Unmasking the Power of Money, Part 2

At St. Patrick, we like to point out that Jesus was always eating. It seems he was always going to a feast, coming from a feast, or hosting a feast. I have told skeptics often that, if you read the life of Jesus (or the whole Bible, for that matter) and take note of all the references to food, in the end, while you might not know what it all means, you will have to agree with me that food was a big deal. We could say something similar about money. Jesus talked about money more than almost anything else. He talked about it so much, in fact, that when two brothers saw this young rabbi walking by, they asked him to settle a dispute for them about inheritance. Why? Because Jesus was always talking about money!Money, in a real sense, is an index of the soul. Money can tell you where your heart really is. In that sense, it is a good tool for spiritual diagnostics. For all of us, we have to master money or it will be our master. I remember when Teri and I got our first real job. We were in Greenville, Mississippi, planting a church, with one child at home and one on the way. Everything we had was old and worn out. The “spiritual” reason I took a church planting job, when I knew nothing about it, was that I felt “called”. The real reason was I needed to make a living! Though it was a blessing, we still struggled with money—it just seemed there never was enough. I mean, we kept having all these babies, and you need money to feed, clothe, and educate a small army! We learned to budget, to not get into debt, to delay gratification, to ask difficult questions about needs and wants, and to give faithfully; we even put money in envelopes to control our spending. (I’m not making this up!) We did all of this because we realized money is an index of values; money tells you what you value. We were trying to learn to be stewards of the resources God gave us and to teach our kids, as they went from being consumers to producers, to know the importance of being both frugal and, at times, extravagant.Yes, both are necessary! The God who warns us that the love of money is the root of all evil also tells us that we are to be extravagant in our generosity! In other words, the Bible tells us how to value money, use money, and not be a slave to money. This week we will ponder Jesus’ teaching on money, anxiety, and treasure to learn how to break the control of money in our lives. That is what we desire—truth that will set us free from the control of money. Hope to see you Sunday for, “…the rest of the story.”Blessings,Jim