Money, Possessions & Eternity (v)
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.
(Luke 12:33)
Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
(Eph.4:28)
The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.
(Mark 12:39-41)
One of the most scathing insights we get into the heart of the Pharisee is the simple statement that they loved money (Lk.16:14). It caused them to ‘sneer’ when Jesus taught that ‘You cannot serve both God and money’, and they remain a standing testimony that the closest you can get is to love money and be very religious. Which isn’t the same thing. Fastidious in their Bible Study, and ostentatious in their observation of the religious rules and worship, they were seen as the epitome of morality. They were also chastised by Jesus as blind guides, hypocrites, and condemned to hell (see Matt.23 for a longer list). Their religiosity doesn’t stop them exploiting the poor, for which they ‘will be punished most severely’ (Mk.12:40). Yet, I’m quietly confident that if you had asked an average Pharisee about their relationship with money they would have been equally confident that it was ‘godly’. They tithed everything, but were ‘full of greed and self-indulgence’ (Matt.23:25); and in retrospect it might not be coincidence that it was after telling the parable of the workers in the vineyard, that Jesus went on to prophecy that ‘the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law’ (Matt.20:1-19).
Or perhaps even closer to home is the example of Judas. Counted by many as a disciple of Jesus, indeed as one of the disciples, Judas was involved in mission and miracles, heard the teaching of Jesus, shared life with Him, and in the end, he betrayed Him. There have been many theories as to why, including the idea that he simply misjudged the politics of Jesus. Scholars have invented ‘backstories’ that paint Judas a nationalist, a zealot, someone who simply loved his homeland and hated the Roman occupiers. Perhaps that was why he sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver? The Spirit has a much more mundane analysis: ‘he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it’ (Jn.12:6). It was after a dispute about money that Judas decided to betray Jesus (Matt.26:6-16). Likely with this incident in mind, Evagrios the Solitary, a key, if somewhat controversial theologian of the 4th Century, warned that the desire for wealth to give to the poor was ‘another trick of the evil one’.
All of which is to warn us of the dangers of simply assuming that as Christians, so long as we are (mostly) honest in our financial dealings, don’t steal from work and give (tithe even?) we are in the clear. We have a tendency to minimize the radical nature of Jesus’ teaching, domesticating it so that it becomes manageable. But it is more dangerous we anticipate. One Financial Educator goes so far as to say: ‘There is no middle ground between the lifestyle that Christ Jesus described for his disciples, and the generally accepted norms of capitalism and the consumer society’ (Evans 31). Whilst there is nothing more inherently evil about Capitalism as over against any other economic system (indeed it is may be better than some others), the consumerism it has contributed to creating lures us into greed, discontent, indifference, and (self-)deceit. It remains a stubborn fact that Jesus never put anything in direct opposition to God in the terms he reserved for the power and love of money. And we are naïve if we don’t think we are susceptible to it, straying further from Jesus’ teaching than we anticipate.
We are now over half way through our series, and it is entirely possible that we have spent the last few weeks ‘protecting’ ourselves, and justifying the decisions we have made around money. Also from the 4th Century, Chrysostom wrote: …a dreadful thing is the love of money, it disables both eyes and ears … allowing a man to consider neither conscience, nor friendship, nor fellowship, nor the salvation of his own soul … and the dreadful part of so bitter a slavery is that it persuades them to be grateful for it’.
Questions
Do you agree with Evan’s contention that the generally accepted norms of a consumer society are incompatible with the lifestyle Jesus calls His followers to? Why / why not?
Can you come up with a way of diagnosing whether someone loved money rather than God?
When is advertising legitimate, and when does it become something Christians should be wary of? Does advertising create discontent and desire, or does it simply aggravate discontent and desire that already exists?
Read Luke 16:19-31
There is a debate about whether this is a parable or a description of actual events. If it is a parable, it is the only one in which someone is named.
How does this passage connect with what Jesus taught earlier in Luke 16(:1-15)?
What sin does the rich man actually commit in Luke 16:19-31?
What do you think Jesus is teaching about salvation through this passage?
How do you respond to the picture of division and destiny in this passage? How do these experiences relate to eternity? How do you feel about the fact that those in paradise are fully aware of & able to communicate with those in Hades?
How does their post-mortem experience relate to their experience of life before death?
How does this rich man’s experience compare with e.g. Zacchaeus (Lk.19:1-10)?
What priority should we put on making Scripture available and accessible in the light of Luke 19:29-31? Do you agree with Abraham that if people don’t listen Moses and the prophets, they won’t be convinced even if someone rises from the dead?
Memory Passage:
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matt.6:2-4
Going Deeper:
Christians often struggle with the idea of rewards. But if you think it undermines the idea of ‘grace’, you might have to re-consider your understanding of grace. The idea of rewards is a regular feature in the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles, as is the idea that our experience of the New Creation will not be one of equivalence. We will be rewarded according to what we have done (Matt.16:27, Rom.2:6); repaid at the resurrection for showing compassion to the needy (Lk.14:12-14); rewarded greatly if we persevere under persecution (Lk.6:23), and for loving our enemies and doing good to them (Lk.6:35); the list goes on…
The idea that a truly ‘good’ act is one that is free from the motivation of reward is not a Christian one, but a secular ethic proposed by a philosopher called Kant, who was drawing on the ancient Greek Stoics. Likewise, it is a false, and unbiblical humility that scorns the idea of being motivated by reward. The Apostle Paul has no such qualms, but affirmed freely and frequently that he was motivated by the idea of reward (see e.g. I Cor.9:24, 5:9-10, II Tim.4:7-8), and encouraged us also to be so motivated (Gal.6:9-10, Eph.6:8, I Tim.6:17-19). It’s is a differentiated experience (Lk.19:17-19, I Cor.3:12-15), not the same for all Christians; and John at least anticipates that some will be ashamed at Christ’s coming (I Jn.2:28). Rewards can be lost or taken from us (Matt.25:28-29, II John 8).
It is interesting to note how much of this kind of teaching connects in Scripture with teaching about our relationship with money, possessions and eternity. We are not to think that obedience to Christ in these matters will lead to loss. We are not being called to make sacrifice. Only to re-invest to our eternal benefit. And that’s not an insignificant change in perspective!
