FROM PASTOR OLSON

MONEY

Let me share with you this good review of what Jesus says about money. This excerpt from a longer article was written by one of my old Seminary Professors, Arland Hultgren.

Pastor Steve.

 It is commonly said that Jesus spoke about money more than anything else. In one sense that is true. His sayings often contain references to money and wealth, directly or indirectly. Most of the sayings are indirect, such as in those cases where money is involved in the telling of a parable. Examples where money is involved within the story one way or another are the Parables of the Unforgiving Slave (Matthew 18:23-33), the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16), the Lost Coin (Luke 15:8-10), the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-8), the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) and more.

 But there are also cases where Jesus speaks of money directly. A well-known case is the interchange between Jesus and a person who asked him "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus responds by telling him to keep the commandments. When the man says that he had kept them all since his youth, Jesus responds: "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." The story concludes by saying that the man left grieving, "for he had many possessions" (Mark 10:17-23).

 In that particular story, Jesus does not make it a rule that all of his followers are to sell all that they have and give the money to the poor. What Jesus says is directed only to the person he is dealing with. But it is followed by some sayings that do apply generally. These include: 

"How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:23).

 "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25). 

In another place Jesus says: "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth (Matthew 6:24). 

Clearly any wealth and possessions that we have are blessings. God desires an abundant life for all of his children. In fact, it is taken for granted in the Old Testament that among the blessings that God bestows upon his people are prosperity and abundance.

To put matters into perspective, perhaps it is sufficient to repeat the familiar saying: "It is not wrong to have wealth, but it can be dangerous." It is dangerous from many angles. It is dangerous because a person who has it can conclude that it is well deserved; that no one else has a rightful claim upon any of it; and that using it for one's own choices has no social consequences. Beyond all that, of course, the person who has wealth may forget that abundance is God's gift to be used in trust… 

What makes it possible for the followers of Jesus to give, both during his earthly ministry and today, is faith in God, who cares for and provides for the needs of his children. Faith, in the biblical sense, is essentially trust, a reliance upon the goodness of God and God's will to bless us. 

One of the memorable passages in the gospels about faith in God and his abundant care for his children is in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says:

 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' ³²For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today." (Matthew 6:25-34).

 If we lack faith, that is, if we lack trust in God as gracious, we tend to grasp at what we have. Or to put it another way, our possessions, in the end, possess us. We become fearful. We think that we must put our trust in our possessions. And then we run into the danger of worshiping a false god. In his Large Catechism Martin Luther wrote that whatever we set your heart on, that is our god.  

Jesus calls upon us to put our trust in God, who cares for us abundantly. Christian stewardship arises out of trust in God.