True Riches: My dear brother, let me explain what I have done. I long to share this gift with you and be reconciled with you and we will love and care for each other and learn together as we did when we were children. It came about when I met a teacher and what I heard was disturbing, ridiculous, and so sublime that I gave up everything I held onto and walked away with my hands free. Let me explain.
The Teacher
You know these teachers tell ridiculous stories, so he told us stories that shocked us out of our comfortable places; the point of the story comes crashing in on you with such power that it challenges and changes you. There were crowds of people listening, and my friends and I pushed our way through and gathered around him. We were a mixed group of men and some women too and, and inevitably a few pharisees were there, with their clothes arranged carefully around them, so that we could appreciate their finery without any risk that we would contaminate them. They like to dispute the teaching of Jesus. I think some of them admire him but his challenges and his refusal to be impressed by their show or intimidated by their put downs has them hissing with indignation.
Parables
The great crowd of us, however, were like children listening to the teacher’s stories, entranced. And as he told them a picture formed in my mind of the Lord as God of Mercy. We heard about a shepherd patiently seeking a lost sheep, a woman searching every corner of her home for a lost coin and a father yearning for an errant son and welcoming him home with extravagant gestures of forgiveness.
Duplicity rewarded?
It was a later story, however, which struck me so forcefully that I turned my life around. Not one of the characters in that tale was worthy of admiration. The master in it colluded with his manager’s shady conduct; the manager was profligate but when found out he sought to exploit his master’s debtors in order to ensure his security (and avoid challenging work). The master even commended that manager for his shrewdness.
As we listened to the parable it was quite clear to us that Jesus was not approving the behavior of these people. When he said ‘make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth’ the Pharisees among the audience murmured in disapproval. They took their much-loved wealth as a sign of God’s favor. Why, they murmured, did he speak of it as ‘unrighteous’?
A Decision
I, however, felt uncomfortable. Of course, my wealth was unrighteous. Is it right that a widow has to go hungry and her fatherless children suffer? Is it right that men stand idle in the marketplace with no one to employ them? And, is it right for our people to be taxed so heavily, even by their own authorities?
I heard this as his advice that we use our wealth for good. And I heard Jesus say, ‘so that when it fails … (we would be revived into) the eternal dwellings.’ Verses from a psalm flew into my mind, ‘Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he dies, he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him.’
I understood, we cannot take our wealth with us beyond death, but we may use it to do good and become worthy of eternal life. I mused on Jesus’ words. Our possessions mean so little but what they mean to us may mean everything. He spoke of the ‘true riches’ which I knew would be worth everything. As he said, ‘You cannot serve God and money,’ I saw a group of pharisees walk away. I knew it was time to give away my wealth, to use it to help others, and then I set out to follow the Teacher. Come with me my brother, let us search for real wealth!
