Jesus Talks Money

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on October 21.]

Mark 10:23-31
I recently was told that in the Gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--Jesus speaks about money in 288 verses. The number seemed a bit inflated to me because, often when Jesus tells a parable involving money--like the parable of the dishonest steward or the one about the unforgiving servant, He’s only using a story involving money to tell us about other things, like the importance of being wise in our dealings with others or the need to forgive others as God forgives us for Christ’s sake. 

Even last week’s gospel lesson found Jesus speaking about money only as a way of warning us against letting anyone or anything get in the way of trusting Him alone as the way, and the truth, and the life. 

But this week, Jesus takes the subject of money head-on, tackling it for what it can and is for many people in our world, the single-most death-dealing idol of all.

So, let’s take a look at today’s lesson, Mark 10:23-31. Verse 23: “Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!’”

The rich man who had asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life had just walked away, saddened that Jesus told him to sell all that he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and then follow Jesus. It was a stunning moment. Here was Jesus, a powerless, penniless street preacher telling a man whose wealth meant that he was accustomed to getting his way that if he wanted eternal life, he would need to get rid of his favorite god and instead rely entirely on Jesus for forgiveness and eternal life.

The disciples must have viewed this encounter uncomprehendingly. Jesus looks at them and says, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” And then, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” The two statements differ. The first one says that it’s hard for the wealthy to get into the kingdom, to have eternal life. The second one tells us that it’s just hard for anyone to get into the kingdom.

“Wait a minute!” we might say. “I thought that we gained entrance into God’s kingdom as a free gift of undeserved grace (or charity) granted to those who turn from sin (or, repent) and trust, believe in Jesus. Can something be free and difficult at the same time?” 

Of course it can be! The life of Christian discipleship is both free and difficult! The only way we can, day in and day out, take hold of the life and salvation that Jesus offers is to let go of our favorite personal insurance policies: the things we use to validate our worth, prove our significance, make us feel secure. 

Our old selves, with their sinful obsessions, selfishness, and idols have to be crucified so that our new, eternal lives can happen. Truly, if we’re going to live with the God we meet in the crucified and risen Jesus, we must submit to the daily destruction of our safe, ego-centered worlds so that God the Holy Spirit can undertake the construction of our new, never-ending lives. 

Jesus tells us elsewhere, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) 

The gift of new life from Jesus is free, but taking it can involve painful separation from the things, the ways of life we love, as the rich man with whom Jesus had just spoken learned. 

A man once told me about an affair he’d had and the decision he and the woman with whom he’d had the relationship to end it. “We loved each other deeply,” he told me. “It wasn’t physical. She accepted my imperfections and affirmed my worth and potential.” The two of them ended things because they knew continuing would displease God and violate their marriage vows. 

Leaving behind our favorite sins in order to grasp the gift of new life reserved for those who follow Jesus is hard. We can’t keep unrepentantly following our sins if we want to follow Jesus. The gift of life Jesus offers is worth any sacrifice, including the sacrifice of our sinful rebellions against God. “If anyone is in Christ,” the apostle Paul writes, “the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Jesus goes on in verse 25: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

I’m guessing that Jesus reverts to talking about money because He sees the disciples’ shock at his assertion that money has the potential to drag us into hell, away from God. Their shock is understandable: In first-century Judea, where Jesus lived, wealth was regarded as God’s affirmation of the rich person’s faith. Wealthy people were thought to be more righteous than poor people. 

Such thinking didn’t end in the first century. A friend once told me about going to a couples’ Bible study, most of whose members took it as a given that people were only poor because they weren’t right with God. Yet Proverbs 28:6 tells us, “Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.”

Wealth in and of itself isn’t the problem, of course. It’s how we view it, whether it controls our decision making and priorities or not. Theologian Richard Foster says that money is a power; either we will control it or it will control us. 

The apostle Paul doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil of course, but he does say that, “...the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:10) 

It is exactly against the grief of separation from God that Jesus warns us today. Jesus asks us to imagine a large camel threading the eye of a needle, then tells us that those who carry their wealth around as their security blanket, their god, cannot possibly make into the kingdom of God. 

How important is money in our lives? One way to determine that is to see how generous we are, not just to the church and other not-for-profit entities, but in our everyday lives. Speaking personally, I pray to be more generous, less concerned with getting or keeping and more concerned with giving away. 

Jesus says: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48) That applies to us all, whatever our incomes.

Verse 26: “The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.’” 

“If a rich man can’t be saved,” the disciples ask, “what hope is there for anyone to enter God’s kingdom?” 

Life with God is only possible because of God’s grace given to us in Jesus. Wealth may allow us to get more medical care and buy better food before we all eventually die, Jesus is saying, but it’s impossible to buy life with God. 

Yet God makes it possible for anyone to be saved from sin and death, saved for life in God’s kingdom: By entrusting our entire lives to Jesus the Christ. 

As the Bible reminds us: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Verse 28: “Then Peter spoke up, ‘We have left everything to follow you!’” 

Despite common folklore, Peter and the other fishermen were probably themselves wealthy people. Franchises to fish the waters of Galilee were rare and expensive in the first place and those who did have those franchises made lots of money. We know from the Gospel of John that two of the twelve, James and John, were part of a family fishing business that employed others. So, Peter’s question is more than a disinterested theological inquiry. He’s like the overachiever looking for extra credit. “We’re OK, right? We left everything behind to follow You, Jesus.”

Jesus doesn’t answer Peter’s question directly. Instead, Jesus points the disciples--including you and me--back to faith, back to turning away from the love of wealth that will keep us from claiming the gift of eternal life through Jesus. 

Verse 29: “‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—[free and difficult] and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.’”

The God we meet in Jesus, crucified for our sins, risen for our eternal salvation, offers infinitely more to those who worship Him and Him alone than all the wealth of this dying world possibly can. 

It’s out of consideration for the overwhelming grace of God in Christ, offered to rich and poor alike, that Paul wrote to the first century church in Ephesus: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

The world may put those who dare to be Jesus’ disciples on its bottom rungs, but we know that in the upside-down kingdom of God, the “first will be last, and the last first.” If last place is where we can be with Christ, now and in eternity, that’s exactly where we should always want to be. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Two evils the love of money brings

Michael Kelley is right in saying that 1 Timothy 6:10 is one of the best known and most misunderstood passages in Scripture.

There, the apostle Paul writes to the young pastor, Timothy:

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Paul doesn't say that money is intrinsically bad. He does say that the love of money--making the acquisition of more of it or the hoarding of it (I said hoarding, not saving)--major objects of our lives leads to all kinds evil and grief.

But how so?

Kelley identifies two evils into which the love of money can lead us, ways that he says we might otherwise overlook:

1. The love of money "can lead me to wander from my faith." Kelley writes chillingly:

I can’t be both greedy and content. I can’t worship both God and money. So if I choose money, I’m eventually guaranteed a departure from the faith.

2. Love for money "causes lots of pain points in my life." He enumerates a few:

...worry, remorse, discontentment, debt, and anxiety … the list goes on and on. The passionate pursuit of money promises liberty but only brings captivity.

I think he's right.

Thirty years ago, a friend of mine went to work for a man who had been a pioneer in the dot com world and raked in tens of millions of dollars as a result. One day, he told my friend wistfully, "You know, ten years ago, all I could think was that I would be happy and secure once I'd made my first million. Now, all I do is worry about how to keep the millions I have." Not long after that, he died suddenly, unexpectedly,...and unhappily.

There's nothing wrong with money. And God gifts some people with both the ability to handle money and to use it in ways that honor Him and show love to others. (To this latter point, in fact, Ephesians 4:28 says that a major reason for Christians to work is so that they'll have something to share with those in need.)

But money can become a god, an object of religious worship by which we measure our worthiness and value and by which we think that we can become gods ourselves, manipulating life to our own liking.

It's then that evil--things like selfishness, worry, and blindness to the needs or virtues of others--flood into our lives, taking us far from the God revealed to the world in Christ and from the life that only Christ can give.

Read all of Kelley's short piece.

[Photo from DataCapSystems.]

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Money

“Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver.” (Matthew 26:14-15, The Message)

Until this morning, it hadn’t dawned on me how driven by money Judas Iscariot’s decision to betray Jesus to religious officials who wanted Jesus dead.

A woman had anointed Jesus with expensive perfume. Matthew says that all of Jesus’ disciples were angered by the woman’s extravagance. The perfume, they believed, could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.

But Jesus applauded the woman, saying that she had anointed His body for burial.

Right then, Judas runs off to see how much money the priests will give him if he provides them with the chance to arrest Jesus quietly.

Judas seems obsessed with cold hard cash. That appears, from this passage anyway, to be his motivation for betraying Jesus.

1 Timothy 6:10 says: “...the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

Money in itself isn’t evil. (No matter how badly Pink Floyd misquotes that 1 Timothy passage.) Money is a tool by which we exchange value for value.

But the worship or the idolatry of money is a violation of God’s First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Depending too much on money leads to all kinds of evil, as happened when Judas betrayed Jesus.

Today in this passage, I sensed God telling me that while money has never been a driver in my life, I sometimes fantasize about the good I could do if I had more money. But if there are good things I want to do for God or for others, God seemed to say, I can do them with the money, gifts, relationships, and platforms I already have. "Don't put it off," I sensed God saying. "Be generous now!"

Lord, help me to do the good I can do today, with or without money. In Jesus’ name. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

If Britain were a U.S. state...

...it would be the second poorest of the nation.

Let that sink in. Britain isn't exactly a Third World country. Even in this era of income disparity, an issue being identified by politicians on both sides of the aisle, the United States is incredibly wealthy by both world and historical standards and most Americans derive some benefit from that wealth. We still have a large, if embattled, middle class.

Spiritually, wealth can be an enormous challenge, often amping up selfishness, diminishing compassion, and contributing to a sense of entitlement.

Biblically, money is not the root of all evil. It's the love of money that's a problem: "...the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (1 Timothy 6:10).

I have seen more marriages--and the love and devotion in them--killed by one or both spouses' love of money than by adultery.

I have seen many friendships ruined, many siblings alienated from each other, all because of money.

The call from God is to see our money and our possessions as gifts to be used to God's glory. First Corinthians 4:7 asks, "...what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" And Ephesians 4:28 says to the reformed thieves in the first century church in Ephesus: "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." This tells us that the function of wealth is to be useful to others, not to be an idol in control of our motives and aspirations. 

Jesus teaches us, in the Lord's Prayer, to ask for "our daily bread." In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther defines the meaning of this prayer petition: "God gives daily bread, even without our prayer, to all wicked men; but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to know it, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving." God supplies the world's inhabitants with more than enough of what they need; the problem is that we don't like to share what God supplies.

To have a life with God and a life of significance, we need to hold on loosely to the things of this world and hold on tightly to Jesus Christ. This is one way to live out Jesus' command that we love God and love our neighbor. (HT: Eric Swensson)