JESUS and MONEY

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.

Jesus of Nazareth

Last weekend we began an overview of the financial implications of the Sermon on the Mount and we come now to what I think is the most astonishing statement Jesus made.

It’s easy for those of us who are not Jews to underestimate Jesus’ words quoted at the start of this Reflection! 'The Law' was the Torah, the guidance for life: in fact, I think that 'guidance' is a better translation of 'Torah', although that still doesn't quite capture all of the original meaning. 'The Prophets' summarises the corrective guidance given by God through men and women who spoke for God when society drifted away from the Torah. Together, 'the Law and the Prophets' were the sum and summary of all the God expected of his people and it had stood unchallenged for centuries.

Generations of Jewish scholars had interpreted and applied the Torah, some even to the point where the original intention was lost, such as when they criticised Jesus for healing people on holy days. But no scholar or teacher would have ever dared to try to set it aside. For Jesus of Nazareth even to suggest that people might think that was his intention would have been seen as the most arrogant presumption!

But then, Jesus goes even further. He said that he had come to fulfil the Law and the Prophets – to fulfil everything that God expects of people! That would have sounded like the most arrogant conceit, if not blasphemy!

As we shall see during the next three weekends, Jesus came to correct what the professional scholars taught and to restore God’s ways. The Torah had originally been given by God to a people who had specifically asked him what they should do to express their gratitude to him. It was not to be taken absolutely, like most of the Pharisees applied it. This was why the writer of Psalm 119 could see personal liberty and fulfilment in keeping the Law while most of the Pharisees and scribes (religious lawyers) taught it as restrictive censorship. It is why, for example, a farmer who should not work on a Sabbath could nevertheless rescue an animal that had fallen into a ditch.

Jesus fulfilled the Law by keeping every detail of it. He did not, of course, keep it as the Pharisees understood it but as the writer of Psalm 119 understood it, as God himself intended it. Jesus did not fulfill it superficially, theoretically or ceremonially but inherently, essentially and naturally, as only God the Son, the Messiah who uniquely never sinned, could possibly do.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was teaching the lifestyle that God approves. On another occasion, Jesus explained, ‘The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works’ (John 14:10).

At the heart of the Sermon is Jesus' warning not to try to serve both God and money or to worry about the essentials of life that most people rely on money to get. We need to take that into our heart as well as our minds, to let it sink deep into our lifestyles.

Many of the Pharisees were lovers of money, in spite of being the most scrupulous observers of the Torah. Not all of them were hypocrites, however. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were sincere Pharisees and there is good reason to believe that Jesus' own brother, James, who later led the church in Jerusalem and wrote the earliest of the New Testament epistles, was also a Pharisee, although it was a long time before he accepted Jesus as Messiah!

But as Jesus explained in the Sermon on the Mount, God's people needed a quality of righteousness that exceeded even the best of the Pharisees. The key was not to be more scrupulous in their adherence to the dos and don’ts of the Torah, as if an external compliance was enough for God, or to be doubly devout in religious devotions like worship and prayer, but to absorb God's intent and principles into their lives.

In his great prayer of repentance (Psalm 51), King David acknowledged that, ‘You delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart’. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God promised to replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh: see Ezekiel 11:19 & 36:26.

This is why our attitude to money and the ways we think about it are more important than how we get it and spend it. Our lifestyle choices must be more than obeying a set of rules. ‘Do not be conformed to this world', St Paul wrote, 'but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect’ (Romans 12:2). Such a transformation is necessary if we’re truly to live rightly as Jesus disciples.

© 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 I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus of Nazareth

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ description of the sort of lifestyle that is pleasing to God. It develops his foundational principle that we should love God with our entire heart, soul, strength and mind and love our neighbours as ourselves, and it sows the seeds for everything else he taught. There may be some exceptions, but it seems to me that everything taught about lifestyle in the New Testament epistles – in passages such as Galatians 5-6, Ephesians 4-6, Colossians, Titus, James and 1 Peter – is the application of what Jesus taught in the Sermon.

Some scholars think that the Sermon was not delivered exactly as Matthew records it but that he collated things that Jesus said on different occasions. My view is that Jesus delivered the Sermon more than once and, like many preachers, said it slightly differently each time, but what Matthew records is an accurate précis of what Jesus said on one particular day.

We’ve looked at parts of the Sermon already in this series of Reflections but I think it useful to spend five weekends getting an overview and looking in particular at the financial consequences, so that we can become shrewd with money in the ways of the Kingdom of God. The quotation at the start of this Reflection expresses what Jesus was trying to impress on his disciples in the first section: that the lifestyle of his disciples is not adherence to a set of rules governing behaviour but attitudes that radiate from within to stimulate all of life.

The Sermon begins with a stunning reversal about who is society is blessed. It was as radical to Jesus original audience as it should be to us. On that hillside in Galilee, the people would have been familiar with the blessings God promised his people if they were faithful to him: ‘Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out…The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 28:3-8)

Compare that to what Jesus said. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who mourn… Blessed are the meek… Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… Blessed are the merciful… Blessed are the pure in heart… Blessed are the peacemakers… Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake... Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account…’ (Matthew 5:4-11).

Those two lists are not incompatible but they do create very different impressions and I expect that a lot of people wanted one but not the other and were unhappy with what Jesus said.

We can, for example, enjoy material blessings such as a good harvest and healthy, productive cattle, and still be poor in spirit and meek. To be fully human, our practical living and enjoyment of life must be based on spiritual insight, knowing that we do our best and use all the technical skill we have but are nevertheless dependent on God alone for the blessings. Moreover, not only can we hunger and thirst for righteousness but our abundance is the means God gives us to be righteous. But I imagine that Jesus’ words were not what many of his audience wanted to hear! Perhaps this is why Jesus immediately assured them that living this was would make them the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Salt prevents corruption and adds flavour; light exposes deceit and danger and illuminates a right, safe way forward. That is the role of Christians in every age. It may sound noble, and we might think it is a service that everyone would welcome, but it is why Christians are so very often not only out of step with the rest of society in which they live but at odds with it.

Before interpreting key sections of the Torah, Jesus warned his disciples – and the crowd around them who were listening – that their righteousness had to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were in many ways the most religious people in Israel but in sticking ‘religiously’ to the rules most of them failed utterly to please God. ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!’ Jesus said on another occasion. ‘For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.’ They made sure they gave to God one tenth of every herb they grew but they abused people terribly. They were lovers of money, as Luke records, and under cover of their religion ‘devoured widows’ houses’.

A lot of teaching about giving and stewardship by Christians that I have seen stops short at setting out principles and standards for making the most of God’s material blessings and fails to touch the deeper recesses of our avarice and covetousness. Much of this teaching is very helpful, and I have often learned a lot from it, but there is a risk that in keeping to rules that govern behaviour we might end up behaving more like the Pharisees than we would want to admit. And we would and fail to be salt and light in the world as Jesus intended. I plan to explore this further 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

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?…You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

We conclude the Reflection began four weeks ago, looking at the day Jesus confronted the Pharisees over their love of money (see Luke 14:1-17:10). The passage above, which we reflected on in detail two weekends ago, is critical to understanding everything that Jesus taught that day.

Luke continues his account with Jesus’ illustration of the consequences of loving money better than our neighbours. We’ve previously reflected on the story of Lazarus and the rich man and noted that the rich man’s offence was not ignoring Lazarus but of not inconveniencing himself to help. The two men may have come from opposite ends of the social spectrum but they were neighbours and the rich man, although he kept Lazarus alive with leftover food and other unwanted things, did not love his neighbour as himself. This had eternal consequences.

Jesus tells how both Lazarus and the rich man die but while Lazarus goes to be with Abraham in Paradise the rich man finds himself in hell (or Hades, the place of the dead, as some English Bibles translate it). But even there, the rich man was still acting like a rich man! He failed to realise that he his torment was the consequence of his own behaviour; he remains narrow-minded and still expects someone to serve him. He doesn’t ask to escape, only that Lazarus go and give him a sip of water.

In the story, Abraham represents God. The rich man asks Abraham to send someone back from the dead to warn his brothers about what awaits them. Abraham refuses: it is enough that they have ‘the law and the prophets’ – the Scriptures – he says. The rich man presses his point: they would listen to someone raised from the dead. Abraham disagrees. We now know that what Abraham says in the story is true in the real world because generations have failed to listen to Jesus of Nazareth, who did return from the dead!

Jesus closed this episode by warning his disciples – not the Pharisees, or the crowd, but those closest to him – against temptations to sin. He warns then not to put temptation before others but to rebuke and forgive those who do. We need to keep this in mind when talking to people who believe that in some way God wants all his people to be materially rich or that God will give material wealth in return for giving.While there are some teachers who are shamelessly use these arguments to excuse their love of money and enrich themselves, many are sincere Christians devoted to God and his people but wrong about this issue.

The disciples were not to be judgmental but they were not to lack good judgment. They asked Jesus to increase their faith but Jesus explains how even just a little faith will grow. The new birth that Jesus talked about, the need to be 'born again', as he explained it to Nicodemus (see John 3), is the start of new life. The difference being born again makes is not complete or manifest but it is fundamental and it will begin to make a difference to everything if it is nurtured and grows.

I don’t think it’s inappropriate to remember again the parable of the sower and the young plants that were choked by thorns, representing the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for things. Christians need to keep themselves clear of temptations and bad influences. I'm not suggesting we should refuse well-paid work, not enjoy the good things that come our way or accept hospitality from rich people but we must guard against being drawn into a way of life that will choke the spiritual life within us.

Finally, Jesus reminded his disciples that doing their duty as servants qualified them for no special privilege: ‘So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty”.’ I am reminded of St Paul writing to the church at Corinth, explaining that he preached the Gospel without taking a collection from them in order to go beyond the call from God to preach.

‘For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.’ (1 Corinthians 9:16-18.)

If more of the preachers who preach about prosperity understood that the Bible means by prosperity, they would follow Paul’s example. If more Christians were Kingdom shrew in the ways they interact with people, not shrewd in the ways of contemporary society, aspiring to lifestyles like Jesus outlined for his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, then our ability and authority to make more disciples would be greatly enhanced. Our duty is to love and serve God, not money, and to use what wealth God has entrusted to us to serve the poor and vulnerable in society.

I'm sure the corrupt Pharisees who Jesus challenged thought they were being shrewd, mixing religious devotion with their love of money. But they were actually only out for themselves, worldly wise with a religious gloss. Next weekend, I plan to begin reflecting on the financial implications of being obedient to what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, in order to see how to live shrewdly as Jesus meant his followers to be shrewd.

© 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?…You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

We continue the Reflection began three weeks ago, looking at the day Jesus confronted the Pharisees about their love of money that is recorded in Luke 14:1-17:10. The passage above, which we reflected on in detail last weekend, is central to understanding everything that Jesus taught that day.

Jesus accused those Pharisees of exalting what is an abomination to God: that is, their unrighteous mammon. Although they purported to love and serve God, they loved and accumulated material wealth – treasures on earth, not treasures in heaven. Unfortunately, a 'Christian' theology was evolved that seeks to justify the same sort of belief and behaviour today.

The meaning of the verb 'to prosper' has changed with the growth of the consumer society. It used to mean to be successful or to do well and that's the sense when it is used in the Bible. It probably derived from the idea of doing well on a trading expedition. But in the past 50 years or so has ‘to prosper’ has come to mean being rich.

John wrote, ‘Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.’ (3 John 1:2) That accurately conveys John's meaning but older translations of the Bible say, ‘I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper…even as thy soul prospereth’. But to put a modern meaning on a translation from the past, and to conclude that God wants us to be rich, is misleading.

Having said that, I want to assert that Christians don't serve a mean or miserly God and that God wants his people to do well. Even the traditional vow of poverty taken by 'spiritual' people was only to give up personal possessions and disproportionate luxury: they don’t take a vow of destitution and expect to starve! Generations of Christians have trusted God to look after them without expecting to be materially wealthy!

There are promises of having an abundance of material blessings in the Bible but they are directed to communities, not to individuals, and the wealth the people enjoyed was to be worked, not hoarded. Deuteronomy 28 is a good example of this, where God sets out comprehensively both the physical and material blessings that God has for his people who obey him and the trials and hardship that will come upon them if they disobey.

A passage in the prophecy of Malachi goes further and invites people to 'test' God on the issue. The prophet criticised people for leaving the Temple unfinished while fashioning nice homes for themselves and passed on to them God’s challenge: ‘"And thereby put me to the test", says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."’ I think this is the only place in the Bible where God invites people to test him but we have to treat the promise carefully.

In light of all this, I think it worth digressing briefly to say that generous giving does not necessarily indicate a spiritually alive church or faithful church members. It is the case, however, that poor giving does indicate a problem. Some Christians may not give generously because they are not sufficiently committed to God or do not value their church fellowship as they ought. Others may be handling their money badly, giving only a little because they are over-committed in buying lifestyle accessories or paying interest on redundant credit they cannot afford to clear. Others may genuinely be poor: not poor relative to the others in their fellowship but objectively poor and unable to pay for everything they and their family need to function in modern society where almost everything has a price tag. None of these problems should be ignored! Some of the Christians need help in rethinking their relationship with their Lord; some need to curb their desires and learn how to budget; some need practical help and be given the opportunity to be able to share in the good things their neighbours take for granted (see, for example, Acts 4:32-34).

But generous Christians are not necessarily spiritually sound Christians. Some of them may have bought into the belief that God will reward their giving exponentially with material wealth and give from what is essentially a selfish motive. Some may be trying to mitigate their guilt for a secret sin, like pornography or adultery. Some might be trying to raise their status or 'buy' influence within the church. Others may appear generous only by comparison with the rest of the fellowship and could easily give significantly more than they do. I'm not suggesting that we should be suspicious of generous Christians, only that we don't make the same mistake as the rest of the society by reading too much into the wealth and perceived generosity.

When Jesus likened the Pharisees who confronted him to men who divorce their wives to marry their mistresses, he hadn’t changed the subject. To think that he decided to insert some teaching about marriage into the discussion of money is to to miss his point entirely.

The Hebrew word for adultery and fornication is used about 100 times in the Old Testament but in over half the passages it refers to spiritual, not sexual, sin. Often, this spiritual adultery had a financial motive. Read Psalm 72. The King James (or Authorised) Version of verse 27 has ‘all them that go a whoring from thee’ but it has nothing to do with sex because the entire Psalm is about people who prosper in spite of their wickedness.

Jeremiah had previously used the metaphor of adultery to expresses God’s astonishment at Israel’s greed (see Jeremiah 2-3). James was later to use it in his letter, calling his readers an ‘adulterous people’ as he dealt with the disloyalty, divisions and discord in churches caused by financial sin.

This way of thinking about disloyalty to God is the consequence of the image of believers as being married to God. This relationship was implied in the Old Testament but is clear in the New Testament, where the church is described as the bride of Christ. The use of such a strong metaphor as adultery is why Jesus said, ‘You cannot serve both God and mammon’. And yet if we see financial riches as a blessing that God wishes for all his people or as a reward for faithfulness, we may well be guilt by making the same mistake as the Pharisees and exalt what God sees as an abomination!

Not all the Pharisees who Jesus met were pious hypocrites, trying the fleece the people of God. Some were devout and sincere but mistaken. It should be a warning to all of us not to blindly accept the standards of behaviour in society or in our local church, not to be complacent about our own giving or our generosity.
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http://www.kt.org/rss/mp3/kt_2568_201405131413.mp3

Can I encourage you to follow this link and listen to a sermon preached by Dr Kendall at Kensington Temple in London last month about the last days revival he expects. Dr Kendall was my pastor during the five years I attended Westminster Chapel in London, although I had been learning from him for 20 years before that and have continued to since he retired in 2002; he is the minister who has most influenced my theology and thinking. The link should take you straight to the MP3 recording of the sermon or you can watch the video on Kensington Temple’s media page.

© 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?…You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

I continue the theme from last weekend, reflecting on the day Jesus confronted the Pharisees over their love of money that’s recorded in Luke 14:1-17:10. After criticising the Pharisees' elitism, Jesus explained that his own disciples needed to put his mission ahead of their own families and to take up their own crosses. We know from what he said on other occasions, and from the apostles’ letters preserved for us in the New Testament, that Jesus wasn’t suggesting that Christians neglect their families. He was only setting priorities. As he put it in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’

Jesus illustrated his own commitment with parables about a man planning to build a tower and a king contemplating war. ‘So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.’ He then repeated an illustration from the Sermon on the Mount, likening his followers to salt.

The level of commitment Jesus described requires his followers to renounce their own preferred lifestyles, setting aside their own agendas and adopting his. Only by doing that, could they truly be Jesus’ disciples and expect to fulfil the function of salt in the world: preserving and seasoning. Central to it all was a right attitude about money, the thing that most people rely on to meet their needs and fulfil their ambition.

Jesus’ behaviour and teaching attracted the particular attention of the ‘tax collectors and sinners’, the very people that the Pharisees looked down on. This annoyed the Pharisees. In fact, their criticism that he ate with them suggests that he left the Pharisee's banquet without eating anything and accepted more ordinary hospitality somewhere else!

In response, Jesus used three parables to explain how he was seeking to redeem all people: a shepherd seeking a lost sheep, a woman looking for a lost coin and a father yearning for his son who had left home. Crucially, Jesus was reaching out not just to the acknowledged sinners, like the prodigal son, but to the Pharisees also, symbolised in the third parable by the elder brother who stayed at home serving his father.

Jesus then told the Parable of the Dishonest Manager to explain that his followers should be wise when dealing with people but not wise in the ways of society, not worldly wise. Rather, we should be shrewd (or wise) in the ways of the Kingdom of God – Kingdom shrewd. And the way his followers used money was decisive. We’ve reflected on the parable before but now we consider the Jesus explanation of its relevance, which is the passage at the start of today’s Reflection, Luke 16:10-13.

The idea that someone who is ‘dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much’ is alien to many people today. For a man or woman to be unfaithful and dishonest in their private lives no longer disqualifies them from responsible positions working in public service or business. In fact, getting away with minor acts of dishonesty often distinguish them as ‘streetwise’, like the dishonest manager in Jesus’ parable who was commended by his master. People who refuse to exaggerate credit applications, make bogus insurance claims, avoid responsibility for debt or evade taxes are often seen as too naive to be of use.

Integrity matters to Jesus. The ‘little’ in the passage is ‘unrighteous wealth’. As we seen previously in this series, the accurate translation for ‘wealth’ is mammon. Not all wealth is unrighteous but what makes any wealth unrighteous is a love that spurs people to accumulate it. The ‘much’ that Jesus referred to is true riches, the ‘treasure in heaven’ that is responsibility in the Kingdom of God. It doesn’t take much to see that alongside such responsibility, all the material wealth in creation is ‘little’!

If Christians are not faithful in the ‘little’ material wealth they have been entrusted with, they cannot expect to be given responsibility in the Kingdom. The Pharisees ridiculed Jesus for saying this. Jesus responded, ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.’ How vulnerable are we to having our own priorities compromised by contemporary social values?

It's a mistake to think that treasure in heaven, or responsibility in the Kingdom of God, is an inheritance that awaits us in a future beyond the grave. It's available to us here and now, in this life. It works like this. The heir to a great fortune who will inherit when he or she reaches a certain age nevertheless lives off the wealth until then. Enough money is released from the estate to pay bills and give the heir a allowance. It’s a like that for Christians. Our treasure in heaven is accumulated for our future but we can receive enough now to live on in this life, in the here and now. It's like the pounds and talents Jesus mentioned in other parables, entrusted to servants to trade with while their masters were away.

In my experience, more Christians trust God to take care of them beyond the grave, assuring them of forgiveness, escaping hell and eternity in heaven, than trust him to provide all they need for the life they live until then. Routine things like food, clothes, housing, essential travel and some fellowship with others. While many seem to trust God to provide the money they need (or think they need) for these things, few seem to simply trust him! Rather than have the 'much' to trade with, they disqualify themselves by occupying themselves with the 'little'! I believe this is why it is so easy for people to dismiss the Gospel. Isn't it time for Christians to be Kingdom shrewd, not worldly wise, not shrewd in the ways of society?

© 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?...
You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

In this and the next three Reflections, I want to look at a day in Jesus’ ministry that we’ve already touched on a number of times in this series. By taking some time to get a broad overview of the events that day, we can usefully tie together concepts and the dangers money presents in the context of what Paul called ‘the whole counsel of God’.

The day is the Sabbath when Jesus confronted the religious establishment about its love of money: the events were recorded by St Luke in his Gospel, starting at chapter 14 and ending in chapter 17 at verse 10. The quotation at the start of this Reflection is core to understanding everything Jesus taught but I’ll leave the analysis of it until we arrive at it as we go through the day chronologically.

Many of the Pharisees who met Jesus were religious hypocrites. They purported to love God but they loved money and served their own interests. They were the elite, the ‘establishment’ of their time, and they wanted to preserve their superiority. Their origin is not entirely clear but the movement seems to have been formed during the Maccabean Revolt of about 400 years earlier, when they were a group especially devoted to keeping the Torah, the ‘Old Testament’ law.

Not all of the Pharisees that Jesus met were corrupt but their way of life had been corrupted and by reflecting on what Jesus told them we hold up a mirror to our own lives. If might prove to be uncomfortable but it cannot be a bad thing to see if our way of life may have been corrupted by the same sorts of theological sophistication as their's had been.

The difficulties started that day when Jesus was invited to a meal at the home of a ruling Pharisee. The invitation was a set up. It was the Sabbath, there was a sick man present and everyone watched to see if Jesus would heal him. The sick man was not someone who would normally have been invited and, according to the Pharisees, it would be a sin for Jesus to heal the man because, they said, it would be work that was forbidden on a Sabbath. Jesus dealt with the theology head on by asserting the compassion of God:;he healed the man and sent him away.

Jesus then criticised the other guests for their pride in wanting to sit in the places of honour: ‘For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’ He then criticised his host for only inviting people who could return the hospitality rather than people who were poor, sick or disabled and needed help: ‘You will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’ He then told the Parable of the Great Banquet, to explain how the privileged that were complacent about their place in the Kingdom of God would be excluded from it but the poor, sick and disabled would be welcome. By the time he left, a crowd of onlookers had gathered.

The Pharisees’ wealth should have been their opportunity to help people less well off than themselves. As St John later wrote, 'If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?' (1 John 3:17). But it was the love of money, not the love of God, that ruled the hearts of many Pharisees. Notwithstanding their devotion to the Torah, they understood neither it nor the God who had given it to Moses. They sought to assert their theological superiority at the expense of a sick man and to promote themselves in public. In this, they followed in the footsteps of Lucifer, who worked for his own self-aggrandisement. This is why, on another occasion Jesus told them, ‘You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires’.

By contrast, we should reflect on Jesus’ own attitude, as described by Paul in his letter to the church at Philiippi. Jesus did not consider it necessary to cling to the privileges of Godhead but he took a downward course to help people who could not help themselves.

‘Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ (Philippians 2:3-11)

Jesus did not stop being God when he was conceived as a human male in the womb of Mary; he only gave up his privileges as God. In response, the Father ‘highly exalted him’. God did for Jesus, who humbled himself, the very thing that Lucifer wanted when he began to promote himself! It is shrewd - Kingdom shrewd, not shrewd in the ways of society - for God's people today to follow Jesus' example of humility rather than the Pharisees' self-promotion.

© 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

Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.

Jesus of Nazareth

The quotation at the start of today’s Reflections is Luke 6:30, a passage that some scholars think is an alternative version of the Sermon on the Mount recorded by Matthew. I think it probably records a different occasion because Jesus, like all teachers, said the same things in slightly different ways many times. The passage quoted, however, goes a step further than the similar saying that we reflected on last weekend. Not only are we to give or lend to anyone who asks but we’re not even to try to get back the goods that are taken from us. Or are we?

If someone steals our wallet or purse, hacks into our bank account, or steals our identity to get credit in our name, should we be content with our loss and make no effort to recover our possessions? Again, like the passage we looked at last weekend, I don’t think Paul is talking about illegality or criminality.

A passage I have always found challenging is where the writer of Hebrews encourages his readers by reminding them of the persecution they had suffered in the past: ‘[You] joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one’. Please note the word 'joyfully'! This, in turn, reminds me of what James wrote: ‘Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (See Hebrews 10:34 & James 1:2-4.)

This joy is a consequence of being Kingdom shrewd! But there's another, potentially even more challenging, situation where it is shrewd for Christians to endure being unfairly deprived or cheated.

Jesus not only wanted his followers to love God with their entire being, their neighbours as themselves and their enemies as their neighbours, he said that it would be by his followers’ love for one another that people would be able to distinguish them from the rest of society. ‘A new commandment I give to you’ he said, ’that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another…’ (see John 13:34-35). Jesus implication was clear. Claims of allegiance and devotion, and even right theology, are inadequate to distinguish true Christians from the rest of society. Only Christians' love for each other can do that!

In Corinth, the lack of love among the Christians was very public. Paul criticised the way they met together to remember Jesus in what we now call the Lord’s Supper (or Holy Communion, Eucharist or Mass). It seems that those who arrived first ate and drank all they wanted, leaving nothing for those who arrived later. This reflected the social divide: the richer Christians arriving first but those who had to work longer hours, like servants and slaves, arriving later. As a result, ‘one goes hungry, another gets drunk’! Paul put it bluntly that such behaviour despised the church and humiliated those who had nothing! (See 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.)

Paul also criticised the way the Christian businessmen took each other to court (1 Corinthians 6:1-11). This was not to resolve genuine disputes in areas of legitimate differences of opinion but to expose publically one another’s cheating! The advice he gave was probably hard to swallow. ‘Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?’ (See 1 Corinthians 6:1-11)

Why not be defrauded? To pursue a court case meant that all of society knew how dishonest the Christians were. It must have completely undermined their witness! In recommending that someone within the church should be able to resolve the dispute, Paul was not concerned only that they should keep their dishonesty out of the public gaze but he wanted them to deal radically with the dishonesty.

In the previous passage, Paul had explained that the Christians were not to associate with people who called themselves Christian (and may have genuinely been Christian, as to their theology and belief) but who didn’t live the sort of life that Jesus described. He put it like this in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.

‘I wrote to you in my [previous] letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler – not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."’

The original Greek word translated ‘greed’ in the above quotation means covetous: a person who loves to accumulate possessions. It means this also in the passage where Paul went on to explain that Christians who behaved like that risked their treasure in heaven, their inheritance in the Kingdom of God.

‘Do you not know’, Paul wrote, ’that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.’

Rather than try to recover their loss in the courts, it was better for the Christians to suffer loss and to disassociate themselves from the Christians who behaved so very badly that it brought the entire church into disrepute and undermined its witness.

While we might maintain our self-control when our goods are taken unfairly, would it stimulate our joy? Would we be truly thankful for how the experience aids our spiritual development? Would we be more concerned for the Church's witness than our own possessions? Would we be clearly focused on our treasure in heaven? I realise this attitude is easier taught than practised but it's all part of being Kingdom shrewd!

© 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.