GOD Before Money

Reflection on Luke 16:1-13

“Money is the root of all evils." The Bible does not say that. What the Bible says is “The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6: 10). The full text is: "The love of money is the root of all evils, and there are some who, pursuing it, have wandered away from the faith and so given their souls any number of fatal wounds."

The love of money may indeed be the root of all evils. But can we do any good without money? We need money to build churches, to furnish them; we need money to spread the Good News; we need money to train various categories of workers in the vineyard of the Lord; we need money to carry out the many works of mercy that the Church is known for. Therefore, money cannot be bad in itself. It is the love of it that is bad. Perhaps I should say "inordinate love" of money. That is what happens when we are prepared to sacrifice higher values in the pursuit of money, values like honesty, truth, justice, peace. The extreme of inordinate love of money is when we are prepared to sacrifice even our faith in the pursuit of money. That can happen at different levels. It can happen if we abandon our faith to join a secret cult or society in order to make money. It can also happen if we choose to do business on Sunday instead of going to church to worship God. On no account must our quest for money come between us and our obligations to God. Otherwise we shall be guilty of being slaves of money rather than God's. That is what Jesus warns against in our Gospel passage today.

Therefore we do not do any wrong if we work hard and make money, a lot of it, by honest means. The next important question is what we do with our money. We should put our money at the service of God and humanity, including our own family. If on the contrary, we hoard our money or we spend it on sheer frivolities that do not do anybody any good, we are guilty of wrongful use of money.

It has been said that money is a good servant but a bad master. As long as we are the ones using money, we are safe. But the moment we allow money to use us, we are in trouble. Money can be a hard taskmaster. If we subject ourselves to it, it can make outrageous demands on us: it can demand our family or loved ones, it can demand even our own soul. In the end, it will take away our happiness. A certain writer put it this way: "Money is a useful commodity, and can purchase everything except happiness. It is a passport to everywhere except to heaven."

The cost of Discipleship

Reflection on Luke 14:25-33

Many of the contemporaries of Jesus regarded him as one of the many Rabbis that the Israelite nation produced from time to time. Rabbis were highly respected religious teachers. People looked up to them to show them how to live in such a way that they would find favour with God.

It was customary for a Rabbi to have a retinue of followers. Those followers were called “disciples”. They followed the rabbi in every sense of the word. First, they went with him wherever he went, walking behind him, as it were. We might say walking in his footsteps, almost putting their feet on the footprints of their Master. That is to say, they followed him physically. But, more importantly, they also followed him morally and spiritually. That is, they did all they could to imitate his lifestyle, they modeled their lives after his own, trying to be copies of their Master.

Like the Rabbis of his day, Jesus too had his own disciples, with one important difference. Whereas disciples normally chose the Rabbis that they followed, in the case of Jesus, he chose his own disciples. He chose them; they did not choose him (John 15:16). However, his own disciples too were expected to follow him, some physically, like the twelve Apostles; all morally and spiritually. Jesus expected, indeed, he required all his disciples to model their lives after his own, to copy his lifestyle. That is what he said in John 13, after washing the feet of his disciples. He said, “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you” (John 13: 15).

Jesus is saying exactly the same thing in today's Gospel reading to all his disciples down through the ages. That includes us. Hear him: “Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." When Jesus came into this world, he carried the cross from the crib at Bethlehem to the hill outside Jerusalem called Golgotha. He knew suffering from his birth to his crucifixion on Calvary. He drank the cup of suffering to the dregs. And when he asked his Father that the cup might be taken away from him, he added, “Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine" (Luke 22:42). The cup was not taken away, and he had to drink it.

Now, he says that his disciples must follow in his footsteps if they are to be truly his disciples. They cannot be his disciples any other way. His disciples must be prepared to bear the cross of suffering as he bore his own.

It follows that the cross, suffering is part and parcel of being a Christian. Suffering is not alien or incidental to Christianity. If you take away suffering, you don't have Christianity any more. What you have is a mere palliative, an analgesic, like Panadol or Aspirin, a painkiller. Christians, authentic Christians, true Disciples of Christ must beware of salesmen who are peddling different brands of such palliatives that they call “churches”, and saying: "Suffering is not my portion." Well, suffering was the portion of Christ. If suffering is not your portion, then whose disciple are you? Certainly not Christ’s.