Spiritual Dangers of Wealth

SPIRITUAL DANGERS OF WEALTH

(Matthew 19.16-30)

When I got home from parish visiting on Monday afternoon, among the telephone messages recorded on my tape was one from a friend advising me to go out and invest £500 in the Nationwide Building Society. Despite public statements to the contrary, he had it on good authority that the Society would be floated on the stock exchange later this year and that I could make a financial killing!

My friend even went as far as to give me a telephone number which I could ring and find out the location of the nearest branch office.

I suppose with such inside information I should have been overjoyed. In fact I was rather saddened.

The reason for this is that the person speaking was a priest, albeit of a different generation to myself. Over the years I have watched with increasing concern as he has directed more and more energy towards the accumulation of wealth. At the same time I have seen his sense of vocation and spirituality gradually evaporate.

When I tell him that in 1965, I commenced my ministry in Liverpool on a stipend of only £425 because I felt that was where God was calling me to work, whereas I could have gone and worked in Durham and received a stipend of £650 - a significant difference - he thinks I am mad.

I was reminded of this taped message when I read the Gospel reading for today concerning the rich young ruler who could so easily have been my friend who is a priest. Come to think of it, he could easily be you or me.

Now don't get me wrong. The rich young ruler was not an irreligious person. There is every reason to think he went to the Synagogue, Sabbath by Sabbath, just as we go to church Sunday by Sunday. Nor did he fail to take his religious life seriously. After all, he asked Jesus what he had to do to be assured of eternal life, a question which haunts many of us today.

As far as the rich young ruler was concerned, religion was essentially about doing good, and in that he is not alone. Religion was about actions, and in particular, the obligation to keep rules and regulations. He was forever anxious to be seen to be doing the right thing, not just to win the approval of those around him, but more importantly, to win the approval of God. For him, as for some of us, the spiritual life was about amassing a credit balance of good works, in order to provide security for the future.

In his reply, Jesus starts where the Rich Young Ruler is on his spiritual journey.

Firstly, he urges him to keep the commandments. ‘Do not commit murder; do not commit adultery; do not accuse anyone falsely; respect your father and mother; love your neighbour as yourself'.

Like many of us, the man naturally replies that he is already doing all this. However, he still fails to find that ultimate inner satisfaction. That sense of inner peace and well-being still eludes him, no matter how much he tries.

Secondly Jesus encourages him to take off that outer mask, behind which he hides, and challenges him to look at the inner man. He says "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor and you will have riches in heaven: then come and follow me". This obviously was a very painful experience since we are told he went away, looking very sad, because he was a very wealthy man.

Alas we don't know what happened. We don't know whether he did sell everything and follow Jesus or whether he just turned his back on the challenge and continued to hide behind the mask of the outer man. The evangelist does not tell us, because it is really irrelevant to the purpose of the story. The focus of the story is upon the challenge which he must face if he is to find true happiness. A challenge which is made all the more difficult because of his apparent wealth. Jesus puts his finger on the pulse when he says, "It is harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle".

Now let’s be quite clear on what Jesus is saying before we too walk away from that challenge with saddened faces.

Jesus is not saying that it is impossible for a wealthy person to be a follower of his. After all, Zacchaeus was one of the richest men in Jericho: Joseph of Arimathaea was sufficiently wealthy to own his own tomb in which he placed the dead body of Jesus, and Nicodemus was obviously wealthy to be able to afford the spices with which to anoint the dead body of Jesus. All those, Zacchaeus, Joseph and Nicodemus, though wealthy, were able to be followers of Jesus.

Nor is Jesus saying that everyone must sell all they have and give their money to the poor, though that is exactly what Francis of Assisi did. He saw those words being addressed to him personally. You must remember that was what was required of that particular person, and no two persons are alike. Rather, Jesus is challenging all of us to face the inherent spiritual dangers of wealth which can so easily erode our faith.

What then are those dangers of which we need to be mindful?

Let me draw your attention to four particular dangers.

Firstly, wealth can encourage a false sense of independence.

I have been reading recently the story of the rise and fall of the entrepreneur in Australia called Alan Bond. He started work as a signwriter to a friend of mine but within a few years became a multi-millionaire due to speculative property deals.

I recall in 1985 when his daughter Suzanne got married, Bond paid for the complete redecoration of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Fremantle for the wedding. He also paid for the carpeting of it throughout and for two enormous, and rather vulgar brass candelabras to be place beside the altar. The local vineyards and chefs were not good enough and so the wine was flown in from France and the chefs flown in from the eastern states. He also paid the air fares of several hundred guests from all over the world to attend the wedding. The reception was held in their opulent riverside home and the party danced the night away on a floating dance floor upon the River Swan at the bottom of his garden, accompanied by a firework display. Well you probably guessed it. The marriage lasted eighteen months.

However this was typical of the flamboyant lifestyle of Bond which was to lead him ultimately to prison as he sought to buy his way in life and place himself above the law.

It was Walpole who rather cynically observed that every man has his price. Bond certainly allowed his wealth to give him a false sense of independence.

Secondly wealth can shackle us to this earth.

As Jesus once observed: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also". If everything we desire is contained within this world; if all our interests are here, then we shall never think of the world of the spirit. It is so easy, if we have wealth, to think we can make our heaven on earth and allow wanton materialism to blind us to our eternal destiny. It is much easier for the poor to keep heaven before their eyes as a place where they will one day be able to enjoy all the good things of which they have been deprived in this life. It is much more difficult for the wealthy, who can afford the good things of this life, to dream of heaven.

Thirdly wealth tends to make us selfish.

It is an ironical fact of life, that the more we have the more we want. At the same time we fear losing what we already have. So life becomes a strenuous and anxious struggle to retain the things we have.

(Incidentally, in order to avoid losing his amassed wealth, Bond conveniently divorced his wife to put his assets beyond the reach of the law. Other assets he transferred to his children.)

Fourthly, wealth tends to destroy any sense of humility which must be the basis of any spiritual growth as we reflect upon our nothingness in the light of God's greatness.

As John Sandford observes: "The danger of wealth is not that it automatically excludes the one who possesses it from the kingdom, but that it greatly inflates the ego. By giving a man a feeling of power, influence and regard among men, it makes it difficult for him to achieve that inner humility and admission of spiritual needs which are the prerequisites of genuine personality".

Sandford concludes: "It is not having wealth as such that destroys our relationship to the kingdom, but what it can do to us if we are unconscious of its dangers".

And it is those dangers of which we always need to be mindful. Wealth can encourage a false sense of independence; shackle us to this earth; make us selfish and destroy any sense of humility.

That is why Jesus said - not that it was impossible - but rather: "It is harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle".

And that is why Jesus had no alternative but to address himself to the spiritual problem of that Rich Young Ruler who came to him, seeking for that inner peace and happiness which was proving so elusive.

By the way, I did not invest £500 in the Nationwide Building Society. My friend subsequently tells me that they now require a minimum deposit of £2,000 and have closed their books.