87 - The Love of Money

1 Timothy 6:3-21

Jesus has made this point repeatedly.

Just two examples:  in Matthew, the rich young man who is following all the law, and Jesus tells him to sell all that he had and give the money to the poor, and then to follow Jesus.  When the young man heard this, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

In Luke, Jesus tells the parable of the rich man whose farm produced many crops, so that he had to build extra storage for them.  And with all those goods stored up, he could "relax, eat, drink and be merry."  But God said to him "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.  All the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.

The author of 1 Timothy puts an even finer point:  "The love of money is the root of all evil."

Does this mean having a 401(k) to support one's retirement is wrong?

I don't think that's what is being said here.  Rather this goes to the sin that kept getting the Hebrew people into trouble with God -- having false idols, believing that acquiring more and more money or stuff is the most rewarding activity, forgetting their creator and liberator.

I recently read what Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said about the relationship between charity and justice in Jewish thought:

"The word tzedakah is untranslatable because it joins together two concepts that in other languages are opposites, namely charity and justice.  Suppose for example that I give someone $100.  Either he is entitled to it, or he is not.  If he is, then my act is a form of justice.  If he is not, it is an act of charity.  In English a gesture of charity cannot be an act of justice, nor can an act of justice be described as charity.  Tzedakah means both.

It arises from Judaism's theological insistence on the difference between possession and ownership.  Ultimately, all things are owned by God, creator of the world.  What we possess, we do not own -- we merely hold it in trust for God.  .... In Judaism, because we are not owners of our property but guardians on God's behalf, we are bound by the conditions of trusteeship, one of which is that we share part of what we have with others in need.  What would be regarded as charity in other legal systems is, in Judaism, a strict requirement of the law and can...be enforced."*

What impact would it have on your view of money if you treated it as God's money, for which you only have temporary trusteeship?

*Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World - The Ethics of Responsibility, p 32.