Bible reading: 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19.

Message.

William Thomas Berger was a Victorian businessman whose father had established a rice starch factory in east London. The factory was doing well and, when Berger senior died in around 1855, William inherited it and became a wealthy man. As a Christian, he decided that he didn’t want to hold on to his fortune. I don’t know Berger came to hear about an obscure missionary from Barnsley running a hospital in China; but he did, and decided to send him a gift of £50, worth about £8000 in today’s money. Obviously the money took time to reach its destination, but it finally arrived at a critical time, when the hospital was down to its last sack of rice and facing closure. Hudson Taylor, for that was the missionary’s name, had been praying for supplies and saw Berger’s gift as one that had been sent from God.

This was the beginning of a partnership which saw Berger not only bankrolling and organising the new China Inland Mission but also becoming its first British Director: very necessary at a time when communication with China in those days was slow and unreliable. Berger supported other missionaries as well, one of whom said, “He was one of the finest men I ever met … He was a godly, prayerful man who really walked with God and loved his Bible … At one time he gave up his business and retired, but later took it up again simply that he might support more missionary work”. Taylor’s mission organisation, now called OMF International, still exists and is based in Singapore rather than Berger’s home in West Sussex; the starch factory ended up as part of the giant Unilever company but closed in 1969.

Please hold that story in your minds as I turn to the Bible which, at first sight, appears to frown at wealth. We all know the story of the rich young man who wanted to follow Jesus. His lifestyle was in many ways exemplary, but he was unable to accept Jesus’ challenge to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. At the end of the day, holding onto his wealth was what mattered most. We also all know Jesus’ chilling parable of the man who reaped an extraordinarily plentiful harvest. He planned to expand his farm by building new and bigger barns to store his crop (we can imagine him rubbing his hands together in glee) but in fact unexpectedly died. He couldn’t take his profits with him to heaven, said Jesus; what kind of treasure have we amassed and where is it stored?

As well as those two familiar stories, there are many other Bible verses and passages which offer a negative view of wealth. Psalm 49 echoes the parable of the farmer by telling is not to be upset when someone becomes rich, because “he cannot take it with him when he dies; his wealth will not go with him to the grave”. Another Psalm, 62, exhorts us not to trust in our riches or set our hearts on them – especially if they have been obtained by extortion or robbery; while the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches”. The book of Ecclesiastes gives us, as you might expect, several warnings such as “God gives some people wealth, possessions and honour, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, however he does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead”. Those verses all came from the Old Testament, but I’ll finish this section with a well-known text from the New, in fact from Mary’s song, the “Magnificat”: “He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands” – a theme which Jesus would take up in his ministry.

That kind of thinking seems to have been evident in the early Church. The apostle James is certainly forceful in his letter: “Weep and wail, you rich people, because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are covered in rust”. I think we need to see this passage, and others about money, in the context of first-century Roman society, where a small percentage of the population held most of the wealth and power (we might want to say, “What’s changed?”). I’m no historian, but I’d guess that much of this wealth was passed down the generations by landowners and merchants, while others got rich from corruption and extortion. Most people, including most of the Christians, weren’t not well off; slaves of course owned no property but were themselves owned by their masters. I’d suggest, therefore, that becoming rich was an impossible dream for many; this may have made them cynical about wealthy peoples’ success, even if it had been achieved honestly. I’m not sure that we think very differently today: talk of back-handers and brown envelopes for Council or Government contracts is common; we also decry the huge bonuses given to bosses and bankers who don’t seem to deserve them, and criticise hugely profitable companies who sweat their shopfloor workers for long hours at a minimum wage.

But … and there is a but … the early Church did have some well-off members. It must have had, because we know thar some churches met for worship in private homes; these must have been the spacious villas we so often associate with ancient Rome, not the cramped and dark insulae or flats which were the abode of so many city-dwellers. And there was more: the owners of these villas would have been the hosts or patrons of the churches that met in them. Like the boy who owns the football, they became the church’s leaders almost by default. So we have people such as Erastus, who seems to have been the city of Corinth’s manager; and others such as Phoebe, Jason, Aristobulus, Narcissus, Stephanas, Onesiphorus, Gaius and Philemon who we met the other week. These all provided valuable support to the churches. One person of particular interest is Lydia. How unusual was she, as a business woman, in contemporary society? I don’t know.

In writing to Timothy, Paul has messages for both the wealthy and to those of more limited means. To the rich, he has three commands. He first tells them not to be big-headed, to think that they’ve “made it”, to think that their wealth gives them status in society. Those thoughts are all expressions of pride and, as we know, God loves humility. Second, Paul reminds the rich that wealth does not give them eternal security – banks can collapse and businesses can fail. Echoing Jesus’ comment after his parable about the farmer with the bumper harvest, Paul tells the rich that what’s more important is to store up spiritual treasure in heaven. Finally, and this takes me back to William Berger, Paul says that rich Christians have a duty to share their wealth: they must be “rich in good works, generous and ready to share with others”. The implication is that God has blessed them with plenty; they have a responsibility before him to share that plenty and use it wisely.

That’s what Paul tells Timothy to say to the rich Christians. But the poorer ones don’t get off scot-free: he has a command for them which, when boiled down to essentials, goes back to the Tenth Commandment: if you’ve got a roof over your head, decent clothes to wear and enough food and drink, be content and don’t covet more. Seeking riches, says Paul, is an almost certain path to temptation, a trap which pulls people down to ruin and destruction. It becomes an all-consuming passion which eventually replaces their Christian faith. One commentator has written, “The insatiable appetite for wealth narrows a person’s field of vision; when one gazes fixedly at wealth, one cannot look around at neighbours who demonstrate that riches are not necessary for abundant life. Wealth’s blinkers conceal from us the people whose need for bare sustenance far surpasses our desire for newer, better, more intense satisfactions”. Paul ends with a verse which is often misquoted: the love of money – not money itself, which is neutral – is a source of all kinds of evil; it has a malign power. Jesus asked if we are God’s servants or money’s slaves? For we can’t be both.

It’s difficult to know how to finish this message. But I will make two points for you to think about. The first is to say that many of us here are rich. We may not think that we are, we’re certainly not in the private jet or superyacht category of wealth; but we’re much better off than many, many people in today’s world. Many of us are fortunate in having good pensions and a paid-off mortgage; we can dine out and go on holiday without counting every penny. I realise, of course, that that’s not true for some of us who find that paying the bills, putting food on the table and providing for the children is a daily challenge and worry. You should not have to be in that situation. But for those of us who have money to spare, Paul asks us to think carefully about how we should use it – for ourselves, for others, or for God’s work?

The other point I’d like to make is that talk of “laying up treasure” in heaven is meaningless to most people who have only vaguest idea of a life beyond the grave – if at all in a world where death isn’t a threat constantly hanging over us. Surely, they’d say, we need to do all we can to be successful in life; we know that we can’t take our wealth with us when we die but we can at least leave it for our children or for good causes, our motives aren’t completely selfish. There is some merit in this view – even Paul, in this same letter to Timothy, says that a person who does not take care of their relatives, especially the members of their own family, has denied the faith and is worse than someone who does not believe. Nevertheless Christians should always be looking to “the life beyond” as well as “life in this world”; we are citizens of two kingdoms and should live accordingly.

I didn’t find it easy to prepare this message, and that’s not because of diminishing mental faculties or brain fog – at least, I hope not! No, it’s because I’m lucky enough to have savings, so Paul’s words challenge me personally. To what extent am I, or should I be, prepared to forego earthly security and our son’s inheritance and trust for a heavenly reward (although that statement in itself makes me sound grasping and mercenary)? The answer is, “I don’t know” although I’m reminded of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who allegedly said, “The last part of a man to be converted is his wallet”. (Wesley, by the way, could have been a rich man if he’d taken the profits from his books, but he paid himself a salary and gave the rest away). There’s also the comment of the German reformer Martin Luther who said, “Everyone needs two conversions: the first, their heart, the second, their wallet”.

Our faith is demonstrated by our actions; so when it comes to money, let’s ask ourselves: are we as truly Christian as we say we are?