When Money Becomes More Than Money

I’m too attached to money.

There. I said it.

Most of us prefer to think we’re sensible with money, responsible with money, careful with money. “Attached” sounds far too spiritual and uncomfortable.

Yet a few years ago, I discovered just how much hold money had over me.

I went through a season where I was struggling financially, and I felt incredibly anxious for some weeks. I tend to struggle with anxiety anyway, and I was catastrophizing and imagining myself being homeless and destitute. I forgot that I live in a society with safety nets and that I have people around me who could support me if I needed it. That’s the privilege I have by living in one of the most affluent countries in the world.

When we look through the Gospels, we quickly see that Jesus spoke about greed more than He spoke about most other issues. He even referred to greed as idolatry, generally seen as the greatest sin of all for the people of God.

We also see that He spent a lot of time with the poor and outcast, and that His enemies were generally the rich and powerful. He spoke blessings on the poor and woes against the rich.

What does all this say to us as Christians today in terms of how we are to relate to money, especially as (despite current cost-of-living pressures) we live in the most materially affluent time in human history? What is a proper Christian attitude to money?

If we can glean one message from what Jesus said about money and wealth, it was that we are to be warned against its clutches. Money has such seductive and addictive power over our lives that we either have it or it has us. And most of the time we don’t even realize its power over us. We’re like the frog in a pot of water that is slowly being brought to the boil. It will sit there until it is literally boiled alive. Such is the potentially destructive power of money over our lives.

Two different responses

When Jesus called the rich young ruler to give away all he had to the poor and to come and follow Him, the young man went away sad, and we are told it was because he had much wealth. His wealth had a hold over him such that he believed it would give him the life he always wanted and that Jesus couldn’t.

On the other hand, we see the joy in Zaccheus, the chief tax collector, when he repented and turned his life around at the invitation of Jesus.

The story of Zaccheus shows us that living the Christian life has clear economic implications.

Zaccheus would have been astonished that Jesus would invite himself to the home of a hated tax collector. In the culture of the time, to eat with someone meant you accepted them. Zaccheus, in his joy at being accepted by Jesus, made a radical lifestyle change. And what was Jesus’ response? He said that this was salvation.

In many Christian circles, we see salvation as what happens when someone prays the “sinner’s prayer” and they then receive eternal life, meaning a free ticket to heaven when they die.

Jesus, though, said nothing of the sort.

He said that salvation in this case was the transformation taking place in this probably most hated of tax collectors (remembering that Zaccheus was a chief tax collector). Jesus even called this outcast a son of Abraham, which would have offended the religious leaders no end.

The rich young ruler and Zaccheus both had vastly different responses to money. The former was too attached to it and went away sad, while Zaccheus responded to Jesus’ radical kindness with joy and saw that what Jesus offered was far more attractive than all the wealth Zaccheus had.

The question of how we are to treat money is really about the question of what or who is Lord of our life and what it means to live out the two greatest commandments: to love God and our neighbor. It’s easy for us to say that of course Jesus is Lord of our life and money isn’t, but it’s our lifestyles that expose us and give the real answer for all the world to see. That is something from which we can never hide.

When I look at the attitudes towards money of Christians I respect, I see that they all held money lightly. It didn’t control them. Francis of Assisi gave away all he had and is known as one of the greatest Christ-followers of all. The early Christians considered nothing their own and shared everything they had, as we are told in Acts 2 and 4. The Bruderhof communities around the world live the same way. They live with what is called a common purse: no private possessions, and the social problems they have as a community are minimal.

The fact that, despite our current economic challenges in the West, we live in the most affluent time in history and yet we have the worst social statistics in history, shows that what Jesus said 2,000 years ago holds true. What will it profit us if we gain the whole world yet lose our very selves? Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

Added to that is the fact that study after study shows that money can only provide a sense of wellbeing up to a certain level. Research shows that, in Australia, once we earn more than $A100,000 per annum, our level of happiness does not increase the more we earn. It would be the same elsewhere in the world.

Some practical advice

So, what are some practical ways we can be good stewards of money? Recently I read the famous sermon by John Wesley called The Use of Money. It’s a typically hard-hitting challenge to us by the great preacher, in which he makes the following points:

Gain all you can, but not at the expense of life or our health or our neighbor.

Save all you can. Don’t throw away your money in idle expenses to merely gratify the desires of the flesh. Be content with what the basics of life require.

Give all you can. God has made us stewards of the earth, entrusting us with goods of various kinds, but the ownership of them rests with God.

Ben Witherington is another biblical scholar who has written some excellent material on a Christian use of money. I would recommend his little book, Jesus and Money, to all Western Christians. One of the points he makes is that the Christian community must not allow any of its members to be in need. We should provide for and care for each other. He also lays out the following:

Our business ethics must match our Christian principles. If we have considerable assets, we need to ask ourselves whether or not they were gained while investing in companies that are ethical.

The whole idea of saving up huge sums of money for retirement for ourselves and our families so we can live in ease and luxury and not need to work anymore, is an all too modern notion without biblical warrant. The purpose of making money now so we can live in luxury later is not a Christian motivation.

The New Testament encourages us to give sacrificially. Radical generosity is how we are to use our money, putting our ultimate trust in God.

The New Testament encourages us to disengage from the rat race for success, prosperity and wealth.

The goal of the Christian life is not prosperity or even happiness, but loving God and neighbor wholeheartedly.

We are to give with no thought of return.

These are challenging principles, but they are challenging only because most of us are so caught up in money’s seductive allure that we can’t bear to change our comfortable lifestyles to help others a bit more.

If we were the rich young ruler, the fact is that most of us would walk away sad as well if Jesus commanded us to sell all we have and come follow him. Such is the cultural captivity we are under by living in a capitalist society.

Dispelling some tired myths

There is so much more that can be said about a proper use of money for Christians.

Some will read this and say that we are also not to have a poverty mentality. That’s also true, but the greater priority by far for Western Christians — because we generally don’t realize how wealthy we are — is that we practise radical and outrageous generosity because we have the means to do so.

Many Christians will also say that it’s not how much money you have, it’s what you do with it. Such a comment is partly true and mostly a cute excuse for justifying how much we have. If we have many thousands of dollars tucked away, what are we doing with it? We’re saving it for ourselves. There is no Christian justification for that.

Finally, there is the question of what to do with beggars on the street. My advice is that we always be relational. The homeless people I’ve spoken to over the years say that what they want more than anything is to be noticed, to be seen and heard. Get to know them, learn their names. It’s no coincidence that the only parable in all the gospels where someone is named is the story of the rich man and the poor Lazarus. Jesus is a relational God who knows the poor by name. We are to do the same.

People will often say that if we give to beggars, they will just use the money on drugs or alcohol, or they may not really need the money. That is not our judgment to make and, as Australian Baptist Minister, Tim Costello, has said, while it’s true that we will sometimes get ripped off when we give to the poor, we can generally afford it, so it’s always better to err on the side of compassion.

And if you still don’t feel comfortable giving to a homeless person on the street, one thing I often do is when I see a homeless person outside a shopping mall, I ask them if I can go in and buy them something. This again makes it relational by talking with them, and it makes our giving practical, as we know we are giving them what they need.

Money really is a dangerous commodity. It is seductively addictive like few other things in life are. Our love of it is the root of all evil. That’s why Jesus warned against it so much.

The allure of money is why Jesus said that it’s harder for a rich person to be part of the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. It was a ridiculous comparison, typical of the hyperbole in which Jesus often spoke to make His point. In other words, it’s basically impossible for a rich person to be part of the kingdom (and for those who would say that Jesus was referring to a gate in the wall of Jerusalem called ‘The Eye of the Needle’, there is literally no evidence that such a gate existed. On top of that, Jesus says in the next verse that what is impossible for people is possible with God. We need the power of God to free us from our attachment to wealth).

As Jesus said, serving both God and money just can’t be done. Only one of them will be Lord of our lives. When that lord is money, we cannot love God and our neighbor.

Our challenge today is to ask whether our money serves us and the world or if it is our master.