Amos 8:4-7. Psalm 1131
Timothy 2:1-7 Luke 16:1-13
You cannot serve God and wealth! The word of the Lord!
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to inherit the kingdom of God. The word of the Lord!
If the wealthy cannot be saved then who can; with God all things are possible. The Lord of the Lord!
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. The word of Lord!
Sell all that you have and follow me. The word of the Lord!
To whom much is given, much is required. The word of the Lord!
The poor you always have with you, but you will not always have me. The word of the Lord!
Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic. The word of the Lord!
Lay not up for yourself treasure on earth where moths corrupt and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven. The word of the Lord!
How might we frame the sayings of Jesus on wealth given that they probably came to writing in situations far from Palestine and many, many years after Jesus lived and they came to the early textual form in a different language than what Jesus spoke in his native tongue?
Do his sayings result in contradictions, the same kind of contradictions which occur because contexts can impart different and even seeming contradictory meanings to such words about wealth?
Why would one say that one is blessed to be poor? Are these words to comfort people who actually are poor?
I offer a variety of sayings about wealth from Jesus not to pretend that I know or understand some final or correct meaning, but simply to seek some insights for how you and I might grapple with what we regard wealth to be in our own experience and to ponder something that might be Christ worthy with the wealth of our lives.
Obviously, wealth is contextual and related to circumstances within human situations. Wealth can be materially understood or spiritually understood. The words of Jesus prove this distinction in the two versions of the beatitudes: blessed are the poor in spirit, and blessed are the poor. One refers to a poverty of material conditions and the other refers to a poverty of the inner character as it pertains to the life of virtues.
The variance in the wording of the different beatitudes may indicate the nature of the economic status of the people to whom the words were addressed.
To whom might actual poverty be a blessing? Any cursory reading of the New Testament indicates that John the Baptist, Jesus, and the early writers in the Jesus Movement understood that there would soon be an end of the world. If the world is going to end soon, one does not need to plan for having creature comforts of homes and possessions and family. St. Paul was an apocalyptic proclaimer as well who believed that those alive would soon be raised in the air with those who had died. Therefore he recommended that people remain like he was, unmarried and unencumbered with family pressures, if they had the discipline to do so.
Wealth was seen as contextual for the evangelical missions for the persons who were sent out to proclaim the message of the kingdom of God. Jesus told the evangelists to travel light and live as it were, off the kindness of the people who would receive their message. Again the notion of having wealth was seen as being a hinderance to mission effectiveness.
The injunction against ownership and wealth was the impetus historically for creating two different tracks for Christian living. Once the church was on its way of becoming successful, ordinary Christians were enjoined to follow the Ten Commandments; extra-ordinary and heroic Christians were enjoined to be more literal about the more spartan words of Jesus and Paul. The monastic movement became a different track of Christian living as monks and nuns were to embrace the counsels of perfections which meant beyond the Ten Commandments, they were to commit to lives of poverty, chastity, and obedience to their clerical and religious community hierarchies. Again another contextual understanding of wealth and relationship to wealth given the fact that the imminent end of the world did not happen and Christian people had to deal with reality of settling in with a new regard of the latter days, being merely that people would always be living in the latest days.
The Gospel words, you cannot serve God and wealth is set up with a parable of Jesus which encapsulates his assessment in contrasting how greedy people process desire and a wish for how the children of light might also process human desire.
The parable uses a negative example to make a rebuking judgment with an implied recommendation. In the parable an embezzling employer knows that he's been caught and so he takes steps to ensure his future employment with his boss's debtors by forgiving them their debts. Jesus commends the scheming embezzler as he wishes that the children of light were also as diligent in how they do life planning in having wisdom about the circumstances of their lives.
You can serve God and wealth. But only with an understanding that one can have wisdom to make the many forms of wealth in life to be used in the service of God and for what the kingdom of God might mean in bringing good news to the people in our lives.
The Gospel issue is not about pitting God against wealth or wealth against God; the issue is our relationship to God and wealth and that means that we need to avoid letting anything in this life becomes an idol which blocks the potentially worshipping energy of desire meant for God become focused upon lesser objects. The Gospel life, the life of transformation is the life of the sublimation of desire such that everything can be transparent pass through for our desire returning the energy of desire as the energy of worship of God. In understanding our desire in this way, we are honest about the engine of desire in our lives, but we also acknowledge the need to channel it back to God while we let it pass through many necessary things in our lives for our daily use and enjoyment. This kind of surfing of our desire allows us to combine enjoyment of life's necessities even as they assist our service to God and the benefit of our world. In this way we let can work to make the wealth of the world serve God and the many people who need to know the benefit of a widely spread wealth. Amen.
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