Wealth creation at harvest-time - on being rich towards God

Harvest Festival, Mary Tavy Methodist Church, 10/9/2012

Psalm 8, Luke 12.13-31

 

‘So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

This is a sermon about wealth creation. After a wet summer, a damp harvest, in a time of recession, wealth creation is something most of us have on our minds. How to make ends meet; how to gain more wealth. A question born not from greed, more from necessity. And our hearts go out to those for whom living through these times is desperately difficult. Those for whom storing up in barns is clearly not an option, for there is no excess to store, everything they have has to be fully used, and that is hardly enough. 

But the words of Jesus are for all time, for times of plenty and for times of need. So today let us consider a different sort of wealth creation. Let us consider what it means to be ‘rich toward God’

Being ‘rich toward’ something is about what you most value in life - it’s about an attitude of the heart.

And being ‘rich toward’ something is about how that deep attitude of the heart influences the way you live - it’s about your way of life. 

I suggest that if you are rich towards the things of the world - if you most value possessions and wealth, then you'll be smart with money but you’ll probably be also anxious; by contrast, if you are rich towards God, then you'll value most highly things like family, community, peace, etc, and you'll use your money more generously towards others but you'll be comfortable and satisfied with yourself.

Being rich can buy us many things. But are they the things which really satisfy? Being rich, we can buy:

- a bed, but no dreams;

- books, but not intelligence;

- food, but not appetite;

- jewellry, but not beauty;

- medicines, but not health;

- entertainment, but not joy;

- a crucifix, but not a Saviour... [1]

Those are the limitations of being rich toward things, being rich toward possessions.

The idea of being rich toward God provokes the question: are the things you think will make you rich, the things which come from God?

Being rich towards God involves us in seeing how rich God is towards the world: in his deep generosity and creativity God has gifted us his wondrous creation, in all its beauty and provision - even in a lean year, we can still see that. No wonder the writer of Psalm 8 witnesses the skies, the seas, the land and all the creatures crying out in praise to God: their response to God’s richness towards all he has made. 

Being rich towards God involves you in accepting the gift that God has given you - the world - your part of it - and asked you to care deeply for it. 

Being rich towards God will affect the way you think about money, learning not to see it as a bad thing but not to be dominated by it; instead seeing it as a gift from God to be used wisely, creatively, in service of others, in praise of the Creator.

Being rich towards God is about the way you live your life towards the earth and others; about how you respond to Jesus' two most basic demands: 'love God, love your neighbour as yourself'. 

Being rich towards God involves casting your cares on him - not relying on the vagaries of commerce, the bank account, the stock market or the lottery, for security, but learning to trust God for all you need. 

Now that's a lifetime's work, cultivating that spirit of thankfulness and trust; you may feel that you’re as yet nowhere near as loving and giving and rich towards God as you should be. I know that’s how I feel.

So let us encourage each each other to be ‘rich toward God’. Let’s create that sort of wealth together. Let’s help each other to live faithful, careful, generous lives, let’s work together in devoting ourselves to the care of the earth, to the needs of the poor and destitute, and to guiding others in the Christian faith. 

Let us help each other to know that a Christian's treasure is not on earth but in heaven, and to pray and to love [2], to enrich each other’s lives as we focus together on our loving, giving God, and the wealth he has created for us. 

 

Notes

[1] This well-known epigram is unattributed. If you know its source, please let me know.

[2] This line based on a quote from Jean-Baptiste Vianney, the Cure d'Ars. Quoted in full in an earlier version of this sermon, preached in Liverpool in August 2004.

Comments

[Katherine]

I'm curious as to why it's always framed as an either/or. Either we can be spiritual, or we can be rich. We can value God (in whichever form we choose) or we can value money. Why not both? I'm currently taking a course that challenges some of my deep-set attitudes about money, most notably that it's pious to be poor. You know what? It really isn't. There are an increasing number of entrepeneurs (often women) who consider their wealth to have a spiritual/sacred dimension, for whom tithing and charity is a fundamental of their business practice. Obviously, this can then be pushed to an extreme with the American Calvinist view that a wealthy lifestyle declares you to be one of the Elect, and a subsequent disregard for anyone beneath you in the food chain. But one of the things driving me forward right now is the knowledge that by increasing my wealth I can not only improve my family's wellbeing but also put my money to good use with causes I believe in. For the last 10 years I've been a stay at home mother and haven't earned a penny. This year, for the first time, I'm making money from my writing. It's a tiny amount, but I am already tithing. It felt sooo good to give that money to causes that need it (once I'd got past the angst of donating from my paltry income...) - charity is surely a spiritual act, but one that isn't possible unless we also take responsibility for putting our gifts into action in order to create wealth on a more material level. Isn't that partly where the parable of the Talents comes in? That we should be using our gifts, not hiding them out of fear? I dunno, I never heard it explained in a way that fully made sense to me. But I feel the church's insistence on poverty as virtue is more of a hangover of political control, a historical tool to force the masses to accept their lot, rather than a genuine spiritual teaching. There is empty wealth, but there is also meaningful wealth. We are living in a world where greed and power have corrupted the dominant classes - but that doesn't mean that we should accept poverty and powerlessness as a state of grace - more that we should be fighting to take it back from them. Hmm, God, money and politics - I can't understand why I don't get invited to more dinner parties! I'm hugely interested in this as an area of study/debate as it's something I'm questioning in my own life right now - yet I don't feel that I have to choose between money or God, it's possible to see money as a sacred gift.

[John Davies]

Thanks Katherine - I read your comments 15 minutes before the service began at which I was due to preach my sermon.... and made some late adjustments in recognition of what you said. Preachers only have ten minutes in which to get something across, and so sometimes have to lose the nuances of an argument and get 'oppositional'; but the nuances are important, and so after reading your comments I did try to drip in the idea that part of being 'rich towards God' is taking what financial wealth we have as a gift from God and using it accordingly, for good. It is important to affirm that whilst there is empty wealth, there is also meaningful wealth. I also agree that the idea that poverty is in some way a state of grace, is deeply flawed. The 'state of grace' comes from a person's inner attitude towards their outer circumstances: so whilst there is 'meaningful' poverty there can also be 'empty' poverty, and to my mind Jesus spent much of his time challenging this. Important I think to remember that the passage I preached on here is a challenge to someone already very rich, increasing his wealth even further whilst ignoring everyone else.