Can The Righteous Be Rich?
Sermon
MONEY AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Can The Rich Be Righteous; Can The Righteous Be Rich?
There is a delightful story that has circulated in ministerial circles for years. A young minister, newly called to his first church and eager and expecting to change the world in the next five years, is invited out to lunch by one of the elderly, wizened trustees of the church.
Over dessert and coffee the trustee finally comes to the real purpose of the meeting. "Young man, allow me to give you some confidential advice. In order to be a success in the ministry, I suggest you avoid the controversial subjects of politics and religion!" And if the truth be known, he might have added the controversial subject of money.
The many people who are convinced that politics and religion do not mix are also convinced that money and religion do not mix. Many people will remember the notable American preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick. Fosdick first made headlines challenging some of the biblical doctrines in the name of science in the first part of the twentieth century. Increasingly, he did battle with religious fundamentalists who were only too eager to do battle with him. The Rockefellers were impressed and persuaded him to become their minister at Central Baptist Church on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Fosdick consented, but allowed as to how a more inclusive church built in a less exclusive neighborhood would be more agreeable.
The Rockefellers consented and the soon--to--be famous Riverside Church was under construction at West 120th and Riverside Drive across from Grant's Tomb and adjacent to Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. From that exalted pulpit Fosdick became America's liberal preacher laureate, influencing countless lay people and ministers, including this one.
And yet, Fosdick had a curious view about religion and money. If the Victorians were glad to talk about religion and embarrassed to talk about sex, they also seemed to be glad to talk about religion and embarrassed to talk about money.
Money, like sex, was private and personal and nobody else's business. And just as William James, Harvard's famous psychologist, found it distasteful to talk about sex, Riverside Church's famous Harry Emerson Fosdick found it distasteful to talk about money, as he admitted in one of his "compulsory" stewardship sermons.
However, the strange irony is that both the elderly, wizened trustee and the famous and influential Fosdick would have found themselves uncomfortable in Jesus' presence. It is a commonly overlooked fact that Jesus talked a lot about money and its use. "You cannot serve God and money, because you will love one and hate the other," he said. "Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also" and "Lay--up for yourselves treasures in heaven" are other famous sayings of Jesus that have become common maxims.
But the dilemma continues. Do religion and money mix? Is it possible to be wealthy and be righteous? Or to turn it around, can we be righteous and rich? Is religion really an enemy of money?
I.
The first thing to note is that both religion and investment (i.e. money--making) require risk.
Along with Warren Buffett, probably one of the best--known investors of our time is Peter Lynch. For a number of years he managed the amazingly successful Fidelity Magellan Fund based in Boston. If you had invested $10,000 in the Fund when Lynch became manager, ten years later it would have been worth $190,000. Lynch made a lot of people wealthy with his strategies.
Although he suggests that in addition to the famous oxymorons - military intelligence, jumbo shrimp, and deafening silence - we add professional investor, he surely qualifies as one, oxymoron or not. And while multimillionaire Andrew Mellon once asserted, "Gentlemen prefer bonds," Lynch, however ungentlemanly, prefers stocks. "In stocks, you've got the company's growth on your side. You're a partner in a prosperous and expanding business. In bonds, you're nothing more than the nearest source of spare change," says Lynch in his book One Up On Wall Street (p. 57).
Through all sorts of crashes, depressions, administrations, and changes in skirt lengths, stocks have performed fifteen times better than bonds, says Lynch, and thirty times better than Treasury bills. As a matter of fact, "The real return on Treasury bills known as the most conservative and sensible of all places to put money, has been nil. That's right. Zippo," says Lynch (ibid., p. 56).
In spite of J. Paul Getty's famous formula for success: "Rise early, work hard, strike oil!" most people have to take risks to get ahead financially. As Mister Johnson said, "Stocks you trade; it's wives you're stuck with." But trade intelligently, says Lynch. Risk--taking is not the same as being a fool, says Warren Buffett. If you don't understand it, don't put your life's savings into it.
George Gilder in his controversial book, Wealth and Poverty, would agree. You have to take risks; you have to give before you receive. You have to sow the seed with the risk and faith there will be a harvest. "Give and you will be given unto." This is the secret not only of riches but also of growth, says Gilder (p. 45). This giving, this sowing, this risk--taking does introduce uncertainly, says Gilder. But "when faith dies, so does enterprise ..." (p. 37).
Do you recall Jesus' famous parable of the talents? A well--to--do man called three of his servants to him and gave one $50,000, another $20,000, and another $10,000, each according to his ability. He instructed them to manage the money for him and he then left on a long journey.
After a period of time he asked his servants, his stewards or managers, for a report on how well they had done with his money. The first two men had doubled their money from $50,000 and $20,000 respectively, to $100,000 and $40,000. He commended them and gave them even more responsibility and reward.
And what about the man with $10,000? Out of fear, he had buried it in the backyard. So he dug it up, brushed off the dirt and handed it back to the wealthy man, safe and sound and expecting commendation and reward for not losing it or squandering it.
He then received the surprise of his life when the rich man said, "You wicked and slothful servant ... You ought to have invested my money with the bankers and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest" (Matthew 25:26, 27).
And then a surprising thing happened. He took the $10,000 from him and gave it to the man who doubled $50,000 into $100,000 saying, "For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away" (Matthew 25:29). The Silas Marner money misers are not commended by Jesus. Rather, it is the risk--takers, those who are willing to believe in the future, those who have faith and hope and love who earn the commendation of God.
"The idea that all wealth is acquired through stealing is popular in prisons and at Harvard," quips George Gilder (op. cit., p. 97). The creation of wealth is not a zero sum game where my gain means your loss. No, with intuition, genius, creativity and faith, wealth creation is more like sowing one seed which grows an apple tree which produces untold apples and seeds and trees for years to come.
Can the righteous, the well--meaning religious person, be well--to--do? Yes, if he or she is willing to use faith and intelligence and takes risks. As Paul says, "He who sows the seed bountifully will reap a bountiful harvest."
II.
Can the righteous be rich? Yes, but they must be willing to take the risks of giving.
Of course, part of our problem in society and even in the church is our uncertainty over being rich or righteous. Given a choice, we are not quite sure which we would prefer to be. One time when talking to teenage boys about love and beauty, for the fun of it I tossed out the old adage that beauty is only skin deep. I then asked, "You can love a girl who isn't beautiful, can't you? After all, beauty isn't everything." "No," said one robust boy, "but it sure helps!" Indeed it does!
We might paraphrase that story and say you can love a man without money just as much as a man with money, can't you? "Yes," said one attractive young lady the other day, "but the money sure helps!" Indeed it does. Or as one young man quipped, "Money can't buy you love, but it puts you in a great bargaining position."
Money helps, to be sure. The Tax Foundation tells us that the average U. S. taxpayer works the first two hours and 41 minutes of each workday just to pay local, state, and federal taxes. Further, when the first child comes along, the family income must rise by 26 percent just to stay even. And the second child requires a family income increase of 47 percent just to stay even. And even though many married working mothers give a large percentage of their actual income to taxes, they often find it necessary to work just to stay even.
More than that, in the modern family increasingly isolated from community rootedness and extended family, money becomes all the more important. We have to "buy" our good experiences and "purchase" our sense of security which generational rootedness might once have provided. So in these high pressure economic times, we are not so sure we are willing to take the risks of giving. Can we be righteous, that is, willing to share, to give, to support the church, and still make it financially?
The biblical answer is yes, yes, yes. The book of Proverbs has asserted this truth for centuries where it says:
One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. A liberal man will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. - Proverbs 11:24--25
We have already heard how Jesus blesses the one who takes risks in investing. But Paul asserts boldly that he who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, but he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully. More than that, says Paul, "God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work." He then adds, "He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your resources ... You will be enriched in every way for great generosity ..." (2 Corinthians 9:8, 10--11).
Perhaps one of the best believers in this advice of Paul's was a man in a former church of mine. He was a highly respected industrialist, a man of great intelligence and integrity and a multimillionaire. A longtime pillar of the church and extremely generous in his financial support of the church, he said that he and his wife believed that God had entrusted them with their wealth to be good stewards for God's work in the world. Supportive of many charities and good causes, the church was first in their hearts and checkbooks. "We intend," he told me in my office one afternoon, "to leave enough in the church's Endowment Fund so that the income from what we leave will pay our annual pledge in perpetuity."
He went on to tell me that it seemed as though the more they gave to the church the more they received to give. Their resources were multiplied just as Paul said. My wife and I have found our experience to be similar. Although raising six children and educating them on the relatively modest resources of a minister was a financial challenge, my wife and I have believed as our multimillionaire industrialist friend and church member. Somehow, after we had given our ten percent of salary to the church as well as gifts to other charities - somehow we always seemed to have enough to get by. The nine--tenths with God's blessing seem to go as far as the ten--tenths without God's blessing.
How about you? Are you willing to take the risk not only of investing but of giving? Very, very few members of our churches give ten percent of their income. The average gift is more like one to one and a half percent of income.
But giving, like investing, is a risk and a matter of faith. Do you believe as did my multimillionaire industrialist friend that God will multiply your resources so you can give more? Do you believe as did the widow with a fixed income that she lived better on the income which remained after she gave her pledge to the church?
The old trustee and Harry Emerson Fosdick were mistaken. Jesus and Paul and the Bible are right. Money and religion do mix; in fact must mix, because "where your treasure is, there will be your heart also."
Can you be righteous and rich? Yes, rich enough to be generous.
Prayer
Almighty God, who by your creative Word calls all the worlds into being, and who by your loving beneficence splashes the earth with abundant fruitfulness, praise be to you for your generative power and your providential care. As a wise and loving parent, you bless us in more ways than we ever know. And it is only as we become more spiritually mature that we recognize more and more your generous heart and loving concern. We thank you.
We especially lift up our prayers for your church - especially your church in this place. We are thankful for the generous souls of past and present who have given and given of time and talent and treasure to assure the church's growth and strength. Help us never to take for granted their sacrifices and dedication.
And now we pray for this generation, those of us living now, dedicated to your cause and committed to this church's growth and strength. Help us to open our hearts and checkbooks to give, to share, to bless as we have been blessed. Help us to believe your word to take the risk to sow bountifully so that we might reap bountifully.
Help us to learn to give as you give, to invest in the future as you invest, and to trust that with your blessing our resources will multiply for doing good. Liberate us from selfishness. Release us from the grip of greed. Open us up to the joy of responsible giving. Bless all of us that we might be successful in meeting the challenge before us.
And for your world church we pray. Grant it a new vision for peace and justice and empower it courageously to do your will. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Over dessert and coffee the trustee finally comes to the real purpose of the meeting. "Young man, allow me to give you some confidential advice. In order to be a success in the ministry, I suggest you avoid the controversial subjects of politics and religion!" And if the truth be known, he might have added the controversial subject of money.
The many people who are convinced that politics and religion do not mix are also convinced that money and religion do not mix. Many people will remember the notable American preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick. Fosdick first made headlines challenging some of the biblical doctrines in the name of science in the first part of the twentieth century. Increasingly, he did battle with religious fundamentalists who were only too eager to do battle with him. The Rockefellers were impressed and persuaded him to become their minister at Central Baptist Church on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Fosdick consented, but allowed as to how a more inclusive church built in a less exclusive neighborhood would be more agreeable.
The Rockefellers consented and the soon--to--be famous Riverside Church was under construction at West 120th and Riverside Drive across from Grant's Tomb and adjacent to Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. From that exalted pulpit Fosdick became America's liberal preacher laureate, influencing countless lay people and ministers, including this one.
And yet, Fosdick had a curious view about religion and money. If the Victorians were glad to talk about religion and embarrassed to talk about sex, they also seemed to be glad to talk about religion and embarrassed to talk about money.
Money, like sex, was private and personal and nobody else's business. And just as William James, Harvard's famous psychologist, found it distasteful to talk about sex, Riverside Church's famous Harry Emerson Fosdick found it distasteful to talk about money, as he admitted in one of his "compulsory" stewardship sermons.
However, the strange irony is that both the elderly, wizened trustee and the famous and influential Fosdick would have found themselves uncomfortable in Jesus' presence. It is a commonly overlooked fact that Jesus talked a lot about money and its use. "You cannot serve God and money, because you will love one and hate the other," he said. "Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also" and "Lay--up for yourselves treasures in heaven" are other famous sayings of Jesus that have become common maxims.
But the dilemma continues. Do religion and money mix? Is it possible to be wealthy and be righteous? Or to turn it around, can we be righteous and rich? Is religion really an enemy of money?
I.
The first thing to note is that both religion and investment (i.e. money--making) require risk.
Along with Warren Buffett, probably one of the best--known investors of our time is Peter Lynch. For a number of years he managed the amazingly successful Fidelity Magellan Fund based in Boston. If you had invested $10,000 in the Fund when Lynch became manager, ten years later it would have been worth $190,000. Lynch made a lot of people wealthy with his strategies.
Although he suggests that in addition to the famous oxymorons - military intelligence, jumbo shrimp, and deafening silence - we add professional investor, he surely qualifies as one, oxymoron or not. And while multimillionaire Andrew Mellon once asserted, "Gentlemen prefer bonds," Lynch, however ungentlemanly, prefers stocks. "In stocks, you've got the company's growth on your side. You're a partner in a prosperous and expanding business. In bonds, you're nothing more than the nearest source of spare change," says Lynch in his book One Up On Wall Street (p. 57).
Through all sorts of crashes, depressions, administrations, and changes in skirt lengths, stocks have performed fifteen times better than bonds, says Lynch, and thirty times better than Treasury bills. As a matter of fact, "The real return on Treasury bills known as the most conservative and sensible of all places to put money, has been nil. That's right. Zippo," says Lynch (ibid., p. 56).
In spite of J. Paul Getty's famous formula for success: "Rise early, work hard, strike oil!" most people have to take risks to get ahead financially. As Mister Johnson said, "Stocks you trade; it's wives you're stuck with." But trade intelligently, says Lynch. Risk--taking is not the same as being a fool, says Warren Buffett. If you don't understand it, don't put your life's savings into it.
George Gilder in his controversial book, Wealth and Poverty, would agree. You have to take risks; you have to give before you receive. You have to sow the seed with the risk and faith there will be a harvest. "Give and you will be given unto." This is the secret not only of riches but also of growth, says Gilder (p. 45). This giving, this sowing, this risk--taking does introduce uncertainly, says Gilder. But "when faith dies, so does enterprise ..." (p. 37).
Do you recall Jesus' famous parable of the talents? A well--to--do man called three of his servants to him and gave one $50,000, another $20,000, and another $10,000, each according to his ability. He instructed them to manage the money for him and he then left on a long journey.
After a period of time he asked his servants, his stewards or managers, for a report on how well they had done with his money. The first two men had doubled their money from $50,000 and $20,000 respectively, to $100,000 and $40,000. He commended them and gave them even more responsibility and reward.
And what about the man with $10,000? Out of fear, he had buried it in the backyard. So he dug it up, brushed off the dirt and handed it back to the wealthy man, safe and sound and expecting commendation and reward for not losing it or squandering it.
He then received the surprise of his life when the rich man said, "You wicked and slothful servant ... You ought to have invested my money with the bankers and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest" (Matthew 25:26, 27).
And then a surprising thing happened. He took the $10,000 from him and gave it to the man who doubled $50,000 into $100,000 saying, "For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away" (Matthew 25:29). The Silas Marner money misers are not commended by Jesus. Rather, it is the risk--takers, those who are willing to believe in the future, those who have faith and hope and love who earn the commendation of God.
"The idea that all wealth is acquired through stealing is popular in prisons and at Harvard," quips George Gilder (op. cit., p. 97). The creation of wealth is not a zero sum game where my gain means your loss. No, with intuition, genius, creativity and faith, wealth creation is more like sowing one seed which grows an apple tree which produces untold apples and seeds and trees for years to come.
Can the righteous, the well--meaning religious person, be well--to--do? Yes, if he or she is willing to use faith and intelligence and takes risks. As Paul says, "He who sows the seed bountifully will reap a bountiful harvest."
II.
Can the righteous be rich? Yes, but they must be willing to take the risks of giving.
Of course, part of our problem in society and even in the church is our uncertainty over being rich or righteous. Given a choice, we are not quite sure which we would prefer to be. One time when talking to teenage boys about love and beauty, for the fun of it I tossed out the old adage that beauty is only skin deep. I then asked, "You can love a girl who isn't beautiful, can't you? After all, beauty isn't everything." "No," said one robust boy, "but it sure helps!" Indeed it does!
We might paraphrase that story and say you can love a man without money just as much as a man with money, can't you? "Yes," said one attractive young lady the other day, "but the money sure helps!" Indeed it does. Or as one young man quipped, "Money can't buy you love, but it puts you in a great bargaining position."
Money helps, to be sure. The Tax Foundation tells us that the average U. S. taxpayer works the first two hours and 41 minutes of each workday just to pay local, state, and federal taxes. Further, when the first child comes along, the family income must rise by 26 percent just to stay even. And the second child requires a family income increase of 47 percent just to stay even. And even though many married working mothers give a large percentage of their actual income to taxes, they often find it necessary to work just to stay even.
More than that, in the modern family increasingly isolated from community rootedness and extended family, money becomes all the more important. We have to "buy" our good experiences and "purchase" our sense of security which generational rootedness might once have provided. So in these high pressure economic times, we are not so sure we are willing to take the risks of giving. Can we be righteous, that is, willing to share, to give, to support the church, and still make it financially?
The biblical answer is yes, yes, yes. The book of Proverbs has asserted this truth for centuries where it says:
One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. A liberal man will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. - Proverbs 11:24--25
We have already heard how Jesus blesses the one who takes risks in investing. But Paul asserts boldly that he who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, but he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully. More than that, says Paul, "God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work." He then adds, "He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your resources ... You will be enriched in every way for great generosity ..." (2 Corinthians 9:8, 10--11).
Perhaps one of the best believers in this advice of Paul's was a man in a former church of mine. He was a highly respected industrialist, a man of great intelligence and integrity and a multimillionaire. A longtime pillar of the church and extremely generous in his financial support of the church, he said that he and his wife believed that God had entrusted them with their wealth to be good stewards for God's work in the world. Supportive of many charities and good causes, the church was first in their hearts and checkbooks. "We intend," he told me in my office one afternoon, "to leave enough in the church's Endowment Fund so that the income from what we leave will pay our annual pledge in perpetuity."
He went on to tell me that it seemed as though the more they gave to the church the more they received to give. Their resources were multiplied just as Paul said. My wife and I have found our experience to be similar. Although raising six children and educating them on the relatively modest resources of a minister was a financial challenge, my wife and I have believed as our multimillionaire industrialist friend and church member. Somehow, after we had given our ten percent of salary to the church as well as gifts to other charities - somehow we always seemed to have enough to get by. The nine--tenths with God's blessing seem to go as far as the ten--tenths without God's blessing.
How about you? Are you willing to take the risk not only of investing but of giving? Very, very few members of our churches give ten percent of their income. The average gift is more like one to one and a half percent of income.
But giving, like investing, is a risk and a matter of faith. Do you believe as did my multimillionaire industrialist friend that God will multiply your resources so you can give more? Do you believe as did the widow with a fixed income that she lived better on the income which remained after she gave her pledge to the church?
The old trustee and Harry Emerson Fosdick were mistaken. Jesus and Paul and the Bible are right. Money and religion do mix; in fact must mix, because "where your treasure is, there will be your heart also."
Can you be righteous and rich? Yes, rich enough to be generous.
Prayer
Almighty God, who by your creative Word calls all the worlds into being, and who by your loving beneficence splashes the earth with abundant fruitfulness, praise be to you for your generative power and your providential care. As a wise and loving parent, you bless us in more ways than we ever know. And it is only as we become more spiritually mature that we recognize more and more your generous heart and loving concern. We thank you.
We especially lift up our prayers for your church - especially your church in this place. We are thankful for the generous souls of past and present who have given and given of time and talent and treasure to assure the church's growth and strength. Help us never to take for granted their sacrifices and dedication.
And now we pray for this generation, those of us living now, dedicated to your cause and committed to this church's growth and strength. Help us to open our hearts and checkbooks to give, to share, to bless as we have been blessed. Help us to believe your word to take the risk to sow bountifully so that we might reap bountifully.
Help us to learn to give as you give, to invest in the future as you invest, and to trust that with your blessing our resources will multiply for doing good. Liberate us from selfishness. Release us from the grip of greed. Open us up to the joy of responsible giving. Bless all of us that we might be successful in meeting the challenge before us.
And for your world church we pray. Grant it a new vision for peace and justice and empower it courageously to do your will. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
