Save All You Can

John Wesley: The Use of Money

This may be a big ask, but I’d like us to remember back to the first week of October. I introduced the closest thing I have done to a sermon series: three sermons on John Wesley’s sermon on “The Use of Money.” In this sermon, Wesley talks about how we, as Christians, should relate to money. He presents us with three guiding principles for us to keep in our pockets and consult when we think about money. Let’s see if you all remember what they are. The first is…gain all you can. The second is…save all you can. That should be easy, it’s right there in your bulletin today. And the last one is give all you can. But you’ll have to wait for next week for that one. The idea that we ought to save all we can seems like it should be pretty straight-forward. It seems, like the idea of gaining all we can, to be a part of conventional wisdom. Some here might remember the Great Depression, or might have grown up hearing stories from parents, grandparents, or even great grandparents about what that was like. Subsequent generations have seen their own share of economic downturn, and so the values of frugality and stretching resources have been passed down as part of this generational trauma. 

It might be too late, but before anyone thinks “waste not, want not,” I want us to banish that from our heads for at least the remainder of this sermon. As we think of saving all we can, and how Wesley puts forward this idea, it’s important for us to think about context. Wesley worked extensively and even lived with the poor. He had a lot to say about how poor people should live, but even more to say about how the affluent should live in relation to the poor. This whole sermon, but especially this part about saving, is very explicitly directed at the wealthy—or at least the comfortable. We know this for a couple of reasons. First, this sermon wasn’t meant to be preached. Wesley was not a manuscript preacher, unless he was preaching in Latin, and thought that the standard of preaching should be extemporaneous. Since this sermon was meant to be read, and literacy rates were significantly lower than they are today, the primary audience would have been people who at least knew how to read. Since Wesley would have been well-aware of literacy rates among his followers, Wesley would have known to write for the audience that would be consuming his sermons.

The other way that we know that this is directed at the wealthy, or the comfortable, is by looking at the kinds of things Wesley tells the audience not to waste their money on. I don’t think that the coal miners and the dock workers and the seamstresses would have needed Wesley’s voice urging them not to spend their money on gold jewelry, fine clothing, and gourmet cuisine. I do think that the folks who had the money to spend on these things, and who generally wouldn’t think twice about doing so, would be exactly the kind of people Wesley would want to speak to. After all, it’s not the working class and the poor who need to be told to “despise delicacy and variety, and be content with what plain nature requires.” It’s hard to despise something that isn’t even a part of your day-to-day living, or to be tempted by something that is so completely out of the realm of possibility. Finally, Wesley also talks about long-term savings and passing wealth down to the next generation, things that only his more affluent audience would have been worried about. In case you’re wondering, Wesley says that it’s ok to put aside money for the next generation, as long as you think the next generation won’t waste it. So as you think about inheritance, or institutional endowments, or estate planning, know that Wesley was thinking about that, too, and would have supported those things as long as those involved stuck to his principles.

So, as Wesley is admonishing his readers not to fall into the trap of trying to impress others by showing off our wealth through flashy dress and other ostentatiousness, let’s remember who he’s talking to: those with money to spend not just on necessities, but also on luxuries. 

This section of the sermon, the ethic of saving all we can, is the first part of Wesley’s argument about what we should do with our money once we’ve gained all we can. “Save all you can” is, primarily, about what we should not do with our money—what we should do comes next week. So, what shouldn’t we do with our money? I’ve already mentioned that Wesley wouldn’t have us seek out the designer brands and the finest foods, and that partly comes from his very strict, pietistic, almost puritanical upbringing. But Wesley isn’t concerned with total self- deprivation to the point of us not caring for ourselves. He was very concerned with healthy living, and starving ourselves or going without adequate clothing would not be something that Wesley would advocate for. If we think back to the week we talked about gaining all we can, we might remember that the general guiding principles are to gain all we can without harming our own bodies, minds, and spirits, and without harming our neighbors’ bodies, minds, and spirits. This same guidance can be applied to our saving, as well.

What we buy is a moral decision. The products we engage with, the corporations we support, and the ways in which those corporations use our money all ought to be considered in what we do with what we have gained. For those who have the economic freedom to choose where they shop, consider the consequences of supporting particular industries. Fast fashion, single-use products, gambling. I know JB Pritzker went to Vegas and won $1.4 million, but odds are, you won’t. What politicians are supported by the businesses we patronize? What governments are? Are we supporting union-busting, monopolizing, tax loophole-exploiting, environment-destroying, poverty-producing businesses? Is it necessary to? For those who have the choice, the ability to divest, the ability to shop elsewhere or nowhere at all, we are called to save all we can. And that means spending less, and spending more intentionally. It’s not about clipping coupons and grocery store rewards to save more than we spend, although I know how exciting it is when we’re able to do that. It is about being aware of how our spending impacts our own bodies, minds, and spirits, as well as the bodies, minds, and spirits of our neighbors.

Wesley’s idea of saving all we can is not just a personal finance aspiration or sound advice for making our dollars have the most impact. It’s certainly not an endorsement of lower wages, cutting corners, or seeking to rid ourselves of our financial obligations to one another. It’s about rejecting the culture that would have us constantly buy the newest piece of technology, flashiest clothes, and bigger and better everything year after year. Does that mean you can’t go on vacation or have a nice dinner to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary? Absolutely not! But the Kingdom economics of Wesley call us to spend mindfully and with reservation—not out of scarcity or an obligation to hoard what we have and keep it to ourselves, but so that we might do the least harm to ourselves and our neighbors, and so that we might not lose sight of what really matters. The economics of the Kingdom would have us see that each of us, and indeed all of Creation, gets what we need before any of us go back for seconds. May we live out this Kingdom economic in our own lives and in the lives of the community, ensuring that the way we spend does not harm ourselves or our neighbors. May we save all that we can, not out of scarcity, not out of self-deprivation, not out of greed or a need to hoard what we have. But so that we might do the most good and the least harm. May it be so. Amen.