Money Is Not Life

Text: Luke 16:1-15

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

            I didn’t get to hear the radio broadcasts or see the television show when it first came out, but many say that the Jack Benny Show was the height of 20^th Century comedy. If you saw it, you might remember that he cultivated a character that has a reputation of being stingy. Tight with money. In one of his skits, a robber holds Benny up, shoves a gun in his face, and demands, “Your money or your life!” For a long time, Benny says nothing but looks to be struggling with something. Finally, the robber demands, “Hurry up!” To which the comedian responds, “Don’t rush me. I’m thinking it over!”

“Your money or your life!” Of course, the skit is funny because nobody would choose money instead of life, but in reality a lot of people live as though money is their life. As if life was all and only about money. And maybe that’s true of us too. We devote an enormous amount of our time, our talents, and our energy to acquiring money—and not only acquiring it, but also saving it, investing it, and, yes, worrying about it.

Our text for today reminds us that money should never be the end or goal of our lives, however much we’re tempted, since as Christians we know that

JESUS CHRIST, NOT MONEY, IS THE SOURCE OF OUR LIFE.

At the same time, though, our text also teaches us that as disciples of Jesus we must be diligent in our use of money. For some that’s an easier task than for others. Our view of money has a lot to do with what we witnessed concerning money as we were growing up. How our parents and others around us used it. Spent it. Saved it. Invested it. And also, what we’ve learned to do with money in our own adult lives. We should all recognize that we’re extremely blessed to live in a society that knows how to make money. Even in bad times, our modern economic system produces the necessities of life in abundance, and most of us have more than enough to satisfy both our wants, and generally many of our desires as well.

And we also need to recognize that one of the most frequent topics in Scripture is the use of money. Because God knows that as much as it can be a blessing, it can also very easily become a stumbling block to the one thing that’s much more important that our bank accounts, or even how we use the money we’ve been blessed with. And that’s faith in God who is the giver of all good gifts. It’s been said many times, but it’s very true, money can be both a blessing and a curse.

In good times, the stock market roars, housing values soar, and just about everybody seems to have money for what they want to do in life. But all of that doesn’t happen by accident. In a society like ours, people are free to devote themselves to making money. And do they ever. Many people devote themselves wholeheartedly to the endeavor of making money. Finding all sorts of ways to do it. Long hours at a steady job. Investing in lucrative businesses. Inventing, creating, growing. We’ve become very good at finding ways to make money. And these are good things to do to support those we’re entrusted to care for, and our church and our community. But sometimes. like with the shrewd manager in today’s parable, our endeavors to make money are done in less than healthy or less than honorable ways. And we devote so much time and effort to this because we’ve come to believe that there is great value in the size of the house, the nameplate on the car, or the number of zeros in the balance of the bank account.

Only at the extremes of childhood and old age are we not heavily engaged in earning a living; but even in old age, we still pay a lot of attention to investments, taxes, Social Security, retirement plans, and so on. We continue to be concerned about money. And as far as children are concerned, much of our educational system is designed to prepare them for making money—providing the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and habits for being successful in the workplace. Adults, too, are often encouraged to go back to school to enhance their abilities for work and earning a living. Even our politics often revolve around money. Politicians vie with one another to demonstrate how good they are in economic matters by presenting to the voters their plans for prosperity.

Of course, not everybody is clever enough to make money all the time. The plans of politicians don’t always work. Many businesses fail and workers lose their jobs. And some who think they’re really clever end up breaking the law to make money, get caught, and pay the price for it. Again, just like the manager in our text. And really, if you think about it, no one whose focus is solely on money, is really ever clever enough. Because the single-minded pursuit of money or devotion to the things that money can buy cannot solve the human dilemma that life leads only to death.

On the contrary, the person who devotes himself to the acquisition of money, no matter how successfully, has turned away from the One who is the source of all blessing, including money. Jesus warns us of this in our text. “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” It’s a natural result of the sinfulness that we’ve all inherited that we’re always looking for substitutes for the true God. For many of us, regardless of our economic status, that substitute is money. Forgetting God, the giver of all good things, we devote ourselves to wealth—getting it, spending it, and worrying about it when it’s gone. And God warns us about where that leads as well.

Remember the parable of the rich fool? “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

It’s ironic then that worldly abilities with money turn out to be the height of foolishness. Money doesn’t conquer death. It doesn’t forgive sin. And it doesn’t reconcile us with God. In fact, when our dependence is on money, we run the risk of spending eternity cut off from all God’s blessings because our focus isn’t on what’s most important.

To really live—both in this world and in the one to come—is simply a generous gift of God. A gift that He desires us all to have. We’re reminded in today’s Epistle that, “God our Savior . . . wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.” By paying the price for us—not with money but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death—Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, freed us from sin and death and liberated us from the idolatries of life, including our enslavement to money. It’s only with this understanding that we can truly know that God has guaranteed the promises of heaven and made our resurrection certain. We don’t need anything more than this for ourselves, either here or in eternity.

Even so, God has given us more. Much more. He’s given us time, talents, opportunities, and, yes, even money. And everywhere we look there are needs to respond to with God’s gifts. The church, both here locally and the universal church, require the resources to help with these needs, but often we’re slowed by the lack of willing participants and funding for the work of the church. Today’s parable teaches us that God wants us to be wise with our resources for His purposes.

Like the Good Samaritan, then, who stopped to help a stranger in need, even at the cost of his time, his safety, and his money, we, too, should respond to opportunities to show love toward our neighbor by helping him in every need, temporal and eternal. In this way, we use what God has first given us to carry out God’s work in God’s way for God’s people. It could be time. It might be talents. Or it might be treasures. And likely at various times it’s all three of those that we’re called to give in various measures. Sometimes we’re just not aware of what the needs are. Which is why each month we highlight a mission to pray for, give to, and support in various ways. It’s also why you may have seen a message from me yesterday highlighting the various opportunities to serve within our own congregation. Prayerfully consider how God might want to use you for the work of His kingdom here, and beyond.

And as we give, we realize that we’re no poorer for doing so, because we still have the One who gave everything to us in the first place—to say nothing of a treasure in heaven beyond our wildest dreams.

Because we’re still sinners, this message about serving God and not worldly wealth could be difficult to hear, and maybe even impossible to obey. It really is—on our own. But we’re not on our own. Redeemed by Jesus, we belong forever to him—and so does our time, our talents, and our money. We have life, eternal life, which is infinitely richer than what even our most lucrative financial endeavors and diligent labors can earn. And we didn’t earn it; we were given it, freely, by the forgiving death and resurrection of Jesus. So as forgiven sinners, we can respond to this Word of our Lord not with dread but with joy, because Jesus—and nothing else, not even money—is the source of our life. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.