Earn All You Can

John Wesley: The Use of Money

It’s no secret that October is the month that we talk about money. All throughout this month, we will be talking about stewardship and pledging and trying to make sure we can get a decent sense of our financial picture as a church so that we can properly plan for doing ministry in the coming year. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of us probably don’t like talking about money very much. Which makes sense. It’s not really a part of our culture to talk about how much money we make, how much money we have, and what we do with our money. Sure, there are times when we’ll speak vaguely about money—when we announce that we got a raise, or a promotion, or that we finished paying off our student loans, car loans, or mortgages. Sometimes we speak a little more openly about money, like when discussing how much houses cost, although websites like Zillow also make it kind of pointless to try and hide how much our houses cost. As much as we might not like to talk about it, though, it is important for us to do so. And it’s important for us to be transparent here about how much it costs to do what we do, and to think theologically about how our spending reflects our values, and whether it does.

As we move through this month, thinking about money and stewardship and all that fun stuff, I’d like for us to keep in mind, and maybe hear for the first time, what John Wesley thought about money. He wasn’t shy about money, and was probably such a successful fundraiser, in part, because he talked very openly about what he was doing with the money entrusted to him. He also wrote extensively about how Christian values should inform our relationship with money. One of Wesley’s best-known sermons, as a matter of fact, is his sermon on “The Use of Money.” In this sermon, Wesley offers us three overarching pieces of advice pertaining to how we ought to relate to money. Which is perfect, because I will be preaching three times this month. These three pieces of advice are: Gain all you can; Save all you can; Give all you can. Sounds simple enough, right? Sounds like things we already aspire to, like things that fit neatly with our run of the mill, capitalist values…right? Come on now, if that were the case, could I really squeeze three whole sermons out of one of Wesley’s?

The first of these guidelines, gain all you can, is where we are going to direct our attention this week. For Wesley, this is the principle that should be the easiest for us to understand, as this is what we’re told to do by the conventional wisdom of the world. It shouldn’t be surprising, though, that this piece of advice comes with a long list of terms that apply. The first of these caveats is that we are to gain all we can, without sacrificing our own life or health. Wesley is largely concerned about things like attending to the sabbath and not sitting in the same position for an extended period of time. I think he would have been a big fan of the standing desk. But he was also very clear that some lines of work are simply not worth the risk. Back in 1760, when this sermon was written, things like lead, arsenic, and coal dust were at the front of many people’s minds. Today, some of the most dangerous jobs are in agriculture, roofing, construction, and sanitation. Many healthcare workers, home health aides, and others working 12 or 24-hour shifts often don’t get adequate opportunity to rest, and often aren’t really gaining all that much. And it is women, people of color, and migrant workers who bear the brunt of the physically dangerous and demanding labor.

But it isn’t just our physical health that Wesley is concerned about us risking as we seek to gain all we can. He also urges us not to sacrifice our mental and spiritual health. Our work ought to be fulfilling, to engage our intellect and help us to grow and use our gifts. Our ability to gain, to prosper, shouldn’t come at the cost of our happiness, our connection to community, or our convictions. These could simply be lines of work that we personally find soul-crushing. Wesley calls out the study of math as an occupation that would really shake his faith and make his spirit unwell—and I tend to agree with him on that. He also specifically calls out trades that are predatory as being detrimental to our spiritual and mental health. Any means of gaining all we can at the expense of another or the expense of our own conscience, does harm, and is not the sort of relationship to money that Wesley would have us emulate. I would argue that this idea of exploitation extends, also, to our non-human neighbors—to the air, the water, the trees, and the soil. We ought to gain all we can, but not at the expense of our connection to one another, our sense of interdependence, and our understanding of the inherent value of Creation that transcends what it can offer to us.

Wesley takes this line of thinking even further. He argues that, if we really do love our neighbors as ourselves, as we are commanded to do, then all of that concern about not harming our own bodies, minds, and spirits—that all applies to our neighbors, too. If we gain all we can at the expense of our neighbors’ health or life, that does not put us in right relationship with God. If we gain all we can by exploiting our neighbors, or by causing harm to their minds, their spirits, or their faith, that does not put us in right relationship with God. This culture we live in, that would have us see the value of others extending only as far as they are useful to our own economic gains—that is not the economics of the Kingdom, and it certainly does not put us in right relationship with God. Even in such a culture, even in such a system that prizes ruthlessness and elevates those willing to exploit and oppress their neighbors, we are called to do the least harm and the most good. We are called to gain all we can, all while loving ourselves and our neighbors. That doesn’t always pay the best. But what good is it to gain everything, at the expense of our souls, our community, and the world?

One of the first Weekly Update notes I wrote after I became your pastor included a quote from Bible scholar Jane Schaberg, which read: “the heart of resurrection faith is a belief in God’s ultimate concern with justice for the whole person, the whole body, and for the whole human community.” This is John Wesley’s Kingdom economics. Even as we live and move within unjust systems that draw us into engagement with immoral and unethical means of amassing wealth, even as we focus on simply putting food on the table and sheltering our families—still, we are called to share God’s ultimate concern with justice for the whole person, the whole body, and the whole community of Creation. We are called to be stewards of money as a resource, and to gain all we can without losing sight of this call. To gain all we can, not at the expense of ourselves and our neighbors, but so that bodies might be made whole, communities might be restored, and we might care for one another and for all of Creation. This is how we ought to gain all we can. May it be so. Amen.