Have you ever been taught that money is bad? That we should be worried about the way that wealth might corrupt us? Sometimes those messages can be couched in terms of our faith, telling us that we shouldn’t be too concerned with money.

But money has a lot of power in our lives, doesn’t it? And we recognize in many other areas of our working and living that we need money to get things done.

So, how do we reconcile these ideas? Jesus himself seemed to be aware of the power of wealth—and he certainly talked about it a lot. Perhaps we need to pay a bit more attention to the nuance of the message that our faith tradition might be trying to convey to us about wealth; how we should see it and use it. Will you join us on Sunday as we seek to learn more in worship?

Peace,

Hardy

Please join us immediately following the service for our Coffee Hour

(in-person in the sanctuary or online via Zoom).

bit.ly/SVPCCoffeeHour

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."