The goodness of goods!

Matthew 6:24-34

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.

‘That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are we not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you men of little faith? So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?” It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’

Food for thought!

This gospel makes us turn our thoughts to the place which material possessions should have in life. At the basis of Jesus' teaching about possessions there are three great principles.

(i) All things belong to God, as the Bible puts it: "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein" (Ps.24:1). "For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.... If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine" (Ps.50:10,12).

In Jesus' teaching it is the master who gives his servants the talents (Matt. 25:15), and the owner who gives the husbandmen the vineyard (Matt. 21:33). This principle has far-reaching consequences. We can buy and sell things; we can to some extent alter and rearrange things; but we cannot create things. The ultimate ownership of all things belongs to God. There is nothing in this world of which we can say, "This is mine." Of all things we can only say, "This belongs to God, and God has given me the use of it."

(ii) The second basic principle is that people are always more important than things. If possessions have to be acquired, if money has to be amassed, if wealth has to be accumulated at the expense of treating people as things, then all such riches are wrong. Whenever and wherever that principle is forgotten, or neglected, or defied, far-reaching disaster is certain to follow.

(iii) The third principle is that wealth is always a subordinate good. The Bible does not say that, "Money is the root of all evil," it says that "The love of money is the root of all evils" (1Tim.6:10). It is quite possible to find in material things what someone has called "a rival salvation."

A man may think that, because he is wealthy, he can buy anything, that he can buy his way out of any situation. Wealth can become his measuring-rod; wealth can become his one desire; wealth can become the one weapon with which he faces life.

If a man desires material things for an honourable motive, like helping his family and like doing something for his fellow-men, that is good; but if he desires it simply to heap pleasure upon pleasure, and to add luxury upon luxury, if wealth has become the thing he lives for and lives by, then wealth has ceased to be a subordinate good, and has usurped the place in life which only God should occupy.

One thing emerges from all this: the possession of wealth, money, material things is not a sin, but it is a grave responsibility. If you own many material things it is not so much a matter for congratulation as it is a matter for prayer, that you may use them as God would have you to do.