Money Laundering
The 16th Sunday after Pentecost The Church of the Good Shepherd
Text: Luke 16:-13 the Rev. Ross M. Wright
In the parable we just heard, our attention is drawn immediately to the wily, opportunistic manager. But actually, this man does not occupy center stage in the story. The key player in the parable is money. Money is at the center of all the relationships in the parable. Money motivates all the characters. And money or mammon is the subject of Jesus’s teaching at the conclusion of the story. So the parable is about question: What role should money play in the life of a believer? How we can live as children of light in a world which is often dominated by the power of the mighty buck?
The manager in the story is unscrupulous and opportunistic. Jesus calls him, “unrighteous” or “unfaithful.” So why does Jesus commend him? The man understands that money is a powerful force. And he knows how to use it to achieve his goals. He realizes that he is soon to be parted from his money. And in that brief period before it is taken away, he takes advantage of his position to reduce the debt of the people who are in hock to the owner. He understands that money is not to be hoarded – it is to be used, like you use any tool.
The key to understanding this parable is the word Jesus uses to describe money, material possessions: “mammon.” “Make friends for yourselves on the basis of unrighteous mammon.” “No one can serve two masters. . . . You cannot serve both God and mammon.” “Mammon” is an Aramaic word meaning, “a god.” Like other gods and idols, money is a power, one of the fallen powers described in the New Testament “the powers and principalities of this world.” We tend to think of money and material possessions as inert, lifeless, and essentially neutral. Think again. In a fallen world, money is not neutral. It is a power with a mind of its own. It moves things and people. It directs the course of events, as the parable shows. Money is “a law unto itself . . . as an active agent. . . . It is oriented [in a certain direction] and it orients people;” it takes us with it.1
Listen again to Jesus’ description of mammon:
And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteousness mammon, so that when it runs out they will welcome you into eternal habitations. He who is faithful with a little is also faithful with much; and he who is untrustworthy with a little is also untrustworthy with much. Therefore if you are untrustworthy with unrighteous mammon, who will trust you with what is true? And if you are untrustworthy with someone else’s, who will entrust you with your own? No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate one and love the other or he will cling to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”2
He who is faithful with a little is also faithful with much; and he who is untrustworthy with a little is also untrustworthy with much. Therefore if you are untrustworthy with unrighteous mammon, who will trust you with what is true? And if you are untrustworthy with someone else’s, who will entrust you with your own?
Mammon has three characteristics. First, it is unrighteous. Jesus refers to it as “unrighteous mammon.” Whenever Jesus speaks about mammon, he speaks about its opposition to God. Mammon tempts us to our trust in possessions rather than in God. It tries to seduce us to love it rather than God. Mammon is a fallen power. It is opposed to God. For this reason, Christians are never to love it. To quote Jacques Ellul, “Ultimately, we follow what we have loved most intensely either into eternity or into death. To love money is to be condemned to follow it in its destruction, its disappearance, its annihilation and its death. . . our attachment to money pushes us with it headlong into nothingness.”3
Second, mammon is a small thing. Jesus refers to is as one of the “little things:” “He who can be trusted with a very little can be trusted with very much.” Mammon struts about as if it were in charge. But it is part of this world, part of the things that are passing away. Mammon will not last forever. As Paul says,
The appointed time has grown very short; for now on, let those who buy, live as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as thought they had not dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.4
In God’s kingdom, there will be wealth, but no money. Everyone will have enough, and there will be no buying or selling; no power relationships based on net worth. Surely this is what is meant by that glorious image from the book of Revelation, “The streets of heaven will be paved with gold.”
Third, mammon is a liar. Jesus contrasts mammon to “true riches:” “If you have not been trustworthy in handling unrighteous mammon then who will trust you with true riches?” Mammon lies. It arouses desires but does not satisfy them. It is a counterfeit of God’s gifts of joy, hope, and grace. As one commentator puts it, “By definition, mammon is wealth that is not enjoyed. For enjoyment is itself a grace – and mammon and all grace are mutually exclusive.”5
So, how we can live as children of light in a world which is dominated by mammon? Jesus does not say: Don’t touch the stuff. Do not have any dealings with money and possessions. On the contrary, he tells us to take it into our hands and to use it for the kingdom of God. Get your hands dirty with unrighteous mammon without succumbing to its power. How are we to do that?
Here, we can take our cue from the wily manager. He knows that he is about to be separated from his money, so he puts it to work. He uses it to achieve his goals. If this is possible for the unrighteous manager, who is concerned only about worldly comforts, how much more so for us, who are committed to the interests of the kingdom of God. One day, we, too, will soon be separated from our money. We have it for a short time. So we are to use it—press it into service for the kingdom of God. If you are prepared not to worship it and love it you can use it like you use any machine.
And there is something else we can learn from the manager about mammon. Remember what the manager does. He forgives debts. Of course, they aren’t even his debtors. But he relieves people from the burden of debt. His action is without charge. It is through this action that we see the entry of grace into the world of money. As one commentator puts it, “His generous act, so open to criticism from many points of view, has the distinction of making debtors enter the world of pardon, of giving, of remission of debt, ultimately of grace. In this, the steward who is unfaithful to money is faithful to grace.”6
We can do the same thing by giving money away. Giving money away is a subversive act, because it goes against the law of money. It neutralizes its power. It dismantles the hierarchy created by buying and selling. Most of all, it prepares us for heaven where there will be no more money, but riches for everybody. So give money away. Be unfaithful to money and faithful to grace.
Mammon is a very real power in our lives. God has called us to live among this power. We are not to turn away from it. We are to take it into our hands and to press it into service for the kingdom of God. It comes to us under the power of darkness. It becomes God’s by the use we make of it. When Christians faithfully handle money, a miracle takes place. That which is opposed to God becomes transformed into an agent of grace so that we may love God, experience joy in giving, and prepare ourselves for the kingdom of heaven, where there will be no more money but wealth for everyone.
Grant us, O Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly, and even now while we are placed among things that are passing away, to held fast to those that shall endure.
1 Jacques Ellul, Money and Power, trans. LaVonne Neff (Downers Grove: InverVarsity Press, 1984).
2 My translation.
3 Money and Power.
4 1 Cor. 7.
5 Ellul, Money and Power.
6 Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father: Sermons on the Parables of Jesus, trans., John W. Doberstein (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), chapter VIII.