wealth – Parables 101

A Camel and Needle Story, #38

Matthew 19:23-25, CSB

²³Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

²⁵When the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and asked, “Then who can be saved?”

Okay, it’s technically not a parable, at least in a classic theological sense, but it is an analogy of what’s true in the somewhat invisible Kingdom of God. It’s explaining something we can understand about the spiritual realm. Hopefully, and I’m not trying to get spooky on you, but it seems to communicate what is real, and solidly true about Jesus’ rule.

What precedes this passage is what we call “The Rich Young Ruler.” It’s a painful part of scripture; we see this young man, devout and upright, crash and burn. He simply can’t extract himself from his riches, and that’s scary. He’s wealthy, and when Jesus reaches out to him and calls him to follow, he cannot. He’s chained to his money, (Matthew 19:22).

How terrible this is, and what a warning to us.

Let’s get to Jesus’ observation about this mostly invisible Kingdom of God. He chooses the largest land animal—a camel (this is not the cigarette type) trying to squeeze the smallest imaginable hole (a needle hole). I don’t know for certain, but Jesus’ audience gets awfully quiet, and it says that his disciples are “astonished.”

“Then who can be saved?”

This question flips everything upside down. The text says that Jesus looked at them (interesting) and declares what is true—“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Okay. But what does this mean?

I believe that when wealth sticks to a man it makes it impossible for him to enter God’s Kingdom. It cannot be done, at least not without the Holy Spirit’s stripping process. Let’s not quibble about this, and let’s not sweep it under the proverbial rug. It is what it is.

It’ll take an act of God (maybe several acts of God?) to sever that golden rope. Wealthy is tricky—it affects the wealthy 1% as well as the penniless street-person. Money is such a snare that only a definite act of God can break it.

The Holy Spirit knows exactly how to do this.

An angel writes to the church in Laodicea and gives them no commendation at all; rather he scares them into repentance. In Revelation 3:17-18 he speaks:

“For you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. ¹⁸I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see.”

The Laodicean church is warned—point-blank to renounce and reject that false god wealth. The angel writes to them (and we have the text) and declares that they must take definite action. They must buy another kind of gold; they must dress in garments suitable for the Kingdom. They are bankrupt. They are stark naked.

Living in the Spirit, and walking in the Kingdom demand definite action on our part. To go back to Jesus’ comments—our camel must get really, really skinny. Wealth must shrink until its needle eye size, and I haven’t really figured out how to do that. I suppose I must take off my camel’s saddle and bridle, and whack him on the behind, and let him loose.

“Nothing is more fallacious than wealth. It is a hostile comrade, a domestic enemy.”

John Chrysostom

The Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, #32

Luke 16:19-31, LB

¹⁹“There was a certain rich man,” Jesus said, “who was splendidly clothed and lived each day in mirth and luxury. ²⁰One day Lazarus, a diseased beggar, was laid at his door. ²¹As he lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. ²²Finally the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham in the place of the righteous dead.^[a] The rich man also died and was buried, ²³and his soul went into hell.^[b] There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.

²⁴“‘Father Abraham,’ he shouted, ‘have some pity! Send Lazarus over here if only to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in these flames.’

²⁵“But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted and you are in anguish. ²⁶And besides, there is a great chasm separating us, and anyone wanting to come to you from here is stopped at its edge; and no one over there can cross to us.’

²⁷“Then the rich man said, ‘O Father Abraham, then please send him to my father’s home— ²⁸for I have five brothers—to warn them about this place of torment lest they come here when they die.’

²⁹“But Abraham said, ‘The Scriptures have warned them again and again. Your brothers can read them any time they want to.’

³⁰“The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham, they won’t bother to read them. But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.’

³¹“But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen even though someone rises from the dead.’”^[c]

Luke 16 is the “Fort Knox” of the Bible. The entire chapter deals with money, and golly, I could use more of that. The chapter deals with the disciple and his wallet, and how it relates to God’s kingdom. The passage that we read is a parable (a story) that seems long, but when Jesus shared it the listeners must’ve been alerted that what wealth a person had was a real issue.

Verse 19 is the crux of the story, ““who was splendidly clothed and lived each day in mirth and luxury.” Although the average Jewish person might be able to pull this off 2-3 times a year (during feast days). This particular man lived this way, every single day. He ate very well, and his clothing was very nice. The rich man was the cream of the crop, the upper 1% of society.

I can see him throwing bones over his shoulder!

Laying just outside his gate was a “diseased beggar” whose dream in life was just to grab one of two of those bones for his dinner. To push Jesus’ story even further, we see the dogs (apparently hungry too) coming to lick the sores of the beggar’s body. The whole scene, the stark contrast between opulence and poverty made a very definite impact. I can just imagine that Jesus’ listeners grasped this terrible scene quite easily.

Quite suddenly both died. The afterlife separated them both, and those explosive words “a place of the righteous dead” and “hell.”

Jesus used them, and it makes me uncomfortable. We see the rich man trying to negotiate the situation. From the text we find a deep chasm separating these two men. We discover in the passage a real existence of an afterlife. This is not an easy truth to accept, and I wish it was otherwise. The text uses the word “flames,” and it appears that these are real.

I believe with all my heart in God’s love for us. Perhaps it’s our own sin that separates us from eternal life.

The rich man, whose eternal destiny has been fixed, desperately wants his family to see the truth. Hell is real. He wants them to understand this before it’s too late. It’s Farther Abraham who replies (and he pays an integral part here.) Reaching thw rich man’s family is not possible, even someone resurrected from the dead wouldn’t matter.

It’s obvious that consciousness exists beyond the grave.
The way that a person lives his life has eternal consequences.
Wealth has an accountability to it.
God’s word is the standerd by how a person is judged–for good or bad.

The parable, if interpreted literally, must be a factor in the way we live. We’re aware of the danger that wealth matters. The idea of repentance, “they will turn from their sins” is critical. So what do we do with all of this?

“The rich man wasn’t lost because he was rich. He was lost because he did not listen to the law and the prophets. Many will also be lost for the same reason.”

David Guzik

Sobering, isn’t it?

Art by Eugène Burnan

The Parable of the Rich Fool, #30

Luke 12:16-21

¹⁶Then he told them a parable: “A rich man’s land was very productive. ¹⁷He thought to himself, ‘What should I do, since I don’t have anywhere to store my crops? ¹⁸I will do this,’ he said. ‘I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there. ¹⁹Then I’ll say to myself, “You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.”’

²⁰“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?’

²¹“That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

All it took was one night. Everything hinges on this. This man seemingly had it all, to the point of expanding things even more. He’s pulling down older and smaller with the intention of going big time. Perhaps on a superficial level, all that he intended to do made incredible sense. He had the means, why not make the next step?

This man saw an opportunity, and he quickly decided that he must be especially favored by God. “Didn’t becoming rich the evidence of the father’s approval?” It seemed that he was stepping up, and stepping into the prosperity of authentic blessing. He thought he truly understood.

This was the common perspective of the day. To be wealthy was the proof that you arrived.

We can see his thinking in verse 19. This was his reasoning, and we must understand the whys in order to understand this particular story. The parable makes perfect sense when we really consider Jesus’ words in verse 15:

“He then told them, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.”

The rich man was considering his retirement. The risk he was taking was somewhat inconsequential when the business end of things looked so good. There was a risk, but it doesn’t seem that it was a real factor.

But the prophetic voice was definitely clear. One voice was Haggai who spoke about measuring godliness with the measure of financial attainment. Perhaps the rich fool didn’t take this into account:

“You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.”

Haggai 1:6

Rich towards God, or confusing material prosperity with the spiritual is a deadly trap to fall into. Many of the prophets spoke directly to that temptation, and riches was not to be the gauge which one was to use.

Life is short–death comes way too suddenly. The rich fool didn’t have a handle on what was eternal (and what wasn’t.) This man was to be an example and a not-so-good one. Jesus both encourages and warns us that unless our wealth is funneled into eternity it means nothing. In a thousand years, we’ll realize its truth.

Real wealth is not found in an abundance of possessions. When will we understand this?

Art by Eugène Burnan

Getting Rich, #5

Matthew 13:44

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

From rags to riches. We like that kind of story, the newspaper boy turned into a publisher, C.E.O. This parable, only a single verse is almost the same thing. A poor man is walking through a field and viola! He finds a treasure chest, and it’s packed full of golden coins, diamonds, and emeralds.

He looks around, and seeing no one, he re-buries it. (After all, when you accidentally discover a treasure chest, you must take certain precautions.)

A key I suppose–the word “joy.”

And that really isn’t something we really know–unless something wonderful happens to us of course. He has joy, he can’t believe it. I think he was a bit dazed by it all, and he must of walked in an unreal sort of bubble. After all, these things never really happen.

It’s sort of like finding you’ve got the winning numbers of the Lottery, and you just won $10,000,00!

It’s this kind of unreal “luck” that this guy knows what he must do. Now the owner of the field owns everything, including the chest. The finder realizes he can’t just sneak the chest off to his home–there would be too many questions. (Where did a poor guy like you get a gold coin?) His neighbors would figure it out. And besides, he would be a thief. There has to be a better way.

Suddenly he has an idea. If he sells everything he has, he probably could buy that field. And then everything that was there would be rightfully his. Selling all isn’t a problem, he knows that whatever he gives up is nothing close to the treasure in the field.

The listener (them), and the reader (us), should understand two things about the treasure that can be found by “poor” men:

It’s about the Bible–the promises in the scriptures are often compared to wealth, at least the spiritual kind. Psalm 119 describes finding treasure in God’s Word. What he speaks is valuable, very much so. There are hundreds of verses that bear this out, Here’s one: “Your teachings are worth more to me than thousands of pieces of gold and silver” (Psalm 119:72).
It’s about Jesus–the Bible is constantly aware of him, and his presence is seen in every chapter and book. He’s the treasure we find, knowing him, is the most valuable thing a person can ever have (by far). “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36).

To be his disciple means we give everything else up. We sell it all to get spiritual riches. There’s a field that we find that is worth everything, and the only way we can have the treasure is by giving up everything. There really isn’t any other way.

“You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Mark 10:21, (context vv. 17-33)

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