this? (3) How can we restore the Body? 

Postscript

Dr Kendall is currently teaching at Kensington Temple in London and his Sunday sermons are on preparing for Jesus’ return and the revival that will immediately precede it (he it calls, 'Isaac'). I’ve been influenced and helped by Dr Kendall's insights into this this since he first spoke about them at the Word & Spirit Conference at Wembley in 1992.

I recommend first listening to the sermons he preached at Kensington Temple on 12 May 2013 called The Midnight Cry and Staying Ready, before listening to the current series that began on 9 February 2014 with The Awakened Church. You can find them at www.kt.org/media . 

© 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

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus of Nazareth gave the above warning when he confronted the religious establishment of his day over their love of money. The ‘little’ he referred to is material wealth gained through a love of money; the ‘much’ is spiritual wealth that is, ultimately, true riches. I’ve already made the point in this series of Reflections that our attitude to money and the ways we use it are part of our character development and influence what responsibility we will have in the Kingdom of Heaven: everyone will get the responsibility they can handle. In last weekend’s Reflections, I mentioned the two parables where Jesus explained this that are recorded in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-28.

In both parables, a man going abroad gives resources to his servants. In one of the parables, three servants get different amounts, which I think refers to our individual talents and gifts; in the other, ten servants all receive one mina (or pound), which I think refers to the Gospel message we all have. On his return, the man rewards his servants with varying degrees of responsibility, based on what they did in his absence.

The parable in Matthew is the third of three illustrations in which Jesus explains the responsibilities of his followers between his ascension and return. The servant given five talents makes five more, the one given three makes three more but the servant given just one talent buries it in the ground for fear of displeasing his master. The master had distributed the talents according to each servant’s ability, so that the two who returned double did equally well but the servant who returned only the one that he’d been given was rebuked. All he had needed to do to be equally successful was to return just one more.

Jesus repeated the lesson in the parable that Luke records because his followers still thought his mission would culminate at Jerusalem with his proclamation as King and the immediate overthrow of Roman rule. Of the ten servants each given a pound (or mina), we hear only how well three of them did. One returned ten times as much and another returned five times but one of them returned to his master only the one that he’d been given. Like the servant in the other parable, he’d hidden what he’d been given and was rebuked. And he gave the same excuse: that his master was a severe man whom he feared.

In both parables, the masters turned the excuses back on their useless servants. 'I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?'

I’m sure that neither master was agreeing with his servant’s assessment but only saying that if the servants had really believed them to be severe men, they should at least have acted consistent with that belief. They should have deposited with bankers what they had been given, so their masters could have at least received interest on the money.

To invest the money like this would have been far from ideal. Interest, called usury across the ancient world and forbidden in the Torah, was widely considered immoral even where it was legal. Only severe men who hoped to reap what they had not sown took interest. But if the servants had really believed what they said about their masters, the interest would have been better than nothing at all!

Consider this. When the useless servants hid what they had been given to trade with, what did they live on? Perhaps I’m pushing my application of the parables a little too far, but I hope you will see what I’m getting at. The servants who traded presumably earned enough to live on and gave to their masters the net profit. After all, businesspeople throughout history have used some of their profit for food, housing, clothing and other living costs. But what did the servants who didn’t trade live off? Did they forget whose servants they were and hire themselves out to other masters? Did they beg?

So with us. If we don’t ‘trade’, or live, with what God has given us, what are we living on? Have we forgotten whose servants we are? If we follow the ways of society, are we actually serving money and not God?

The Sermon on the Mount describes how we love God with our whole being and love our neighbours as ourselves. But if we don’t live that way, and if we allow money a disproportionate influence in our lives, so that it distracts us from the Gospel and compromises our discipleship – what then? Are we in fact useless servants who hide what God has given us to live on?

If you’ve been tracking your spending, as I’ve described in the past two Reflections, please keep it up. I plan to explain how to use the information next weekend.

© 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

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where 

thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither 

moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus told his followers to lay up ‘treasure in heaven’, not on earth; he told a rich, young ruler to give all his wealth to the poor, so that he might have this treasure; he told a corrupt tax collector that he had found salvation when he pledged to give away most if not all his wealth by compensating the people he had cheated and giving generously to the poor. In other passages in the New Testament, the treasure is referred to as reward, true riches and receiving a prize and symbolised by crowns, sceptres and thrones. There are two key questions. 

What is treasure in heaven? In two parables, recorded in Matthew 25 and Luke 19, Jesus explained that treasure in heaven is responsibility in the Kingdom of God. In both, a man going abroad gives resources to his servants and, on his return, rewards them servants with varying degrees of responsibility, based on what they did during his absence. I plan to look at these parables more closely next weekend.

Can money buy treasure in heaven? I’ve often hear it said of money that we can’t take it with us when we die but we can send it on ahead. I know what people mean by that but I fear it may, inadvertently, create a wrong impression. Using money as Jesus described does not ‘purchase’ treasure but, like all obedience to God’s ways, it transforms people. The ‘transformed’ people get the treasure they can cope with. But if Christian lives revolve around money, God will not be able to trust those people with true riches.

I think it was a pastor in the 17th Century who likened receiving a heavenly reward to jars being filled up. Each jar is filled to the brim and it is no use the smaller jars complaining that the bigger ones get more because each is filled to its capacity. The treasure is not something we can earn but people get the maximum treasure they can accommodate.

As I wrote in a previous Reflection, I think Jesus included the passage about money in the Sermon on the Mount because he did not want his followers to be deterred from living the way he was describing by the financial implications. I invite you to re-read the entire passage: Matthew 6: 19-34.

Jesus went on say, ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!’ If our eyes are healthy, able to see the spiritual as well as the material, our bodies can be full of light; but if our eyes have been blinded by what we see around us in our capitalist, consumer society, our bodies will be full of darkness. If capitalist, consumerist ‘light’ is inside us, how great is our darkness! It’s no wonder if we cannot see where we are or know what to do about it!

Does our blindness extend to the ways that we earn money and the motivations behind our spending decisions? How vulnerable are we to concerns about our credibility and status? How important is it for us to lay up sufficient treasure on earth, so we can feel secure about our futures? How easily is our desire for ease and entertainment exploited by advertising and sales talk?

After reminding his disciples of how well God cares for flowers and birds, and assuring them that they were even more valuable to God, Jesus set out this paradigm for handling money.

1. Don’t be anxious about material things like food and clothing or, by extension, anything else that money can buy.
2. Make seeking God’s Kingdom and righteousness the sole lifestyle priority.
3. Trust God for basic needs.

Some translations say ‘give no thought’ to material needs but that goes too far: Jesus was warning against worry and fretting, not sensible forethought and planning. Jesus wants his disciples to make their lifestyle choices and daily spending decisions based on what is right, not what is cost effective. If we believe in a God who can underwrite our obedience to the way of life he wants us to live, the challenge is to live in the courage of that conviction and accumulate treasure in heaven.

With that in mind, I return to the exercise I explained at the end of last weekend’s Reflection: to record your spending for month. If you’ve begun doing that, take your spending record so far and sort everything you've bought into these categories.

(1) Survival costs. These are the things that we cannot avoid paying for and they will differ depending on where we live. They will probably include rent or mortgage, water, food, basic clothes, fuel (perhaps electricity or gas), personal hygiene (soap, toothpaste and the rest) and medication. They may include essential transport and communication (like mobile, telephone and internet access). Include any overdue bills you're repaying, and any loans or other credit repayments for survival costs you could buy outright. And, of course, include national and local taxes.

(2) Lifestyle choices. These things are not essential but they make life more pleasant for us. They include non-essential clothing, jewellery, gadgets, leisure activities and entertainment. Include any loans and other credit repayments for lifestyle costs you incurred in the past but are still paying for. I’m not suggesting that these things are unimportant, only that they are not essential to maintaining our homes and staying healthy.

(3) Giving.This includes giving to a church or charity or to any good cause or worthy person, expecting nothing - nothing at all! - in return.

You may not want to share this detailed information with anyone else but the important thing is that you know where your money goes. The reason should become clear during the next couple of Reflections.

© 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.