the faithfulness test

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Luke 16:10-13; NRSVue

Chapters and verses in the Bible are not part of the original text, but in the case of Luke 16, it is all about wealth and what we might call the faithfulness test with reference to that. “Follow the money” is a major way to understand faithfulness to God and idolatry throughout the text of Scripture.

Luke 16 begins with “the Parable of the Dishonest Manager” (NRSVue headings; verses 1-13), “the Law and the Kingdom of God” (verses 14-18) and ends with “the Rich Man and Lazarus” (verses 19-31). It is a powerful chapter, worth some serious time, study and meditation. The entire book of Luke is powerful in a similar way, undermining the systems in which we live and challenging us to the core of our being.

The CEB Study Bible summarizes the sayings interspersed between the stories by Jesus, verses 10-13 quoted above. “Jesus’ followers are to consider themselves God’s slaves (Luke 12:35-48) who are asked to manage God’s property according to God’s wishes.”

How we spend and manage our money tells a lot about us. If you want to know your value system or the value system of any entity, be it church, state or nation, start there. It’s not like one can’t enjoy good things with money, not at all. In fact, we should. But we need to see ourselves essentially as stewards of God’s gifts to us, sacrificially loving our neighbor as ourselves.

But we also need to avoid the pitfall of simply throwing money at a problem, thinking that’s enough and actually being more or less disengaged from it all.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 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.

Luke 12:32-34; NRSVue

Unfortunately, like some of the religious, wealthy of Jesus’s day, we can throw even large amounts of money into the coffer and be entirely disengaged, in fact live lives that give the lie to our profession unlike the poor widow who gave all she had to live on (Luke 21:1-4).

Are we faithful or not? Are we growing in our understanding and practice of this? That’s the point. Not perfection, but a passion to come to live in this fully as churches and individuals in our following of Christ.

worldliness: accepting the world’s value system

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that the scripture speaks to no purpose? Does the spirit that God caused to dwell in us desire envy? But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says,

“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:1-10; NRSVue

Worldliness has been a common theme in many churches and denominations. Often it’s had to do with dress, especially with the idea of women dressing modestly, not what the idea meant in Biblical times: avoiding dressing extravagantly to flaunt one’s riches, but in recent times rather covering themselves up well. In my lifetime movie going, dancing, drinking alcohol and similar things were cast into the mold of what was taught to be worldly. I remember there was once a book entitled The Worldly Evangelicals, which, if I’m not mistaken as I remember what was written about it would have been mostly related to this kind of understanding of worldliness, emphasizing practices often considered sinful in churches, though I haven’t read the book myself.

In James we see that “friendship with the world” which is said to be “enmity with God” has to do with people’s value system. The people James is writing to were not getting along. At the heart of that seems to be covetousness. Yes, it was no different in that day than it is today. It may take on different forms, but the heart of the matter is the same.

The harm of this to churches is probably not as evident now, since we live in a society and culture which accentuates individual liberty. Community is downplayed, optional, virtually nonexistent. Back then there was more of a sense of community, of communal interdependence. There was likely something of a class or wealth comparison going on. The community was in danger of fracturing over envy and disparity. And the rich and the poor along with everyone else were evidently caught up in the worldly mindset of valuing material wealth and status and comparing themselves with each other. James called them, and calls us to something better, something good, possible in God’s grace to all who humble themselves, acknowledging their wrong.

James tells them that their pursuit is empty and sinful. That this is why they don’t pray, and what prayers they might pray remain unanswered. What’s needed is a rejection of the world’s value system, and an adoption of a totally new way of looking at life. James calls for out and out repentance, for them to pull out the stops in doing that. That God in God’s grace is willing to meet them there and help them to reject the friendship of the world in the world’s ways. And to begin to live into something much better. All of this meant to be lived out not just as individuals, but in community.

what really matters to me, to someone else, to any group?

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

Luke 6:43-45; NRSVue

How do I know what matters to someone, to myself, to a church? Just listen to yourself and to what they’re saying. Then we have to compare that with what Jesus taught and what follows from that in the New Testament. We do well first to judge ourselves. Is Jesus’s value system ours and to what extent? Or is it something else? Jesus tells us to first take the log out of our own eye so that we can see clearly to take the speck out of our neighbor’s eye (Luke 6:37a, 41-42).

All of this is taken from Jesus’s “Sermon on the Plain,” an interesting parallel to his “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7). One does well to begin with either and both if one is to understand the teaching, gospel and fulfillment that Jesus brought, as well as the rest of the New Testament. If you don’t have this down well, you won’t have the rest of the New Testament down either or be open to the unfolding of the gospel which we find especially in Paul’s and Pauline (those attributed to Paul) writings. And it’s likely you don’t understand the rest of Scripture, the Old Testament, which all must be taken not literally, but seriously (Walter Brueggemann).

We need to listen and be honest. If I’m so concerned about this or that or something else, just how that lines up with the Bible which I claim to be God’s Word is the question. And even more important, as a Christian, how is my concern and concerns in line with Jesus’s teaching and life which is supposed to be the fulfillment of Scripture, its intent. And we need to try to plumb the depths of both what’s being said to get to the heart of that, as well as what Jesus said and the heart of that. There’s much there, and we’re not taking this seriously if we think we have it down, that we know we’re “saved” and that’s enough. And by the way, what does “saved” actually mean in the sense of what Jesus taught and what follows from that?

We’re all in this process; none of us is exempt; it’s foolish to think otherwise. Just the same, there’s a clear crisis today among supposed Christians in name, maybe actual Christians as that has come to be understood, but Christ-followers, I’m not so sure. But to be a Christian is supposed to be a baptized, committed Christ-follower if we take Jesus’s teaching and the rest of the New Testament seriously. If it’s all about our Christian religious freedom as well as having access to guns, etc., etc., or maybe about losing our privilege over others in some way, then we no longer have to wonder whether we’re in line with Jesus or not.

And Jesus says that what’s supposed to be the heartbeat of it all, of love for God, is love for our neighbor. If that isn’t front and center in our talking and activity, then all of us, me certainly included, need to stare that in the face exactly for what it is, pray about it and get rid of it, or else quit thinking our religion is the religion of Jesus (James 1:26-27). It’s not.