Sermon: Spirituality of Money

Luke 12:32-40
Spirituality of Money
James Sledge                                                                                     August 7, 2022

St. Lucy giving alms, Bernat Martorell, c. 1435
The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

 Several years ago, we were visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Austin, Texas, and we went into one of the many quirky little shops there. While looking around I stumbled onto a playing card sized refrigerator magnet that depicted a stereotypical image of Jesus in a robe with a shepherd’s staff in one hand. With his other hand he appears to be knocking on a door, and just above this image it says, “Jesus Is Coming.” Below the image it says, “Look Busy.”

Our scripture reading for this morning is part of a longer section on discipleship. As Jesus and his followers draw closer to Jerusalem and the cross, he is beginning to teach them how they are to live when he is no longer with them. The disciples are indeed supposed to look busy because they will be about the work of the kingdom, of God’s new day.

Jesus urges his disciples not to worry about and strive for the things of the world. He says, “Instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” It is in the context of this striving that Jesus speaks of selling possessions and giving alms, adding, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Where your treasure is, your heart will be also. In the gospels, Jesus talks a lot about money and treasure and their relationship to faith. I’ve never tried to verify it, but I’ve read that Jesus talks more about money and riches than he does about any other facet of human life. Clearly Jesus thinks that our relationship to money is a critical aspect of faith. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This statement might seem simply to be an obvious statement of fact. If someone’s heart is really given to something, an activity, a cause, another person, then money tends to follow. If someone is totally onboard with a political candidate, really all in, then they are likely to donate money generously to the candidate, work as a volunteer making phone calls, or go door to door handing out campaign literature. It just makes sense that if someone has given their heart over to something, it will show up in how they spend the money and their time.

But I’m not sure that Jesus is simply stating a truism. Rather, I think he has the order reversed from a statement of fact. He’s saying that where you put your money, your heart will follow. That actually is in keeping with much that Jesus says about discipleship. He says that being a disciple starts with letting go, letting go of old ways, letting go of old priorities, and, according to today’s scripture, letting go of some of our treasure. It is a spiritual practice that helps form people into faithful followers of Jesus.

I don’t know that very many people think about money when the topic of spirituality, spiritual practices, or spiritual formation arises, but it may well be that how we use our money, our treasure, is the single most important indicator of our spiritual health.

Unfortunately, when churches talk about money and giving, it often isn’t about anything spiritual. Instead it’s about fundraising. We give it the churchy name of stewardship, but a great deal of the time, we’re simply talking about raising enough money to make the church budget for the coming year.

Now churches do need to bring in enough money to meet budgets. It takes money to keep up buildings, to have staff so there’s a music program and a youth program and so on. Churches need to be transparent about their costs and their financial needs to operate. But when giving is thought of primarily as fund raising, the spiritual side, the need to shape heart and life for the ways of God’s new day, gets lost.

Rather than being a spiritual discipline, church giving frequently gets thought of in consumer terms. Here the issue is whether or not the church provides good activities for my children or me. What is the church doing to meet my needs or my family’s needs? If it’s providing at a certain level, I’ll support it at a certain level. If it’s not, I may not. This pattern of giving is largely a measure of how well the church is delivering consumer goods to the consumers who make up the congregation.

But Jesus’ words today have nothing to do with consumers paying for what they receive. Jesus is trying to reshape us more and more in the image of God, to help us conform more and more to the ways of God. And for Jesus this has a lot to do with what we trust to give us life, to make life good and meaningful.

Our culture tells us that having more stuff will make life better, but Jesus says that is flat out wrong. It’s not that Jesus expects you to sell your house and live in a tent, forgo any new clothes, or never take a vacation. I don’t think Jesus wants you to give away your car and start walking to work. But I do think that Jesus wants us to stop trusting in those things to make life good and meaningful.

And there’s a pretty easy way to tell what we are trusting to give us a good life. All you have to do is look at your credit card bills, your checkbook (if you still use one of those), your bank statement. When you look at where your money, your treasure is going, how is that shaping and forming you? What does your spending and giving say about what you trust on the deepest level?

Jesus says that getting our priorities straight is the exact opposite of what our consumer culture teaches us. Our culture says that life gets better the more we acquire, but Jesus says that discovering life on the deepest level involves letting go, and in that sense, Jesus’ words in our scripture are a bit of practical advice. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” When we divert a significant portion of our treasure to the priorities of God, to the ways of Jesus, our hearts will be shaped and transformed for life as God intends, for the good and full life that Jesus promises his followers.

That means that when we’re talking about stewardship as a spiritual practice, it’s not about the church’s need for money but about your and my need to be shaped and formed to the ways of God’s coming new day. If some rich benefactor decided to leave this church millions of dollars, our budget would be taken care of for years, but the need for you and me to give, to let go of significant portions of our treasure for the work of God, would still be there. Perhaps we would decide to give our treasure to some other organization doing God’s work that needed the money more, but the need for the critical spiritual practice of giving would still be there.

“Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Dare we trust the way of Jesus and use our treasure for the work of God? Dare we risk that following Jesus is the way to truly abundant life?