Love and Money – sermon on May 7, 2017
Matthew 20: 1-16 Jesus said, “For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work. At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing. At five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’ They replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’ The landowner told them, ‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’
That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’ He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’ So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”
1 Timothy 6: 6-19 True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses. And I charge you before God, who gives life to all, and before Christ Jesus, who gave a good testimony before Pontius Pilate, that you obey this command without wavering. Then no one can find fault with you from now until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. For, at just the right time Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed and only almighty God. God alone can never die, and lives in light so brilliant that no human can approach him. No human eye has ever seen him, nor ever will. All honor and power to God forever! Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life.
Sermon: Love and Money by Rev. Doreen Oughton
I went to town meeting Tuesday night. It was a looong meeting. I admit that my mind wandered during the hours and hours of discussion, and I was happy to have papers and the annual report to look through. Did you know that the Town’s annual report contains all the salaries paid to town employees? Those at town hall, our elected officials, the school employees – lots and lots of salaries. So what do you think I spent some of my time doing? I went through looking to see who earned a salary similar to mine. What do you think that did to my mood? Not good, not good. I wondered why custodians made the same or more than I do. I wondered how many of those town employees that earned much more had advanced degrees, like I have. I was judging and comparing. Just like the workers in the story from Matthew, I was wondering why some of these people were made equal to me in terms of what they made.
Fortunately, I started to notice what I was doing, noticed my monkey mind throwing out all these judgments and resentments, and I remembered to pray, to ground myself in the peace of Christ. I put the report away and prayed for release from this line of thinking. And as I pondered the scripture passages, well, I knew there was a message for me, because I sure am tempted to revisit that report, tempted to let those thoughts start spinning again.
Stewardship season is a good time to talk about money. Right now I don’t want to focus so much on pledging and giving, but about our complex feelings toward and relationship with money. I believe we don’t talk about this stuff enough, and as my own little experience last week showed, it’s important. Jesus talked a lot about money and wealth. Other than his talk about the kingdom, it was his most popular topic. And sometimes, as with the passage in Matthew, the two themes are combined – the kingdom of heaven is like this – a wealthy man who had made people who worked one hour equal to those who worked eleven. It is startling stuff, isn’t it? And as we discussed in bible study this week, such a kingdom might not hold much appeal to the hard workers among us. It’s a great passage to ponder – to see who we identify with. Do you see yourself as one of those early morning workers, late morning, noonday, midday, or last hour workers? The landowner claims he is NOT being unfair. He paid the full day workers what he’d agreed to pay them. What do you think? If it wasn’t a matter of fairness, what was it? (Generosity – abundance)
I chose that passage because it stirs up so much about our feelings about money. And there’s that part about knowing what someone else is making that how it impacts us. How openly do you share what you make or made? Do/did your parents know, your children, your friends, your co-workers? I wonder how all the town employees feel about having their salaries published in this document that goes to anyone who wants it. My salary is semi-public; voted on and printed in the church annual report. But usually, for most people, talking about how much you earn or how much you have is quite taboo. Is it secrecy or is it privacy? Is it meant to avoid arousing negative feelings in others, whether resentment or superiority? I can see the wisdom in that. I think it was obvious to Jesus how hung up people get about money.
One of my daily devotionals on Friday focused on the first line in the 23rd Psalm “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The essayist noted that another way to say “I shall not want,’ is “I lack nothing.” He says, “I have enough. With God, I am enough. Right now. Right here. A lot of missteps in life can be traced to a gnawing fear, a corrosive feeling that, ‘I am not enough.’ Inadequate, lacking, insufficient, overlooked and under-valued — not enough. If I get this, then I’ll be enough. If I attain that, then I’ll be enough. If they honor me, then I’ll be enough. All sorts of voices — parent’s voices, advertiser’s voices, coach’s voices, the devil’s voice — whisper to us, hiss at us, and play on our fears — ‘You are not enough.’ These are lies. With God, you are enough.
‘I lack nothing,’ sings the Psalmist. What boldness, joy, life. With you, O Lord, I am enough, and more than enough. My cup is full to overflowing. By the grace of God, you are enough. Just as you are. Trust this, rise up and live.”
I believe that is why Jesus talked so much about money, because he saw that we too often based our sense of worth on what we had materially, especially in comparison to what others had. Jesus wanted to remind us that that is not how God sees us, not how God evaluates us. No, God makes us all equal in her great generosity of spirit, causing the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the greatest and the least, on the righteous and unrighteous.
The letter to Timothy contains much wisdom, that Jesus-like counter-intuitive wisdom, and that gem: “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Note that it does not say it is the root of all evil, which is how I remember it, just the root of a variety of evils. There is evil which has its root elsewhere. But love of money is a biggy. Now this does not mean that the right relationship with money is to hate it. When the letter writer tells Timothy to run from these evil things, it is not money or wealth in itself being referred to. It is the harmful desires, the temptations and traps, the wandering from faith in the pursuit of wealth. As Jesus says elsewhere – you cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and wealth. You can have wealth, you just must not serve it. You must not trust in it to give you your worth, to fill you with peace, to make you righteous.
The world will tell you otherwise, and it is all too easy to believe it, for that monkey mind to start spinning and comparing and judging based on such a silly thing, too easy to buy into the notion that the most important thing about rich people is their wealth. It is not what Jesus wanted for us, to live like that. It will lead us away from the kindom. No matter how much money we have, this letter to Timothy can guide us. Fight the good fight of faith. Do not put your trust in money, do not crave it or make it your main pursuit, but use it to do good. And do more to serve than give money. Be generous in other ways – with time and love.
Now all this is easier said than done, and for some people, the relationship with money is really a tangled web. There are tools that can be used in a prayerful manner that you might find helpful, and I’d be glad to work with anyone on that. I want you to have life abundant. I want you to find your worth in the eternal love of God. I believe it is worth the effort and will pay richly. May it be so.
