THE BIBLE AND WEALTH
The word "wealth" as used in this discussion does not mean simply great
riches; it rather means those outer and visible means which have a certain
purchasing power and which gain their value from that fact. The word is
relative at best. A wealthy man of fifty years ago would by many be deemed
a poor man now; while, in the individual estimate, one man's poverty would
be another man's riches. We have all discovered, too, that persons may be
tested by their attitude toward little as well as by their attitude toward
much. The man who breaks down in his use of a thousand dollars is not
likely to recover his conscience in his use of a million dollars. There is
high authority for the belief that he that is faithful in a few things can
be trusted with rulership over many things. This principle will apply to
riches quite as well as to cities. We must necessarily take at large
discount the vigorous attack that is made on great wealth by the man who
is narrow and selfish in his use of moderate wealth. One ray of light
falling into a dark dungeon will test a man's attitude toward light; and
so the real personal attitude toward one coin may become the revelation of
a human heart.
All of us must live within the realm of material endeavor. Six days of the
week are given by the average man in an effort to win worldly goods. If,
as is generally supposed, Jesus went back from the temple scene in
Jerusalem when he was twelve years of age and worked in the village
carpenter shop until he was thirty, he spent eighteen years in a
remunerative employment ere he entered upon the three years of public
ministry. It is a mechanical conception again; but it is interesting to
observe that the proportion of his years spent in his trade is the same
six sevenths of the time that most men must spend in the effort to gain
the necessaries or luxuries of life. One has only to stand on the streets
of the city in the early morning and see the throngs as they move to their
places of work to appreciate how large a part the wage motive plays in
actual living. Each day many millions of men and women go down to the
various marts in order that in the evening time they may come back from
the struggle with increased gains. If the Bible takes an attitude toward
the spirit that dominates work it must also take an attitude toward the
spirit that dominates the object of work. It would be small use to have
men made right toward toil if they were to be twisted in their relation to
the proceeds of toil. We should expect, then, that the Bible would give
some explicit teaching to individual men concerning the right attitude
toward wealth; and when we turn to the Holy Book this expectation is fully
met.
Beyond this, the social consequences of wealth are manifold and important.
To see this point clearly exemplified in a wide field, we have but to
study the history of the wars waged by our own nation. At some point every
one of these great struggles has been caused by a false relation to
wealth. Just where we locate that false relation will depend somewhat upon
our prejudices; but the dilemma in each case is such that we are driven to
locate it somewhere. The French and Indian War was a military debate as to
whether the English or the French should gather the furs in the region of
the Upper Ohio and should secure the profits in the world's markets. In
the settlement of that issue many lives were sacrificed. The War for
Independence was caused by taxes--not, as many people suppose, by a tax on
tea alone, but by a long series of taxes covering many years. If the
English had a right to levy the tax and if the tax was just, then the
colonists were greedy. If, on the other hand, the Americans refused to pay
an unjust tax, inspired in their rebellion by a lofty spirit of liberty,
then the English were the greedy party. The War of 1812 was caused by the
seizure of our vessels on the French coast and related to freedom of
commerce. The dilemma is the same as before. Some one was at fault in that
commercial war. A wrong attitude toward property caused the long-drawn-out
struggle.
Our later wars show the same form of contest. Historians declare that the
war with Mexico was occasioned by the desire to extend slavery territory;
by the nation's lust for the enlargement of her borders; and by certain
debts owed to citizens of the United States by citizens of Mexico. All of
these motives touch somewhere on gold. The Civil War grew from the same
"root of all evil." Northern men aided in bringing African slaves to this
land in order to turn forced labor into money, while Southern men
continued African slavery because it was deemed necessary for the
production of cotton. The cry "Cotton is king" was not always spoken above
a whisper, but as a slogan it caused some fierce struggling. Boston
merchants helped to mob Garrison. The sentiment of England flowed against
the North because it was thought that the abolishing of slavery would
demoralize the markets of the world. The hooting crowds that Beecher faced
in England were unconsciously influenced to their hostile attitude by a
commercial argument. The whole struggle was broadened and heightened until
words like "liberty" and "unity" put a moral passion into the fray. But,
while the nature of the government and the question of human rights were
to be settled, the primary occasion of the contest was commercial.
Nor was the war with Spain any exception to this rule. If we absolve the
United States from any motive of greed in our claim that the struggle was
purely humanitarian in its character, we must still grant that the heavy
taxes assessed against her Western colonies by the Spanish government led
to the series of revolutions that occasioned our interference. Thus do we
find that somewhere in the heart of each war there was the lurking passion
for gold. When we make up the mournful lists of the many thousands whose
lives have gone out in these contests, we can debit them against the
spirit of greed. Milton in Paradise Lost represents that the rebellion in
heaven was caused by the like lust, and that Satan's eyes were ever bent
in anxious desire toward the very gold of the streets! Milton's
imagination concerning heaven stands for the historical fact about earth.
The demon of greed is usually the demon of war.
The great problems of current national life all trench upon the same
influence. If money be not the principal in each of them it comes in as an
important confederate. The tariff problem, the currency problem, the canal
tolls problem, the trust problem--all these are quickly classified by
their names. The cleavage between American political parties for the last
fifty years has been made by a wedge of gold. Tariff, or coinage, or
trusts--these have been the large words of political speech. In the
problems that have a more apparent moral bearing the same commercial
element appears. The Labor Problem is with us quite as acutely as it was
with the Romans when long ago the plebeians left the city and camped on
the hillsides, leaving the patricians to do their own manual toil. Whether
the employer gives too little or the employee asks too much in any given
struggle, the demon of greed plays his part again. In the Temperance
Problem the case is even clearer. Distillers and brewers and saloonists do
not enter their trade because they thereby add either to their social
standing or to their moral peace. We cannot eliminate from the problem the
factor of the human appetite that craves a stimulant; at the same time we
know that the motive for the business itself comes from the lure of gold.
That gleam invites many men into a path which, as they themselves know
well, cannot lead to any large political preferment or to any great
personal admirations.
The problem of social purity is, of course, related to another human
passion. But there has crept into the vocabulary of the people a
suggestive phrase, "commercialized vice." There is the general feeling
that, if the element of monetary profit could be taken from the loathsome
trade, the problem would be much nearer its solution. Hence we have our
Red Light Abatement Laws by which we seek to make it dangerous for men to
rent their property for the traffic in virtue. On the legal side the
present efforts at the solution of the problem all strive to fix a set of
conditions, making commercially unprofitable the house of her whose feet
take hold on death. If, as is earnestly contended by some, low wages tend
to furnish the recruits for the pitiable ranks of the trade in bodies, we
have another commercial factor in the campaign. Explain it as we may, it
is still true that money makes the unholy alliances. It is no marvel that
the Bible has sent down to all the centuries its phrase, "the mammon of
unrighteousness."
Of course, many will overstate the case of American greed. The Almighty
Dollar is not our God. Our passing celebrities may be mere millionaires,
but our permanent heroes were quite more than traders. If we have seemed
more commercial than other peoples it has been because a new continent
gave such sweeping opportunities for wealth. Some one has said that it is
an evidence of the degeneracy of our period that the word "worth," which
once had a noble and inner significance, is now controlled by the market.
The fact that the word has gone downhill is taken to mean that the people
who use it so have gone downhill too! But these verbal arguments are not
reliable. While the word "worth" has dropped somewhat from its old glory,
the word "talent," which once had merely a monetary significance, has
mounted to a higher meaning. The one word is just as good a witness as the
other. The truth is that we meet to-day the world-old problem. The
evidence of this lies in the fact that the Bible dealt with the problem in
emphatic fashion. It lists for us the victims of greed: Lot, Gehazi,
Ananias and Sapphira, Simon Magus, the young ruler, Judas. We shall find
in its pages some general principles by which it seeks to warn wealth away
from pitfalls and to send it forth to service.
The first of these principles is that God is the only and absolute Owner.
Our human conceit makes for us another theory, and our legal codes write
out that theory in complicated formulas. We have our "clear titles" and
our "quitclaim deeds." Formal records at a courthouse tell men that we
"own" houses and lands, while formal certificates assert our right to so
many shares of stock or so much value in bonds. The Bible confronts our
complacency with its plea for the ownership of Another. God has the only
clear titles! God has never put his signature to a quitclaim deed! The
courthouse record is a temporary convenience; the higher record gives the
eternal fact. "The silver and the gold" are God's. "The cattle on a
thousand hills" are God's. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness
thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." There is here not merely
the assertion of a property ownership, but an assertion of the ownership
of the very men who think that they own the property! The sea and the land
are the possessions of God. So spiritual a prelude as that to the Gospel
of John claims a divine dominion, while many words could be quoted from
both Testaments which make God the one august Possessor. The history of
all our materials leads us back to God alone. He fashioned the wood in
the forests. He stored the coal and iron in the hills. He packed the
fertility in the soil. When we look for the source of the medium of
exchange we must go back of men to God himself. We pursue the gold coin to
the bank, and then to the mint, and then to the mine, only to hear the
silent proclamation of the gold itself that it is of God. When
congregations sing:
All things come of thee, O God,
And of thine own have we given thee,
it is not an instance of poetic license in reverence; it is sober fact
expressed in worship.
The claim of the Bible for the divine ownership is still more
comprehensive. All property is his; all men are his. There is, too, a bent
of human power which God confers. We are in the habit of speaking of
"gifted" men. The meaning of the word in its usual connection must be that
God gives certain powers to men--to one the power of poetry, to another
the power of moving speech, and to another the power of scientific and
inventive insight. Now there is a suggestive verse in Deuteronomy which
declares that it is the Lord God that "giveth thee power to get this
wealth." The "thee" is collective and refers to the people; but the rule
applies as well to the individual. There is no reason for supposing that
poetic genius or oratorical genius or inventive genius is a gift, while
financial genius is an achievement. Yet there are probably no men who are
more inclined to call themselves "self-made" than are the men who pass
from poverty into vast wealth. Their complacency would be diminished, and
their humility would be increased, if they perceived that all property
belongs to God, that they themselves belong to God, and that their "power
to get this wealth" comes from God. We find, then, that the first sweeping
principle which the Scriptures give concerning wealth is that God is its
inclusive and ceaseless owner.
The second principle follows as a matter of course. God being the absolute
owner, man is a trustee, a lessee, a borrower. When the man in the New
Testament asked, "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine
own?" he may not have reached a worthy definition either of "lawful" or of
"mine own." He may have deemed a loan a final gift, a lease a purchase, a
possession a creation, a stewardship an ownership. It is just this error
that more than any other leads to the abuse of wealth. We treat it as
"personal property," and the "personal" looks selfward rather than
Godward. This was the blunder of the foolish rich man. His ground brought
forth plentifully. His crops could not be crowded into his granaries. He
resolved to tear down his barns and to build greater. He told his soul to
eat, drink, and be merry, for that it had much goods laid up for many
years. Then came the sentence of eviction. In a moment the man discovered
that he was a tenant and not an owner. "Whose shall those things be which
thou hast provided?" This is the question that every man of means must
ask. Wills are never shrewd enough to secure the property for the dead.
Jesus said that the man who acted on the idea that wealth was his own was
a "fool." He missed the primary point of the divine ownership, and he
missed the secondary point of the human trusteeship. All his work was
based on impossibilities; and surely this is the supreme foolishness.
This lesson is impressed upon men when they return to their former places
of residence after an absence of many years. They recall who "owned"
yonder house, yonder farm, yonder lot, yonder block. The old "owners" are
gone, and the new "owners" have come. Changes of apparent ownership have
been entered in the civil records; but these in their turn will be
changed. The procession of trustees moves down through the millenniums;
above the trusteeships is one changeless Owner. "We brought nothing into
this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out"--this is the
surest of edicts. It is said that one of the wealthiest of men in our
nation called his wife to his bedside just before he passed away and asked
her to sing to him, "Come, ye sinners, poor and needy." The man knew that
in a few moments he would be stripped of every earthly possession. It was
a pungent reply made when one man asked another how much a certain rich
man had left--"All he had!" was the response. Even so. Whenever any person
shall make a stout claim for his ownership of property, it is a wholesome
lesson if he be asked to postpone the discussion for a hundred years!
The law of giving is compulsory. We may defer surrender, but we cannot
avoid surrender. The hand may grasp for fourscore years, but its final act
will be to "let go" of every earthly object. The loan must be returned.
The trusteeship must be dissolved. The lease must be transferred. The
account must be rendered. Directly all that remains of the gold is the
reflex of gold. We may decide when to give, to what to give, in what
spirit to give; but we may not decide whether we shall give. There is
lasting truth in the much-quoted epitaph: "What I spent I had. What I
saved I left behind. What I gave away I took with me." In this respect the
whole problem of life is the problem of a faithful stewardship. This is
the teaching of what we may call the commercial parables. We are
responsible for the use of our talents and pounds to an authority higher
than our own. The trustees pass away. The Owner abideth forever.
The third biblical principle declares that this stewardship is attended by
grave temptations. For a hasty reading the New Testament judgment will
seem like a reversal of the Old Testament judgment. The ancient record
often traces a relation between piety and prosperity. Jacob's proposal at
Bethel reads like a bargain struck in the market place. The book of Job
was meant to correct this error and to drive from the world those needless
suspicions that would be directed against the sick and the poor. In the
vigorous debate with his friends the patriarch declines to plead guilty to
the charge that his bodily ills and property losses are the results of his
sins. But although the commercial value of piety may often be found among
Old Testament motives, still there is a constant offset. The period of
plenty is described as accompanied by a "leanness of soul." The deeper
insight of the psalmist saw the end of the man "who made not God his
strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches." Then there stood
before him the perplexing sight of prosperous wickedness, the bad man
spreading himself as the green bay tree and having everything that heart
could wish. Slowly the artificial nexus that had been fashioned between
piety and prosperity and wickedness and misfortune was broken, and men
began to seek for the different types of reward in their own fields. More
stress was laid upon the methods by which wealth was gained, and more upon
its charitable uses. The prophets came to thunder against a false outer
prosperity and to give their advance hints of the wealth of the kingdom of
God.
In its warnings the New Testament is still more emphatic. The word
"riches" becomes most often a symbol of the higher wealth of spirit. It is
made over into deeper meaning. Besides, the early Christian leaders saw
the enticing dangers of wealth. Visits to Ephesus or Corinth or Rome made
them see how multitudes could be caught in the snare of riches, while
examples among the Jews gave them the same lesson with a personal
emphasis. There were likewise some concrete illustrations of a most
forbidding kind. Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. The
lust of the treasury had betrayed him ere he betrayed his Lord. The first
persecution of the Christian Church was caused by greed. It is written,
"And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they
caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the market place unto the
rulers." Soon the two missionaries are beaten with rods and are taken to
the inner prison. The second persecution of the church was caused by the
same spirit of greed. Demetrius, the silversmith, makes his appeal to his
fellow-craftsmen: "Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.
Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout
all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying
that they be no gods, which are made with hands: So that ... this our
craft is in danger to be set at naught." As is the custom of men with the
commercial heart, he lifted the issue to a specious height and made his
plea for Diana of the Ephesians!
With the memory of Christ's betrayal and of the first two persecutions of
their brethren fresh in their memories, it is no marvel that the New
Testament writers began to stress the perils of greed. The work of Luke as
a physician had doubtless given him an intense sympathy with the poor, and
his Gospel records eagerly our Lord's warnings to the rich. James in his
Epistle fairly bristles with indictments against the rich. He asks: "Do
not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not
they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?" When he wrote
thus did he have visions of Ephesus and Philippi? Later he breaks into
violence, "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that
shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are
moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall
be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire." The
later verses indicate that he saw their injustice to the poor laborers and
heard the cries which these poor had sent "into the ears of the Lord of
Sabaoth." Severe as the indictment is, we can see how it was prompted by
memory as well as by scenes of recent greed. Moreover, we have all known
modern cases to which the language would apply. If the Bible is to be
complete, it must give room to such indignant words as these.
The records would show that Paul included among his friends men and women
of worldly means; still his words of chiding and warning are not withheld.
He writes of a "cloak of covetousness." He had seen men don that cloak--by
their paltry excuses for withholding gifts; by their effort to make an
intent for the future stifle a present cry for help; by a deft transfer of
income to principal which "must not be disturbed"; by the plea that
luxuries were necessities; by a recital of past generosities; by setting
one good cause against another. All these modern cloaks Paul doubtless
found in the wardrobes of long ago. He carries the charge against
covetousness on until he identifies it with heathenism. He writes of the
"covetousness which is idolatry," and in yet another place he speaks of
the "covetous man who is an idolater," as if he wished to make the charge
personal. Idolatry is the worship of something less than God. When,
therefore, any man bows down to idols of silver and gold erected in banks
rather than by temple altars, he joins the ranks of the idolatrous. He may
be even worse than those idolaters who strive to reach beyond their
hideous images if haply they may feel after God and find him. These words
of Paul are urgent warnings that covetousness may destroy personal
genuineness and may defeat spiritual worship. Greed may shut us away from
both man and God.
But the apostle's strongest word is given in his counsel to Timothy, a
young man whose ideals he would seek to mold. We can imagine the
impression the advice made upon the susceptible youth when he read Paul's
letter in rich and worldly Ephesus. "They that will be rich fall into
temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which
drown men in destruction and perdition. 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." It is a modern
account again. The twentieth century has already given thousands of
illustrations of the same apostasy. As for the wide statement that "the
love of money is the root of all evil," we have but to review these pages
to find the commentary. Every item in the catalogue of crimes finds a
partner in greed. Intemperance, lust, war, thieving, murder, betrayal,
persecution, untruthfulness--all these grow from the root of greed. No
heedless joking about the "root" can vacate the language or permit "the
love of money" to declare its innocence.
In addition to these positive statements sprinkled throughout the Book,
there is a negative testimony that may well be given a hearing. If we were
to search the pages for warnings against poverty we would find that the
search was difficult and that it met with slight returns. The prayer of
Agur in the book of Proverbs is, perhaps, the only assured instance. He
pleads: "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is
needful for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is Jehovah? or
lest I be poor, and steal, and use profanely the name of my God." There
is here a recognition of the peril of discontent in poverty, as well as of
the peril of dishonesty, and the peril of a blasphemous indictment against
God. We may take the warning at its full value. Some people of every age
will need its plain speaking. But what shall we say of the biblical idea
of the peril of wealth, when its chapters yield many scores of warnings as
contrasted with this lonely warning about poverty? It would seem
permissible to paraphrase a Bible comparison of persons and to say that
poverty has slain its thousands but wealth its tens of thousands! Even
this comparison falls short, if we measure it by the biblical proportion
of teaching. The silence of the Bible gives us here a significant lesson.
We now approach the supreme authority in the teaching and example of
Jesus. The elective method here will give a man the result he most wishes.
The boisterous agitator can make choice of passages that will serve his
harsh purpose, while the defender of his own unconsecrated surplus may
quote us passages that give him great comfort. The one will tell us of
Jesus's words to the young ruler; of his command against laying up
treasures on earth; and of a hard-and-fast interpretation of the parable
of Dives and Lazarus. The other will tell us of the praise bestowed on
successful traders; of the inclusion of the wealthy among Christ's friends
and disciples; and of the law of the larger returns for the larger powers
and larger industry so plainly enunciated in the parables of the talents
and the pounds. The fragmentary method leads here to confusion and to the
wildest partisanship. The teaching of Jesus must be taken in its
completeness.
That teaching must, also, be judged by the attitude of Jesus toward men.
The well-to-do were in his band of disciples. The father of John and James
had servants; and when Jesus died on the Cross John had evidently a
comfortable home to which the mother of Jesus was taken. Nicodemus was
rich. Yet in his conversation with him Christ is not represented as making
a demand that the ruler of the Jews should give up his wealth. The demand
was far more comprehensive. Zaccheus was rich. But in the table
conversation with the publican there is no call to voluntary poverty.
Joseph of Arimathea was rich. Still he appears to have been numbered with
the disciples and to have had the honor of providing the sepulcher for the
body of Christ. All this would make it certain that some of our Lord's
teaching was directed toward an individual danger and so was not meant
for a universal application. The fact that Peter said to Simon Magus, "Thy
money perish with thee," does not warrant us in repeating the same words
to every man who possesses some wealth. The rebuke was evoked by a
personal and peculiar attitude. If the teaching of Jesus, as he dealt with
rich men, varied in a marked degree, it is only reasonable to suppose that
he was fitting his message to the individual subject. The fallacy of the
universal has not yet departed from our treatment of the words of Christ.
But even when we take the whole of Jesus's teaching rather than any
fraction thereof, and after we have given full consideration to the
personal element in his method, there is still a sobering remainder with
which we must deal. The attempt to make the parable of Dives and Lazarus a
straight contrast between the final fate of a rich man and that of a poor
man cannot succeed. Lazarus was not sent to heaven because he was poor. He
was not given a place in Abraham's bosom on the ground of his poverty of
circumstances, but on the ground of his wealth of character. Any other
conclusion is abhorrent to the moral sense. Should poverty admit to
heaven, some of the most unmitigated rascals are sure to meet the
conditions of entrance. Nor was Dives sent to hell because he was rich.
The contrast in earthly conditions of which Abraham reminds him cannot
fairly be taken to mean that the reward of poverty is heaven and the
penalty of wealth is hell. The meaning is that earthly plenty and earthly
want cannot prevent the rounding out of God's purposes. Condition will
inevitably come to correspond with real character. Should any rich man be
minded to plead with himself that his wealth was, in itself, any evidence
that its owner was entitled to special privileges in the next world
corresponding to his special privileges in this world, this parable would
meet him with its needed corrective.
The command, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth
and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal," has
been taken by many as a literal command. Usually, however, those who so
take it are ready to substitute a theory which would ask the community to
break the literal demand by laying up treasures for us. We must read to
the end of the passage. Jesus's concern is about the heart. He wishes to
establish the direction of the treasure because he knows that in this way
the direction of the heart will be established. If money is hoarded with a
selfish purpose, the heart goes to selfishness. If money is given for a
holy cause, the heart goes into the cause. On the other hand, if money is
saved in order that the provident parent may give his child a better
fitness for life, the parental heart is invested in the child. If money is
not hoarded at all, but is given for an evil cause, the heart takes that
same evil direction. The emphasis of Jesus is spiritual again. The money
does something with the heart, and the motive of either saving or giving
determines the "heart action." It is the law of action and reaction at
work in another realm. Men say that the way to a man's purse is through
his heart; and men say well. Jesus, while accepting the statement that
there can be no true benevolence that does not come from the heart, still
says that often the way to a man's heart is through his purse. It is one
of those practical rules whose working we have seen many times. We
persuade a man to send his money into a hospital, a college, a library,
and his heart follows his money. The terrible thing that Jesus saw in
selfish hoarding was just that; and the glorious thing that he saw in
generous giving was just that. The good and the evil of earthly treasure
is that it fixes the journeys of the heart; it makes a spiritual
geography.
There is another word of Jesus about "the deceitfulness of riches." The
phrase piques us into a search for its meaning. There is no evidence that
Christ meant that riches deceived us by flying away. The tricks which they
play upon men are far more subtle than sudden departure. Jesus meant that
riches remained with men and still carried on the deceiving work. We have
all seen enough of life to know some of the deceptions. One friend began
his business career with the idea that he would be content with a hundred
thousand; he is now utterly restless with his million. Another friend gave
to worthy causes a far larger proportion of his meager income in the day
of struggle than he now gives of his plethoric income in the day of
prosperity. Still another friend in the old days was simple and humble in
all his attitudes toward life, while in the new days of wealth he has
become proud in spirit and complex in his living. We have all seen men
whose souls lessened as their riches greatened. All these are
illustrations of Jesus's teaching about "the deceitfulness of riches." The
tragic thing is that the men who are the victims of the deceitfulness are
not aware of the sad inner effects. Men do not know that they are stingy;
they are only prudent and economical! So runs the miserable deceit. It
requires a moment of marked self-revelation to enable these men to
classify themselves with truth. Over the Bank of England men read the
words, "The Earth is the Lord's." This describes the source of wealth.
Over many financial institutions it might be good to put another motto as
a reminder of a possible effect of wealth, "The Deceitfulness of Riches."
We now face the utterance of Christ with reference to a double mastery
over life. He asserts that "no man can serve two masters," without love
for the one and hatred for the other. When he seeks for the power that is
most likely to contest with God for the allegiance of man he selects
Mammon. Hence he states the dilemma without modification, "Ye cannot serve
God and Mammon." He did not select Pleasure as the opponent of God, nor
Ambition, nor Impurity, nor Dishonesty. He saw clearly that Mammon had the
greatest power to draw men into life-long "service." Other sins might be
occasional contestants, but the sin of greed was the constant foe seeking
to cleave the loyalty of men. Jesus did not say that we could not serve
God with Mammon. Elsewhere he says the very opposite of that. But he did
say unequivocally, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Perhaps these six
words, more nearly than any other, give us the heart of Jesus's teaching
about wealth. They state in simple and direct form the alternatives for
many lives. We can serve God _with_ Mammon. We can serve God _or_ Mammon.
We cannot serve God _and_ Mammon. What Christ states as an impossibility
many men try to accomplish. We see the vain efforts daily--men putting
their greatest diligence into the market place as an end, with an
occasional tribute to the temple. This is the most frequent form of the
"double life." It is the poor compromise of a half-hearted or
tenth-hearted service. Jesus said that God or Mammon must win the whole
man. The God and the god cannot dwell in the same heart. Jesus here
thrusts us back to the original biblical principle: God is the Absolute
Owner. He will not share his rule. He will not partition his empire.
Mammon must yield to God. Thus Jesus enters all markets and counting rooms
and banks with his demand for undivided hearts and undivided lives.
There is another saying of Jesus which is more frequently quoted, both
because it is in itself so radical and because it is accompanied by a
vigorous figure of speech. Besides these two attractions, the words have
an appealing setting in a human life. The young ruler comes to Jesus with
his eager question. He stands before the Lord as a fine type of promising
manhood--fresh, alert, clean, and even reverent. He is able to say,
without rebuke, that from his youth up he has kept the commandments and
that his life has moved on a high grade of morals. The record tells us
that "Jesus, looking upon him, loved him." But in this instance, instead
of meeting the young man's question with the demand for a new birth, as
Jesus did with Nicodemus, or with the acceptance of hospitality, as Jesus
did with Zaccheus, Jesus asked that he sell all his goods and give to the
poor, and that then he should follow the Lord in his homeless life. Often
the comment omits this last demand. It may be that it is the more
important demand, and that it is the reason for the minor requirement.
Other disciples had left all in order to follow Jesus; and this man was
now asked to do likewise. Evidently the teaching here has the individual
quality. Christ knew that the young man had set his heart on his riches,
and that the only way to a true discipleship was through utter surrender.
We cannot read the story without feeling a measure of sympathy for the
young ruler; and we may confess that we ourselves would scarcely have been
equal to the severe test. The situation, however, can be estimated in
another way--not by our imagination, but by our admiration. Certain men in
Christian history have done exactly what Jesus asked this young man to do.
John Wesley did it; making much money, he continued to live on his
allowance of twenty-eight pounds a year and gave the rest to a needy
world. When he was an old man he wrote to the assessor that his taxable
property consisted of two silver spoons at Bristol! Saint Francis of
Assisi gave up all his earthly possessions. At the altar of the church he
deliberately took poverty as his bride. The heroes of complete
renunciation have been many; and the world's verdict has not been that
they were fanatics. They heard the call of God that they should surrender
all and give to the various kinds of poor; they heeded the command, and
they won their fame by their surrender. We can make a more direct test
than this. If this young man had heeded Christ's word, and had given all
that he had to the poor, and had followed the Lord--what would have been
the result? Would he have won the world's admiration by his
self-renunciation? Would he now be known only by the virtually anonymous
title of "a certain ruler"? We can see that he was offered a wonderful
opportunity. He would have been enrolled among the saints of the early
church, if he had risen to the higher choice. An English writer has
pointed out that the young man was not angered by the word of Christ; he
was "saddened." He went away "sorrowful," and his sorrow was for himself.
He went back to his riches and was lost to the sight of the world. He is
now known even anonymously only because he had a brief conversation with
One who had not where to lay his head.
Jesus saw the young man's retreating figure and then spoke his own
"sorrowful" exclamation, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter
into the kingdom of God!" The account in the Gospel of Mark indicates that
the disciples were "amazed" by the saying, just as the men of the world
have wondered ever since. Seeing this amazement, Jesus added, "Children,
how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of
God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." It was a startling figure of
speech--an hyperbole, as the later conversation with the disciples would
show, unless, indeed, the saying refers to a certain gate of the city
through which only the unburdened camel could enter. This figure of speech
has held the attention of the world for centuries. Strangely enough, the
nineteenth century had a peculiar illustration of an accommodated meaning
of the word "needle." We cannot help wondering what the people of many
generations hence would think if they were to read in ancient history that
in the latter part of the nineteenth century a certain millionaire paid
more than one hundred thousand dollars for bringing Cleopatra's "needle"
to America. Superficial as the suggestion is, it illustrates the manner in
which a figure of speech could easily be pulled off into a path of false
literalism.
But if we take the view that the expression was either a vivid hyperbole
or the description of a local gate, the warning still abides in strength.
It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. It is
sometimes very hard for him to remain there when his entrance into the
kingdom preceded his entrance into wealth. Experienced pastors will tell
us that not many wealthy are called. Yet Jesus distinctly declared that
the rich could enter into the Kingdom. The disciples, "astonished out of
measure," said, "Who, then, can be saved?" Jesus replied, "With men it is
impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." It is
not right that the man who clamors against the rich should omit this
assurance from the teaching. Jesus says that a rich man can be brought
into the Kingdom. He offers this as one of the evidences of the divine
omnipotence--that the power of God can break through the complacency, the
self-content, the tangle of materialism, and can win men from the
idolatry of gold to the love and worship of God.
This message of Jesus to the young ruler, and through him to the world, is
not always welcome to the ears of the rich. The religious teacher may be
tempted to discount its meaning and to relieve in some way the severity of
the words. Yet an age of growing wealth needs this lesson, and needs it
with an increased emphasis. The trend of the Bible serves as a commentary
on the same lesson. If the Bible is to serve as the book of guidance, then
we are justified in saying that the path of material wealth is the path of
spiritual peril.
If we halted our lesson here, we should be guilty of a partial use of the
Bible. The fourth principle of the great Book is that the stewardship of
wealth offers glorious opportunities. It offers the opportunity of aiding
the poor. John wrote, "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother
have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth
the love of God in him?" It offers the opportunity of caring for the
unfortunate, as illustrated in the parable of the good Samaritan. When
Jesus uttered this parable, he laid the foundations of many hospitals. It
offers the opportunity of paying personal tributes of affection, as
exemplified in the offering to the Lord of the precious ointment. It
offers the opportunity of furnishing honest employment as a field of
personal fidelity, as taught in the parables of the talents and the
pounds. It offers the opportunity of projecting our influence to the ends
of the world, as taught by those who aided Paul on his missionary journeys
and by those who sent gifts whereby the gospel should be promoted in all
the earth. But the Bible does not give any set of rules for the use of
wealth. It asserts the primacy of God. It commands the spirit of love. It
stresses the probationary character of possessions. It declares in the
word of Christ that any man makes a disastrous bargain who gains the whole
world and in the transaction loses himself.
Finally Jesus relates our use of money to the eternal issues. He does this
in a very simple and direct way, and in the form of an imperative. In the
more skilled translation of the Revised Version we read, "Make to
yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it
shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." It appears
here that worldly possessions may be either "the mammon of
unrighteousness" or the maker of everlasting friendships. By the right use
of gold and silver men can people the gates of heaven with welcomers. "It
shall fail," says Christ, referring to wealth. "They may receive you," he
says, referring to those human lives that are our only permanent
investments. The final emphasis of Jesus in giving the very crown of the
Bible teaching concerning wealth, great or small, is that his followers
shall so use the coin stamped with the image of some earthly Cæsar as to
produce in men and women and children the image of the heavenly Lord. The
lower commerce is to serve the higher commerce. Faneuil Hall may keep its
market place, but it must be subordinated to that upper room wherein men
learn the lessons of truth and liberty and righteousness. The Age of Gold
can help to make the Golden Age. The problem of wealth will not be solved
until all men hold their riches as willing trustees of Him who himself was
rich and who for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might
be rich.