God Calls Us to the Abundant Life

¹⁵ And Jesus said to them, 

“Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed,

 for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Luke 12:15

Dear Friends,

The gospel passage we heard and pondered in worship this last Sunday talked directly about greed. The main thing that Jesus talked about was the KINGDOM OF GOD and the issue that he talked about the most was MONEY.

It seems that there are a lot of preachers (especially on the TV and radio) who talk a lot about money. Some have taken this verse that we heard a couple of Sundays ago,

 “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you;

search, and you will find;

knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Luke 11:9

and will preach that the reason you are not wealthy is because you haven’t asked God to make you wealthy! There are certainly passages in the Bible that seem to reinforce this idea. In fact, in the Old Testament, one of the main things that is used to show that God has blessed someone is that they are very wealthy. The inference is that if one walks with God, then God blesses one with wealth. The patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph) were all acknowledged as being blessed and one of the signs was lots of wealth. With this as a backdrop, then the preachers that encourage their followers to pray for wealth hand pick verses from the New Testament to fit this idea. This way of thinking is called the Prosperity Gospel. Not surprisingly, these preachers that use this message effectively live very lavishly in mansions and fly around in private jets. They point to their accumulation of wealth as a sign that God endorses their message and has blessed them.

In my reading and interpretation of Scripture, I find this “Christian” message very problematic. Most of the examples used to show wealth as a blessing ended with King Solomon. As the regal period continues (the 400 years or so where Israel and Judah were ruled by kings), the prophet began calling out the kings and other leaders for the economic injustice they were perpetrating. People in positions of official power or financial power, used their power to consolidate their holdings and to force people off their land. This took away from these people their primary means of providing for their families. Prophets like Micah, called for faithfulness and justice:

What does the Lord require of you,

but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

The justice that was called for was economic justice.

We live in a time where it seems like greed gets a free pass. We are encouraged to build up more and more wealth. Words like sacrifice and choosing to live with less seem “foolish” to most people. The whole concept of tithing (choosing to give one-tenth of one’s income back to God through offering) seems absurd or an impossibility. If we trust in Jesus’ teaching and promises, however, this kind of financial intentionality is just the thing we need to do to get off the hamster wheel of chasing more and more wealth… to NOT have money automatically be our idol.

Jesus said, “I came that you [y’all] may have life and have it abundantly.” We’re still challenged with this basic question, Do we trust Jesus and that the way of life he invites us to live is really the abundant life?

Peace,

Pastor Phil