8-12-09
One out of five parables Jesus tells in Luke’s gospel is about money. That’s more talk about money than about prayer, faith, or heaven and hell. Churches in recent years have tended to stay away from the topic (a temptation I always face) to avoid any appearance that the church is after people’s money, but Jesus has no such qualms. Why is that? Why does Jesus come back to this topic so often?
I think there are several reasons, but one is for the same reason that Jesus tells parables in general: Jesus wants our faith to be concrete. It’s not enough to think the right thoughts about God, have sound doctrine, engage in spiritual discussions, etc. Our faith is meant to be lived out in real ways in our everyday lives. To put it another way: the end goal of our knowing is doing, right doctrine is meant to inform right practice, and we worship Sundays to help us live it on Mondays. Disciples of Jesus don’t exist for the church; the church exists to make disciples for the good of the world – ambassadors of his love and grace to those around us.
And the way we handle our money is one of the most concrete things in our lives! We can know (if we choose to) down to dollars and cents how our money is used, and can tell very quickly (if we choose to) whether we are honoring God with our finances or not. Living within our means, saving for the future, generosity in giving, choosing to live simply, trusting God to provide – all are areas where the Scriptures speak to us, and where we must wrestle through the question of whether we are truly learning to “obey everything [Jesus] commanded” (Matt 28:20).
Jesus continually calls our attention back to money because it is a good window into our relationship with God (are we living it or just talking about it?), and a great training ground for us to learn from Jesus what it looks like to follow him in everyday life. As we learn to follow him in this area, we learn to follow in other areas as well. Years later Jesus’ little brother wrote: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22). How we handle our money is one of the more concrete places to see whether our faith is making it from knowledge to action.
Lord bless you friends – it’s a joy doing life with you –
Tim
Mt 6:33