Money as a Spiritual Tool

I am spending the months of June and July preaching on the topic of money. There is no better way to empty a church than to preach on money. I am thinking that by the time I preach the final sermon it will just be me and the sound guy. And he will be wearing headphones listening to some of his favorite music on his iPod.

We just don’t like to talk about money. We don’t like to talk about money in church or at home with our spouse or in the store when making a purchase or on the job when negotiating a salary. People, almost universally, are uncomfortable talking about money. I must admit to a sad, sick pleasure, when I announce that I am preaching on money, watching people’s faces tense up and their butts pucker. They get so tense you could pick them up by their noses.

And since we talk so little about it, even though we use it every day, we know very little about it. Most of us struggle earning it; haven’t a clue as to how to save it; often fail to spend it wisely and when we attempt to invest it we need to get professional help. Though money is designed to be a convenience for us to use and control, it seems that it often control us. We are a culture that lives in and by debt. The average American family lives on 110% of its yearly income. Somehow we have managed to convince ourselves that this is not a bad idea. We have done it so long that many people cannot envision living debt free. I love this SNL skit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ3xplp9_IM

We believe so much about money that is untrue. We believe: We own it; more money will bring happiness; money brings security; our money and possessions define us; it is okay to live in debt. One of the important things about money we don’t understand is that money and how we choose to use it is profoundly spiritual. We believe spiritual stuff is the immeasurable, mystical, vaguely weird stuff of life and money is about reality. For a Christian, every financial decision is a spiritual decision. Spirituality is less about what we think and more about who we are and what we do. Somehow we have, in many ways, reduced Christianity to being about good thoughts and intentions that often fail to translate into much action. Being a good Christian means we see a wrong being done and we have a candle light gathering to show our concern? Really? How about we go confront the wrong and do something about it.

So it is with money. What do you choose to do with money and possessions? Gather and hoard? Buy some more new stuff to replace the perfectly good stuff we already have? Get the latest and greatest new gadget on the market. Buy something else we have to maintain? My man has put it this way: “We buy more stuff we don’t need to impress a bunch of people we don’t like.” What are we thinking? Are we thinking? Are we thinking from a Godly and Biblical perspective? It doesn’t look like it.

Here is a spiritual reality check. (Get it? Spiritual. Reality.) How we choose to use the money and possessions we have is a clear spiritual test. Our decisions speak deeply and pointedly into our spiritual maturity. Jesus put it like this: “… From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48 NIV) How are you doing?

We love to convince ourselves that this was written to rich people and we are not rich people. Our problem is that we tend to compare ourselves with the ultra-rich and choose to see ourselves as poor. If we compare ourselves with the rest of the world we are forced to see a different picture and reach a different conclusion. The median annual income in the world is $1225. That means that if you are living on more than $4 per day, you are rich. In fact, if you make more than $34,000 per year, you are in the 1% of the world’s wealthy. We are rich and Jesus was talking about us. Heads up. He also said of rich people:  Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, 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.” Matthew 19:23-24 (NIV) If that doesn’t scare the wadding out of you, it should. Read it again and insert your name where it says “someone who is rich.” Nervous yet?

Perhaps we in the church should spend a whole lot more time talking about important spiritual issues – like money.

Copyright © 2013, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved