A Magnifier, a Weight, and a Cow

-show clip Don’t Buy Stuff-
Today we continue our series, Simple Living. We believe that the way to contentment is in living simply and generously. All who would pursue this must confront issues surrounding money and wealth. It’s important to note that Jesus talked about money to teach about money. And he also talked money to teach about other things. Jesus talked about money all the time. One reason for this, no doubt, was that Money was an important cultural value in Jesus’ time. It is in our time too. I agree with Ben Patterson who said,

“There is no such thing as being right with God and being wrong with money.”

Money is that important because it connects with and affects so much else in our lives. Money is the Universal Language. There is always an exchange rate. For example, we are still in a season when kids birthdays are very important. We usually have a party to which the boys can invite a bunch of their friends. These friends all bring birthday cards with money in them. In fact, it is rare anymore for a birthday guest to actually come with a wrapped present. My boys do the same when they are invited to their friends parties. Cash is easier, more convenient. And the kids want it this way. There is never any worry in getting something you don’t want. Money is the thing they want. And they make out quite well at these parties. I had to warn the boys not to pad their guest lists just to increase the birthday earnings! Of course not , dad, they smile at me as they look over their list of mon. . ., err, I mean, friends. We have learned that you can never go wrong with money. . .as a gift.

But what if we did get it wrong about money? What would be some of the consequences in our lives? We are going to look at what the Scripture says about what happens when we get money wrong, and what happens when we get it right.

Jesus tells a story about a king who was owed a large amount of money by one of his servants. Jesus tells this story in response to a question about forgiveness. This is one of those times when Jesus tells a story about money to illustrate some other spiritual issue or principal. So, this king goes to his servant and asks the servant to settle up and pay what he owes. The servant can’t. It’s just too much debt.

And so the tension of the story appears – a man owes a good deal of money, money that he doesn’t have, to another person. Can anyone relate to this story?

I think Jesus wants us to learn certain things from this story. One of those things is that by its nature, money is a magnifier of a person’s character. What do I mean by this? Well, it’s like in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The central object is the Dark Lord’s Ring of Power, which corrupts anyone who tries to use it no matter how good his or her intentions. Tim Keller calls the Ring a “psychic amplifier.” The Ring takes the heart’s deepest desires and magnifies them to idolatrous proportions. And remember, an idol is taking something that is good and making it an ultimate thing. Idols usually don’t start out from bad things. Idolatry is trying to find soul satisfaction and ultimate meaning from things not meant to give them.

“The human heart is an idol factory. Anything can be an idol and everything has been.” Tim Keller

Money is a similar psychic amplifier. It isn’t by nature inherently evil, like the Ring of Power, but it does magnify character like few other things. In the story of the king and the debter, the debt magnifies the principal characters. The king’s good character is brought out by the occasion to forgive a debt. And the servants bad character is soon thereafter revealed by his ill treatment of those who owe him money. Notice, it’s the same debt but it elicits two different responses. Because the king and the servant are obviously two different quality of persons.

And that offers another teachable moment that no doubt Jesus wants us to get: Money and greed are not just a problem for the rich. We want to think that. And we want to say it’s just those rich folks and we’re not them. But the hard truth here is that the best person in the story was the wealthy king. He didn’t allow his money to be an idol. He valued forgiveness and other persons more than he valued his money. Not so the lowly servant. His love for money was great. It was at least one of his idols. There may have been others.

“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

Money has the power to do great harm when we get wrong. It can harm us and harm others. For example, carrying a lot debt over sustained periods of time rarely brings out the good in us. Debt is a great weight around us. Maybe we can carry it for a little while okay. But over the long term we pay a price. Debt can kill. Debt has the effect of isolating us from others. It squelches are ability to be generous with our money, our time, our talents. It affects our spirit of generosity and forgiveness. As the story well illustrates, being forgiven of debt doesn’t de facto makes us giving and forgiving people. Debt is often just a symptom of some underlying problems. When the debt is gone, the problem must be addressed, or, as Jesus taught, the demons will returned seven-fold.

However, being debt-free does provide us a wealth of opportunity to be generous, forgiving, and loving. Here we learn the lesson that the birthday party kids know. Cash is good. We all need a cash cow. But what we do with the cash will not only reflect and magnify our character, but will also help shape it.

We all need food and shelter, some savings, some income to live on. In a book, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want, it says social scientists have shown that once a person’s basic needs have been met, additional money and possessions have virtually no impact on his or her contentment level.

Remember, we are pursuing the Simple Life – a life well-lived in taking pleasure from simple things and from the joy of generosity toward God and others. That way lies contentment.

“There is great gain in godliness in contentment. . .if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. . .”

Somebody tell St. Paul that almost two thousand years after he wrote that sentence, social scientists have discovered the same thing.

In the pursuit of godliness we will make “getting money right” an indispensable spiritual discipline. We will begin to measure our priorities in part by what our checkbook and online accounts say is important to us. And if we find a great disconnect there, like the king in the story, we should be outraged, outraged at ourselves. We may have some cleaning up to do, some debts to pay down. We may have to start budgeting. We may have to reconsider what is food, shelter, clothing, i.e. what is necessary for contentment and what everything else is. We should start giving more generously today, our money, our time, our skills, our selves.

Does not the invitation to the Table come from the One who gives most and gives best and holds the key to Life and Death?