Money Part 1: The Business of Our Lives

An old friend came to visit last week. We were sitting outside in our screenhouse, and the subject of money came up. My friend said, “I love money,” and I immediately thought of the comedian Steve Martin, who said, “I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.”

Isn’t it wonderful having a scholar for a pastor, a man who can quote Steve Martin and the Three Stooges from memory? This same friend who told me he loved money has been telling me I needed to quote the Bible more, so when he said he loved money, I quoted the Bible, saying, “The love of money is the root of all evil. 1 Timothy 6:10”

I could tell it made him a bit uncomfortable, because he said, “Well, maybe love is the wrong word, but I must admit money does excite me.”

I’ve known my friend since Mrs. Mitchell’s third-grade class, and that struck me as an accurate self-assessment. Money does appear to excite him. Some of us are excited by travel, politics, science, sports, history, or even religion. I’m excited this morning because I’ve never preached a sermon series on money, but here we go, entering the mine field.

I want to assure you that I am not going to put you on a guilt trip, or twist your arm, or otherwise manipulate you. If I haven’t used the fear of a non-existent hell to manipulate you, I’m not going to use money and guilt to manipulate you. What I hope is that you and I think deeply about our relationship with money, its role in our culture, and its power in our lives. And it does have power. It excites us. It motivates us.

I want to begin by saying that money is a tool and should never be anything other than that. When money is anything more than a tool, when it is a measuring stick to quantify someone’s worth and importance, when money is seen an indication of God’s approval, when money is a weapon, that is when money becomes more than a tool and becomes a danger. I also want to dispense with the myth that people with money are intrinsically evil. To be sure, the world’s wealthiest people have lately not been distinguishing themselves. It is hardly admirable when the world’s richest man has cut food assistance to the world’s poorest people. But I get the sense Elon Musk would be morally flawed whether he had lots of money, or little.

But for every wealthy person who has misused money, there are many more people who became wealthy not because they plotted and schemed and took advantage of others, but because they did something useful and good for humanity, it brought them great joy to do it, and they did it well.

I know a man who builds homes. It is all he has ever wanted to do since he was a child and was given a set of Lincoln Logs. He builds excellent houses, charges an honest price, pays careful attention to detail, is readily accessible to his clients, and pays his employees generously. He loves what he does, and after 40 years of doing it five days a week, has become wealthy. His wealth is not a measure of his goodness, but is a consequence of his goodness. He is a genuinely kind, helpful, and generous person. If I need money for a worthy cause, I have only to ask him, and he will respond with open-handed liberality. For him, money is a tool to be used, and nothing more.

Conversely, I know a man who collects tools. Three big barns full of tools of every description and use. Tools for projects he will never undertake. Building tools, plumbing tools, automotive tools, agricultural tools, woodworking tools, metalworking tools. He even has dentistry and medical tools, because you never know. He doesn’t use 1% of his tools, and because he refuses to loan them out, neither does anyone else. He guards them jealously, shines them zealously, admires them continuously, but never uses them or shares them.

There are people who use money the same way. They amass as much of it as they can, without using it or sharing it. They gather it in and hoard it, reveling in its acquisition. For them, money is not a tool, but a measuring stick, a way of gauging and communicating their importance, worth, and standing.

If I were to fill my house with newspapers and magazines and clothing, and stack it to the ceiling, leaving only narrow paths winding through the rooms, people would conclude I had a hoarding disorder, and would urge me to seek therapy for my unhealthy compulsion. But when someone does the same thing with money, when they pile it up in stocks and bonds and safes and banks, when they devote every waking hour to collecting more of it, when they work long hours, neglecting their families and friends, when their life is bereft of beauty and joy because of their insatiable quest for wealth, we esteem that person. We vote them into office, we elevate them as models for living, giving them outsized influence in our nation. We would never say to them what we would say to a common hoarder, “Friend, you have an unhealthy obsession that is crippling your capacity for happiness. Please seek treatment.” Just the opposite, we would befriend them, we would curry their favor, grant them privileges large and small, point them out as a success, and shower them with accolades.

But when we celebrate wealth without conscience, we create toxic communities. Applauding only the accumulation of wealth, but not its wise and generous use, we elevate the few and impoverish the many. What we seek as Friends is the vision of Quaker John Woolman who counseled us, “To Turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love until it becomes the business of our lives.”

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Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

Discover my books, stories, and more by visiting Books by Philip Gulley

Contact Philip directly at philiphgulley@gmail.com

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