Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry
Texts: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13
We began with a fun dramatic script from the Iona Community in Scotland called, “Of mouths and money.” It imagined an "off the record" (meaning, not recorded in Scripture!) dialogue between Jesus and Peter about which subject the Lord spoke about the most. Peter wonders if Jesus is obsessed with money, since he speaks about it so often. Jesus contends that many people have "a money problem" that keeps them separated from God and from one another. You can find this dialogue (and many others directrly related to the Gospels) in this book here on Amazon.com:
Jesus and Peter: Off-the-record Conversations
Yes, my sisters and brothers: Jesus talks a lot about money! He talks more about wealth and money than perhaps any other single subject matter.
Now, this can be difficult for us to hear. Very often, I hear people complain that all they ever hear the church talk about is money. But I don’t think this is the same as the way Jesus talked about money. Jesus wasn’t concerned with fundraising or with budgets or pledges or anything like that.
Always, Jesus is focused laser-like on the disposition of the human heart and how this guides all of our actions.
All of his teachings on money reach their climax in the final saying from our reading today:
“You cannot serve God and wealth” (Luke 16:13). His point is this: here are two different paths that we can follow. The path of pursuing money or the path of pursuing God. It is a matter of eagerness and energy, of devotion and commitment.
This teaching is so crucially important for us, because we here in our nation are so easily distracted and blinded by the plethora of goods around us. This past week, our high school son, Angus, and I got into a little argument about the relative importance of technology. He reported to me that our upper elementary school just received a gift of 25 new I-Pads so that students can learn to use this new technology. I replied and said, “Angus, that’s stupid! How are I-Pads going to help 5th graders with their math and creative writing?” Of course, he responded that he felt it is important for kids to learn about new technology.
But is that really important? Is this the technology that matters, I told him? When thousands of children die every day because they do not have clean water to drink, is it really important for us here to learn how to use the newest touch screen computers? Is that what our children need to learn? For that matter, do we really need have to have the best flat screen TVs and the newest and fanciest gadgets when there are 1 billion people in the world today who suffer from chronic hunger?
I know that many of these folks are hungry because of their own dysfunctional governments. I know that. But still, we have to be careful not to excuse ourselves too easily. You and I have an extra responsibility to turn away from the sea of advertisements in which we swim every day, to not be fooled by these siren voices calling us to buy more and more.
What did we hear today from our Epistle reading? That God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Last week, we talked about what it means to be saved. That to be saved is to be released from the baggage of our past, the bonds of ignorance and foolishness and selfishness and greed which we have picked up over the years, in order that we might be healed and recover our true, natural selves.
This process of healing includes coming to the knowledge of the truth, and surely this knowledge includes an awareness that God calls us to lives of deep generosity and compassion. That kind of life is impossible as long as we continue to listen to the voices of greed and possession rather than the voice of God.
So may the Holy Spirit grant us grace to be among those who put our money where God’s mouth is as we live with the compassion of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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