I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God. (Lk 16:9-15)
Wealth is a killer. All the scandals and all the murders and all the fights are due to wealth. We do not know when a gift becomes a bribe. Can we make use of the money for the charity for business? Can we make money out of the donations received?
This passage contains some of Jesus’ strongest and most explicit warnings about the dangers of wealth. Money is not a possession. It is a trust. God has entrusted money to people to use it for God’s glory and for the service of his people and not for private possession.
Money also points us to the true wealth which is in heaven. We should not be torn between two masters. The Jews in general and Pharisees in particular believed that wealth was God’s blessing. Jesus says that God’s thinking is different from man’s understanding of things. When we think of money, property etc we take a step away from being truly human. The challenge is to be faithful:
Faithful in use of money
Faithful to god rather than money
Faithful in our hearts and not in the outward appearances
Faithful to the kingdom.
