Money, and trying to be spiritual

I have been thinking about money. I was leading a small group study on the subject. Small group studies are funny. I’m kind of desperate, you see, to appear spiritual, then people go Oooh and Aaaah and want to be spiritual too. My problem is this: Money is a difficult subject to appear spiritual in. It’s actually very easy to gauge to what extent a person is practising what they preach as far as money goes. There are so many external indicators. Suddenly I realised that my clothes, my CD collection, the amount of times I go to the movies in a week, the hours I work; they all say something about priority, about enslavement to having more, having better.

So I looked through the Bible to see what Jesus said about money. That’s always seems to be a good place to start with these topical studies. Did you know, Jesus actually talked quite a lot about money? With possessions, it was one of the things he talked about most…

…That is, along with the Kingdom of God . The Kingdom of God is what Jesus said he came to bring about. It is a new rule on Earth: the rule of God. It will permeate everything we do, effecting Nations and rulers, and bringing about justice. It is people following what Jesus said, it’s God’s work in our lives.

And what Jesus said about money was all tied up with this “ kingdom of God ” concept. Any attempt to learn more about the Kingdom was going to bring me face to face with the issue of money. And what Jesus said about money was not really pleasant. He said it was impossible to serve both God and Money. He implied the way we use our money on Earth will reflect on the way God judges us: (from Matthew 19: 16-24)

This man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get into the kingdom?"

 Jesus: “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."

 "Which ones?" the man enquired.

 Jesus :"‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’"

The man said: “Sorted, I’ve done all those, is there anything else?”

Jesus answered: "Yep, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor. Then come, follow me."

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he was rich.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact, it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God ."

Uh-oh. This story scares the wits out of me. I can’t help but think Jesus was being a little bit unfair, discriminating so broadly against the rich. I feel deeply uncomfortable…because, well…I’m rich. Was Jesus including me when he said its harder for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to get through the Eye of a needle?

Each time I read this story, I feel challenged. I can’t ignore it, can I? It’s pretty black and white: Give it all up and follow. Sadly, I can ignore it, and do. Each time I close my bible on this story I feel like the young man, walking away sad because, I can’t do this practical thing, I can’t give up my love of money, my want for more, the David Gray CD I want to buy in town today, in order to follow Jesus.

Discomfort about money. It’s the story of the West. A lot of people, a lot of Christians get quite defensive if someone suggests we should be a bit more disciplined in this area. We are quite quick to justify wanting more than our “daily bread”.

And so all sorts of explanations have sprung up about what Jesus was really meaning by this story. Maybe the young man was struggling with many other issues, and Jesus was speaking about this “particular” young man when he said that camel thing. After all, he said it’s hard, but not impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Maybe the camel’s really small. Maybe the needle is really big. Another popular argument is that, if there were no wealthy Middle Class Christians, how on earth would we convert the wealthy Middle Class? No-one wants to listen to a smelly beggar dressed in rags, do they? At the bottom of all this is some kind of obstinate disbelief. Did Jesus really mean what he said?

Apart from having faith that Jesus always meant what he said, we can begin to unravel this by looking at reasons why he might have said it. In an article that I read recently called “Money and the Kingdom of God ” Brian Hathaway gives some good reasons.

• He says money absorbs our energy. Just look at the time we spend in the pursuit of it. How many hours a week, how many years of life do we work to obtain it? This is proof of what Jesus said about not being able to serve two masters. We could be spending that time in the pursuit of God.

   

• Jesus also came  to give us freedom. I had never thought about it before, but His freedom can be so much more than an abstract spiritual idea. If we followed his teachings on money, we would experience his freedom from this bondage too. We can be slaves to more things than just the spiritual. Practical things, objects can be our masters too.

   

• Money is a resource for Christians. We have yet to discover how we could use it to increase God’s Kingdom. We could feed thousands and tell them about Jesus, perhaps having more integrity if faith was really backed up with action.

The last two points especially interest me, because they can be brought about in very practical ways. The first of these is sacrifice. Sacrifice is not always a physical giving up of something, it’s also an attitude. A sacrificial attitude towards money says: God, you gave this to me - You have the right to it, how can I use it for You? God isn’t anti-money, in fact He’s not really interested in it! God is interested in us, and acknowledging that it is from Him and offering it back is a way of saying “You can have all of me”.

The second way is generosity. Generosity begins with the will to use your money for things outside of yourself. However, generosity actually does seem to have a remarkable effect on the giver. It can free us from the trap of wanting more for ourselves. It can actually be the most satisfying way to use what you have.

So, how much? There is a story in the New Testament where Jesus and the disciples are watching people put money into an offering tin in the Temple . There’s a Middle-aged businessman, dressed accordingly, who pulls up in his BMW, and swaggers up importantly to the tin. He pulls out a thick wad of cash, looks around to check that everyone is watching, and drops the thick wad in so it goes “THUMP” at the bottom. Then there’s the Aristocrat, whose chauffer drops him off and rushes to open the door for him. He stands at the tin and “He-Hems” loudly, drawing an oversized novelty cheque from the folds of his fur coat. He signs it ceremoniously, makes a show of the fact that it’s too big for the tin, and leaves it face up beside the tin as he walks out the door. He almost knocks over the old lady in rags on the way. She is hobbling her way up slowly and painfully to the tin. When she reaches it she fumbles for her small purse and pulls out 50p, dropping it discreetly in. She walks away. And Jesus says: “She has just given the greatest amount of all of them.”

The moral of that story is; it doesn’t matter how much you get, it is sacrifice that God values, and generosity which brings freedom. I wonder who was the happiest person as they walked out the door?

So actually, for all our excuses, what Jesus said  actually made good sense as well as being pretty straight forward. The challenge is there: we could discover true freedom, we could enter the Kingdom, we could become closer to God and find out the meaning of following Jesus.

  Sonya Lewthwaite, November, 2005