No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Luke 16: 13

There is no beating around the bush on this one. The text demands us to reflect on the subject of money.

Let’s be honest with ourselves. Most of us like money a lot. We need it to survive and having a little bit more promises us a lot of comfort. It makes life easier and there is nothing wrong with that. We may not love money like it is everything in our life. Unfortunately, money is not satisfied being a servant. This is where Jesus takes issue with it. It just refuses to be a servant. It always wants to be our god. It demands our complete and utter devotion. Unfortunately, there is growing sentiment in the world now where many are not afraid to admit that they only love and care about money. There are also churches preaching that money is a blessing. Jesus never used these words. He always told us to get rid of it.

Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. Luke 12:33

This wasn’t a command given to a specific person like the story for the rich young ruler. It is given to those who want to be His disciples. Therefore, we have a lot to consider. There is no point trying to find a loophole using the words of St Paul where he is often quoted by whose who feel very comfortable with money,

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” I Timothy 6:10

Some argue that as long as they don’t love money, they are fine. St Paul did not write this to give us a loophole. He agrees with Jesus. Money sets itself against God. In other words, it is a demon. It can deceive us easily. Therefore, let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling and not be deceived by the lies of this world.

You may have heard some say, “Money doesn’t solve all our problems.” It is something all of us might agree to without much controversy. The problem is that this is not true. Money solves a lot of problems and we live in a world riddled with problems. There is no one here without any problems that money can’t help. Jesus understood this because, like us, He had His fair share of problems.

Jesus had family problems. The gospels tells us His family thought that Jesus was mad. This wasn’t because Jesus was preaching and healing people but Jesus wasn’t fulfilling His responsibilities to His mother. He was the first born and it was His duty to provide for His parents in their old age. In all likelihood, our Lord was doing this when working as a carpenter until He answered His higher calling. His family could not understand why He would abandoned His trade and neglected His duties to His mother. A little money could have resolved this issue. Jesus had problems with the religious authorities. They hated Him but, in this gospel text, the evangelist states that the Pharisees were lovers of money (Luke 13:14). If Jesus had been a rich man, their attitude would have been completely different. Jesus had financial problems. He had no place to rest His head. He really had very little money so much so that they had to fish to get a coin to pay His taxes. The gospel tells us that women supported Jesus financially. Women had limited access to money in these times even if they came from wealthy families. These women gave of the little they had. Jesus could have gotten rich if He wanted. He healed many rich people. I am sure that they would have supported Him financially. However, our Lord practiced what He preached. Even the living Son of God was wary of the power of money. We need to take heed of this.

Money solves a lot of problems but Jesus says it is sinful or dishonest. Many of us like to think money is neutral, but not Jesus. It is as sinful as the forbidden fruit which led to the fall of humanity. It was for the same reasons. It gives an illusion that we can be our own gods.

The thing for us to remember is that there is nowhere in the gospels where Jesus promised us a problem free life. To the contrary, Jesus promised that we will have more problems. He said our families might hate us if we follow Him. He said our friends might abandon or betray us. In other words, all the things which happened to Him might happen to us. However, He did promise one thing. He said that despite all these problems,

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10

This is good news. Abundant life is available even if we don’t have money. It is available even if our lives are riddled with problems. God’s love is greater than all these. It transcends all these. This is especially good news for our ministry. We don’t have the financial resources to resolve all the problems of the homeless youth. However, we have life which is graciously bestowed upon us through our Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t need money to share this Life. Lack of money cannot hinder us from sharing this Life. Therefore, the most relevant question to ask is what exactly is abundant life. We cannot be vague. Money is quite clear of what it gives to us in this life. We need to be clear about Abundant Life.

Perhaps the controversial parable can help us here. Jesus is not praising the manager for his deceitfulness. He is praising the manager because, despite his dishonesty, he knew exactly that he needed friends to have a good life. He used money, albeit dishonestly, to gain friends. He did the right thing for selfish reasons. Jesus is not allowing us to be dishonest. We interpret Jesus’ words according to His Life. Jesus is pointing out that despite being selfish and corrupt, he still understood the importance of relationship.

The abundant Life Jesus promised comes through our relationships. Beginning with our relationship of God who fills our hearts with unconditional Love and then this unconditional Love helps us to see God’s Love present in this problem riddled world. God’s unconditional Love will help us to use the dishonest things of this world for an opportunity to share His Love. In the streets, homelessness is a problem of a sinful society. We cannot solve these problems. However, we have an opportunity to recognize and acknowledge God’s love present in the circumstances. Therefore, how does money come into all this?

Jesus is teaching us to use our money to gain friends. He is not saying that we buy our friends with gifts. He is saying that we use our money to remove obstacles hindering us from developing our friendship with people. In other words, Jesus is teaching us to live a lifestyle of generosity. This is the only virtue we can use to counter the sinful influences of money. Generosity should not be confused with liberality. This is just another way of showing devotion to the god of money. Generosity is recognition that every thing we have comes from God and we give back to Him following the example of our Lord. Our Lord used all His resources to serve people; good and bad. Generosity is not just about money although it plays an important role. Generosity is a lifestyle. We have to be generous with our time and space; space includes our home, too. Sometimes it means putting away our headphones and engaging in a conversation with a person. It means making time for people despite our busy schedules. It doesn’t mean we give our time, space and money to anyone we meet in the streets. True generosity comes with wisdom. Generosity means being open and available to become God’s instrument of blessing in someone’s life.

We can only be truly generous when we understand and experience the grace and love of God in our own lives. Without the confidence of God’s love for us, we cannot be generous.

In closing, I want to share a living example how the generous use of money brought abundant life to a person. Many of you might recall me writing about Patricia. She was a homeless woman who was the matriarch of a family who lived in the streets for three generations. We developed a close relationship with her over the years. Last year she suffered a stroke and was partially paralysed. It happened at the time when the family was finally able to rent a small room and break the chain of homelessness. Even though health care is free here, there were still many expenses. She needed diapers, a wheelchair, rides to the hospital for physical therapy…the list goes on and on. They did not have money for any of these. We helped initially but it was a great burden on our personal finance. I did what the manager of the parable did without being dishonest, of course. I called upon a friend of mine who is my childhood friend who happens to live in Brazil now. He gave me a generous gift to help Patricia. We were able to help Patricia with all her needs. For one year, Patricia was able to have all her medical needs met. The generosity of my friend helped us build a stronger bond with not just Patricia but with all the homeless youth. It motivated them to help in whatever small way to alleviate the sufferings of Patricia. When Patricia was able to walk again, she would walk quite a distance just to sit and talk with us weekly. We had some great conversations. She also said that she had great joy for Life and she was especially grateful to God for our friendship and the friendship of all our youth. She had a full life. Unfortunately, Patricia caught the flu and her body gave up on her. She died a few months ago, almost exactly one year after her stroke. However, for one year, she knew that she was greatly loved and she acknowledged this Love with gratitude. She knew that she was well loved and all these was because of God. This is the abundant Life that we all seek. Knowing that we are loved unconditionally.

Generosity helped her understand that God is Love.