I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
We are called to recognize that nothing that we possess is truly our own. But with money this is easy enough to forget. Wealth has an inbuilt tendency to reduce to dishonesty those who serve it. It is in fact difficult to use money at all without entering into some complicity with all of the dishonesty associated with the world of capital, commerce, of acquisition and greed. This is why so many in Church history have tried their best to eschew it entirely. Yet from the perspective of Jesus worldly wealth is meant to be a small matter wherein we prove our fidelity and our trustworthiness for greater matters and true spiritual wealth.
The person who is trustworthy in very small matters
is also trustworthy in great ones;
and the person who is dishonest in very small matters
is also dishonest in great ones.
If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth,
who will trust you with true wealth?
We all participate in this questionable system of dishonest wealth to some degree, especially those of us not vowed to poverty. When we do so are we consciously trying to serve God? If our answer is rather that we try to serve ourselves we need to recognize that it is never as innocuous as this. If we are not serving God with our money then we are not serving ourselves either. Rather, mammon has become our master. When this becomes true of us we become unable to serve God because he then seems opposed to our happiness and flourishing. We become hostile to him because he seems to be in competition for that which we ourselves desire. We may come to hold the illusion that money could somehow save the world if there were just enough of it in the right places. But more money won't help anything if it is the master and those who have it are its slaves.
No servant can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
We are called to be good stewards of the property with which our master has entrusted us, called to be faithful first in small matters before we are given more responsibility. We are called to use that which is relatively called dishonest wealth for the sake of true riches, friends that will welcome us into eternal dwellings. We do this when we use things for the sake of people, rather than, as is our tendency, using people for the sake of things. All the gifts and talents with which we have been entrusted, all of the time allotted to us in this life, all of this is meant to be in the service of the Gospel. There is nothing in this fleeting life that is somehow so absolute that it cannot or should not be ordered toward the Kingdom. What, if anything, of our time, talent, and treasure, are we tightly holding as our own, when it truly belongs to our master? How can we instead put it to use for his sake?
It is clear that Paul knew and understood that in which true wealth consists, and where true riches can be found.
Now to him who can strengthen you,
according to my Gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages
but now manifested through the prophetic writings and,
according to the command of the eternal God
The Gospel is wealth we can keep forever. It is not diminished when shared, but somehow multiplied. It is not worldly wealth as we often imagine but the Gospel that is the source of true strength. It brings about in us the obedience of faith by which we do become good stewards of all of the lesser things with which we have been entrusted. More than that, it brings us into relationship with God himself, who is meant to be our true and lasting treasure.
to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ
be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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