JESUS and MONEY

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead… [who] said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water’.Another angel, a second, followed, saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great…’And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath… and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image… 

The Revelation of Jesus to John

The last book in the Bible is, ‘The revelation of Jesus Christ’, a series of visions given to John revealing the true nature of things in the world and how they will climax. I’ve written about some of this in ‘Babylon and the Beast’ and ‘Sooner or Later’ but in this Reflection I want to briefly consider three elements: Babylon, the Beast that it’s riding and the Mark of the Beast.

Babylon is a global financial system that’s mentioned a few times in Revelation (including the above excerpt from chapter 14) before an angel invites John to take a close look, which he describes in chapters 17:1-19:5. Babylon started as Babel, a settlement on the River Euphrates, where people tried to make a name for themselves by building a great tower that would reach as high as heaven (Genesis 11). God halted that ambition but Babel prospered and grew into Babylon. Although it never quite achieved the distinction its founders hoped, Babylon came to symbolise humankind’s desire for material wealth.

It was from Ur, a city in Babylonia, that God called Abraham to the land that would become Israel and it was back to this area that the Israelites were taken in captivity centuries later. Isaiah foresaw the fall of Babylon in such detail that many scholars refuse to believe it was written before the event (Isaiah 13-14). Jeremiah also foresaw Babylon’s destruction: his prophecy was read by the Israeli captives and then sunk in the river to symbolise the completeness of the city’s annihilation (Jeremiah 50-51). Babylon was in decline when Alexander the Great arrived there in BC 331, intending to make it the capital of both Asia and Europe, but his plan died with him. So complete was Babylon’s eventual ruin that for centuries nobody could tell where it had been. Today Babylon is a museum city south of Baghdad.

Ancient Babylon was a difficult place to leave. When Abraham began his journey, he got only so far as Haran, a settlement on the edge of Babylonia named after Abraham's deceased brother. It wasn’t until Abraham's father, Terah, died that Abraham left Babylonia entirely. I infer from Genesis 11:27-12:3 that the opportunity to settle and trade in Haran interrupted Abraham's obedience to God's call.

Generations later, when the Israelites captives were allowed to leave Babylon and return home, only a small minority did. They hadn’t abandoned their religion but were content in Babylon. In Babylon they had prospered and I expect they thought that they had too much to lose by leaving. When Ezra led a second group of exiles home (Ezra 8), at first no Levites wanted to go. In Babylon, they had prospered like everyone else; in Israel, they would have to devote themselves to the Temple

The Babylon we read about in Revelation is a global trading empire that buys and sells not just in luxury goods but also in the bodies and souls of people (Revelation 18:11-13). Scholars used to think this was a reference to the slave trade but today we can see how psychology has empowered marketing to enslave people’s souls, not just their physical bodies, the ‘real’ person inside. Babylon moulds people's personalities, character, values and choices. This Babylon is, not surprisingly, a haven for terrible evil, ‘a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast’ (Revelation 18:2).

Revelation illustrates the fall of this Babylon in three ways: it’s given ‘the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath’ as judgment for its evil (chapter 16:19); an angel hurls it like a stone into the sea, symbolising the totality of its fall (18:21); ten kings ‘make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire’ (17:16-17). The third perspective implies imply that national governments exploit Babylon to the point of destruction, although later it becomes clear that this was an unintended consequence of their actions and they join the merchants in bewailing Babylon’s fall (18:9-10).

John hears God calling his people out of Revelation’s Babylon before it falls. ‘Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities…”’ (Revelation 18:4-5). But even more surprising than God’s warning is that his people need to hear it! How could they tolerate being in such a wicked place?

I think that so many generations of Christians have grown up in a capitalist, consumer society that we fail to see it as it really is. We fail to see the evil that decisions based on money, not people, can cause and therefore have everything to lose. Abraham would have lost everything by staying at Haran on the edgeof Babylonia. The Israelites who stayed in ancient Babylon would have lost everything during its decline and fall. In Revelation, God’s people who remain in Babylon lose everything when it falls. Then something even worse awaits them!

If human government were to bring about the fall of the global trading system, perhaps in their efforts to curb the worst excesses of avarice and coveteousness, so that market forces are no longer sovereign, something like the Mark of the Beast would be necessary to regulate the use of money. When I was young, many thought the Mark would be a tattoo on a person’s forehead or wrist; as I got older, they thought it would be a microchip planted beneath a person’s skin. I don’t know what it will be but, whatever the Mark is, it will be clear who has it because without it nobody - small or great, rich or poor, slave or free - will be able to buy or sell.

The final part of the third angel’s warning is chilling: the people who take the Mark, ‘have no rest, day or night’. This the persistent restlessness of the people caught up in a materialist, capitalist, consumer society where nothing can stay the same, where contentment and satisfaction are constantly undermined to provoke us into buying what we neither need nor previously wanted.

By contrast, Jesus offers us rest. Rest for our souls. Next weekend, I will draw to a close this series on what Jesus taught about money with the first of two Reflections on his invitation to rest.

© 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 know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer…

Jesus of Nazareth

Last weekend, we reflected on the last of the letters from Jesus to seven churches. Those letters are at the start of Revelation – ‘The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place’. That last letter was to the church at Laodicea where the Christians thought they were rich but Jesus told them they were destitute.

One of the other letters that Jesus dictated at the same time was to Smyrna (Revelation 2: 8-11), where they had the opposite problem. The Christians thought they were poor but Jesus told them they were rich. Jesus knew very well the hardships they faced in their everyday lives for no other reason than that they were his disciples and the poverty that resulted. The city was famous as a centre for the imperial cult, the worship of Caesar as divine, so if the Christians refused to publicly declare that ‘Caesar is god’ they were pushed to the very fringes of society. Ostracised socially, they had great difficulty trading and finding work.

Jesus didn’t explain to the Christians why they were rich. He didn’t need to! Their perseverance under persecution was accumulating treasure in heaven, their inheritance in the Kingdom of God, which they would have been drawing on daily to survive the economic pressures. They would have realised well enough that unless God had have been meeting their needs, as Jesus had promised he would in the Sermon on the Mount, they would have already died of poverty. They were a living testimony of God’s care.

What Jesus does, however, is to prepare them for worse to come! ‘Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.’

The letter should be warning to all churches today, if the events that Jesus revealed in Revelation continue to come to pass. The visions included a terrible beast that represents world government or governments that mediate their rule through false religion. They are the beast rising up from the sea and the beast from the land described in Revelation 13. The beast from the sea is given authority by the dragon that in the visions represent the devil. ‘And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain’ (Revelation 13:5-8).

This beast is often called the Antichrist, because of what John wrote in his letters. Four things that John tells us about this beast are that it is vainly blasphemous, that it was allowed by God to rule for a limited time (42 months), that everyone worshipped it except faithful Christians and that it was allowed to conquer Christians (‘the saints’). It follows that the 'last days' revival that comes immediately before Jesus returns will be amidst terrible persecution, something like the situation at Smyrna!

A Laodicea-type church would be totally unprepared for persecution but it wouldn't take much to turn it into a Smyrna-type church! Only the first signs of disfavour, something that most people would consider to be fair in a multicultural society.

In some capitalist societies, many churches enjoy significant tax breaks without which they would not remain solvent. I can only talk about the situation in the UK but I expect that it’s similar elsewhere. Some churches don't need to register as charities, others do, but they all opt for charitable status only for the financial benefits. They can reclaim the income tax paid on donations they receive, increasing the amount by about one-fifth. They pay significantly less property taxes and in some circumstances can reclaim sales tax. For this to change wouldn’t take even the first hint of Antichrist-type persecution, only further secularisation of society and for churches to be treated like clubs.

I doubt few church leaders would look on this as God's judgement but it would be the culmination of decades of churches putting mammon close enough to God for it to influence their allegiance. Where churches want tax breaks, they have to comply with the rules that governs secular charities which, on the whole, require business-like behaviour. Although the thirst for profit is moderated, these churches nevertheless have to subject whatever mission they think God is calling them to do to financial criteria. I recall listening to the leaders of a local church explaining to the staff why they couldn't do something that the church could very well afford to do because of the need to comply with charity law. It struck me how the employees thought they worked for a church but they actually worked for a charity.

Speaking personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see the end of tax breaks within the next few years. I was already thinking this way when a couple of months ago a friend mentioned to me how churches register as charities and have to operate like businesses; a little later, unconnected to that, I read that an acquaintance who ministers in America had also foreseen the impact an end of tax breaks would have.

Next weekend, I propose to reflect on what Jesus revealed in Revelation about 'Mystery Babylon', the global financial system that dominates the world before his return.

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© 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

For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Jesus of Nazareth

The last book in the Bible is called Revelation because it opens with the words, ‘The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place’. An older name for the book is Apocalypse, a word that today is associated with catastrophe but really means an unveiling or the discovery of something mysterious. What is the mystery? It’s how creation operates and Jesus Christ’s role uniting together all things in heaven and earth; it draws back the curtain to reveal what’s ‘behind the scenes’ and show how events will ultimately pan out. I’ve written about this in the series of Reflections called ‘Babylon and the Beast’ and the relevance to us today in ‘Sooner or Later’.

The book is not, as some people call it, the Revelation of John, although he was the person Jesus entrusted it to. I believe it was what John saw in these visions that prompted him to write his Gospel, preserving important information about Jesus that was at risk of being lost as the Church drifted away from the true faith.

I think this view is substantiated by the things written in Jesus’ letters to seven churches at the start of Revelation. One interpretation of these is that they represent seven phases of church history, with the church at Laodicea being representative of churches in the days immediately before Jesus returns. I think there is merit in this understanding, although I’m also sure that those seven churches are also representative of churches that have existed in various places at various times in the past 2,000 years. But, as the English saying goes, ‘If the cap fits, wear it’. Whether you believe that Laodicea represents the very last days or not, and whether or not you think we are living in those last days, it’s a sad fact that there are many churches today just like the group of Christians at Laodicea who received the original letter.

The quotation at the start of this Reflection is remarkable! It’s not possible that someone who is ‘wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked’ could believe themself to be prosperous, needing nothing. I’ve done only a little work among people who are homeless but I’ve met a few who like their way of life and don’t want a permanent home. But, as content as they are, they don’t kid themselves that they are materially rich!

But while such complete self-delusion isn’t possible for people it is, sadly, possible for churches. The Christians at Laodicea thought they were rich because they had accumulated material wealth: they had treasures on earth but none in heaven. And so, in Jesus’ eyes, they were not just poor but destitute.

How true is that of Christians and churches today? There’s nothing at all wrong in owning good, comfortable buildings that people find welcoming; nothing wrong in owning vehicles to help get people to and from meetings and so they can enjoy days out together; nothing wrong with seeker-friendly messages that people who have never before been to church can understand and social networks to help them feel welcome. All these things are good and helpful. But if the teaching is shallow or is compromised in order to keep people coming, so that Christians are not encouraged to live as disciples, adopting the lifestyle Jesus described, then it’s all only treasure on earth.

One aspect of modern evangelism that perturbs me is the guidance often given to people who turn to Christ. They are (quite rightly) encouraged to put aside time each day to read the Bible and pray, to attend services regularly and to give financially to support their churches. They may also be encouraged to get involved with church activities, such as youth groups and lunch clubs for older people. All these things are right and good. But, if the person’s lifestyle is left otherwise unchanged, so that the ways they get and use money continue as before, unexamined and unsanctified, then they cannot really be considered to be disciples. At best, they continue to accumulate treasure on earth.

I expect this was something like the situation in Laodicea. Their spiritual life was lukewarm, neither discipleship nor licentiousness, superficially respectable but profoundly negligent. They were so complacently self-satisfied that Jesus wanted to 'spit you out of my mouth'. I think it's going too far to say that Jesus probably prefers sincere atheists to undiscipled Christians (as some preachers do) but this sounds even worse than the judgement on the five foolish virgins in the parable who heard him say that he never knew them!

Jesus’ advice was ‘to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see’. How do we buy from Jesus? By living as he described, not influenced by the financial cost or consequences, but faithfully using money in the ways that he said are important.

Gold is a symbol of persistent faith, making the hard lifestyle choices that cost us money, both refusing to earn it in a way that compromises our allegiance to the lifestyle Jesus taught and spending it in ways that he wouldn’t approve of. White clothes illustrate sanctified lifestyle, a seeking the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness above all other priorities. Ointment is a form of healing oil representing the Holy Spirit, the only way to leave behind the ways of capitalism and consumerism, to heal the mental and emotional wounds it inflicts and to live in healthy discipleship. To those who do this, Jesus promises fellowship and responsibility in the Kingdom:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.

© 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

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Jesus of Nazareth

We all know that the statement at the start of this Reflection is not entirely true - at least, that's the way it seems when we take it out of it's context, out of the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve all prayed for something and not received it. And we concoct all sorts of reasons to explain why God doesn’t give what’s wanted, whether it’s a child's request for an unsuitable Christmas present or experienced intercessors seeking physical healing for a devoted Christian.

One reason (but not the only reason) for unanswered prayer is given by James in his letter to feuding Christians. ‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions’. We ought to spend a moment on this because it illuminates some of the financial implications of the Sermon on the Mount.

James wrote to churches to deal with the problems that existed between rich and poor Christians. The rich were indifferent to the needs of the poor and the poor were impatient with the rich for their indifference. ‘What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?’ James writes. 'Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?’ (James 4:1-4).

Did James refer to literal murder? I think so, although not a legal liability for murder. I think the ‘murder’ he had in mind was the result of the indifference of rich Christians who ‘let nature take its course’. This was a failure both to love their fellow Christians in a way that would distinguish them as true disciples of Jesus and of the more general responsibility to love their neighbours as themselves. They were, instead, governed by the same attitude towards money, even to the point of withholding their employees' wages! They had the same desires for wealth and possessions, the same pride and jealousy and covetousness as everyone else in society. They enjoyed their, 'adultery' - their unfaithfulness to God, their 'friendship with the world'

Unfortunately, it seems to me to be no better today. The collections taken at most churches, and the problems that many church leaders have to 'make ends meet', is evidence that most Christians are not as generous as Jesus expected. Worse, I've come across Christians whose business tactics have been no better than the most unscrupulous non-believers. Exaggeration, evasiveness and embellishment that a previous generation would have called lying have not been uncommon. One Christian even said to me that if what he did wasn't illegal, it couldn't be sinful!

We’ve reflected on Jesus paradigm for handling money earlier in this series: to use it as a tool without letting it influence us; not worrying about our daily needs, such as food and clothing, but relying on God to provide. We should not let the financial consequences prevent us from living as Jesus described. 'The Lord is at hand', St Paul wrote. 'Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.' (Philippians 4:5-6). It's only when we do live this way, depending on God and not money, that we can depend on the promise at the start of this Reflection and be able to say with Paul, 'I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me'. Take some time this weekend to reflect on what Philippians 4:4-13 and Hebrews 13:5-6 say about contentment.

I think one reason that Jesus then included a warning against judgementalism in the Sermon was to deter his disciples from trying to impose their personal standards of behaviour on each other: how much to spend on clothes, cars and leisure activities, for example. This again takes us back to James’ letter. It would seem that although the rich Christians were clearly in the wrong, the thrust of much of James’ criticism was that the poor were just as wrong in their judgementalism - in judging them out of a spirit of bitterness and frustration rather than out of compassion. That’s why he warned about taming their tongues, exercising wisdom from above and, at the end of the letter, bringing back sinners from their wanderings.

Finally, Jesus again warns against superficial discipleship, one that professes allegiance and may even demonstrate correct understanding - what we might today consider to be orthodoxy. Like many of the Pharisees, we can build fine reputations on sand and end up strangers to Jesus, eventually hearing from him that he never knew us, in spite of our preaching, prophesying and even miracles. 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments', Jesus said (John 14:15). If we don't love him, we can't expect his intimacy!

When our lives are built on the attitudes and ways of the societies in which we live, relying on money rather than God just like everyone else, we are, inadvertently perhaps, serving money while claiming to serve God. Just like many of the Pharisees. And like them, we have everything - quite literally, everything - to lose. But living as Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount is to accumulate treasures in heaven, true wealth for eternity that can never be taken from us and which we can draw upon right now.

© 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

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.

Jesus of Nazareth

Last weekend, we reflected on what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount about his disciples' relationships with each other. He went on to describe how we are to relate to a wide circle of people. This is how Christians are to live shrewdly by the ways of the Kingdom of God, not the ways of the societies in which we live. It is what it takes to be 'Kingdom shrewd'.

There are various ways to unpack what Jesus taught but I find this division helpful when reflecting on the financial implications: sex (Matthew 5:27-32), integrity (Matthew 5:33-37), unreasonableness (Matthew 5:38-42), rivals (Matthew 5:43-48) and good works (Matthew 6:1-4). This Reflection can only be a brief overview but I hope that it encourages you to re-read the Sermon.

Sex. Christians tend to think they do well guarding against society’s attitudes to sex but in my experience that usually applies only to the more visible, undeniable acts, like prostitution and adultery. Secret behaviour tends to be ignored as readily as avarice and covetousness. Although in this passage (Matthew 5:27-32) Jesus is talking primarily about faithfulness in marriage, it has implications for people who are not married.

We live in a society where lust is a primary means of selling goods and services and this reaches deep into our unconscious minds. It is much more subtle than marketing images of glamorous, charismatic men and women . The consumer society actively provokes dissatisfaction to provoke and entice us to buy what we think we need to make our lives better. The unnatural preoccupation with body shape, for example, exploits the natural desire to be accepted, liked and satisfied. Sex is demoted to a pleasure as accessible as alcohol or drugs and, on the whole, with no greater stigma and no 'hangover'. The illusions of happy families are crafted to manipulate people into buying the household items, cars and holidays that will make their families appreciate them more. 

Integrity. When Jesus says, ‘Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil’, he’s going beyond any sense of superficial honesty. After Immanuel Kant persuaded people that it's better to maintain a commitment to the truth rather than to lie in a worthwhile cause, we’ve started to believe that to mislead with the truth (or partial truth) is not somehow dishonest. I'm sure it isn't what Kant intended but today we blag, distract, trick, mislead, misdirect, distort, evade, fabricate, exaggerate and embellish but we do not lie.

Unreasonableness. Just as he had told his disciples not to respond to each other in anger, so Jesus now tells us to show the same restraint to anyone else who insults or abuses us. He is not, as we have seen in previous Reflections, advocating passivity but ingenuity in the face of abuse. He's not suggesting that we accept all ‘legal’ injustices, only that we act more creatively than to ‘fight fire with fire’ and stay true to his way of life.

Rivals. Jesus’ comments on abuse lead into the obligation to love our enemies but 'rival' is a better word to use today to identify the unscrupulous business rivals, devious work colleagues and difficult neighbours we all have to live with from time to time. Jesus' way shouldn't expose us to preventable fraud or other harm, for we need to be real about the motives of people who use and abuse us, but like the Samaritan who helped the injured Jew, we must help when a need is clear.

Good works. Jesus saw the importance of doing good discretely and not for public display. If we do seek to impress others, like many of the Pharisees did when donating to the Temple, then the public acclaim may be all the reward we get and we miss the opportunity to accumulate treasure in heaven.

After teaching about prayer and expressing our dependence on God alone, Jesus then gets to the issue of trust and the quotation at the start of this Reflection. Do we rely on God or money to meet our daily needs and to fulfil our ambitions for the future? Do we serve God in the ways we live or do we, in fact, serve money because earning it is our unconscious lifestyle priority? Do we spend to 'keep up' with others, to remain one of the 'in crowd' or to bolster our own ego? Do we find ourselves doing righteousness, as Jesus described it, only when we think we can sustain the financial cost?

Treasure in heaven is responsibility in the Kingdom of God and Christians who are shrewd realise they can’t accumulate both that and treasure on earth. The choice is unavoidable.

© 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.