Bible Text: Matthew 6:24-34 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: 2020, Trinity 15 | A story that should be featured in every economics book is that of Jacob and Esau. I’m sure you all know the history, but I’ll remind you just in case. Jacob and Esau were the twin brothers of Isaac and Rebekah. Esau was the firstborn. He had what the Bible calls the birthright. That meant that he would receive double what his brother Jacob received for an inheritance. And it also meant that he had a responsibility, as the older brother, to set the example of the virtuous Christian life, of worshipping God, of giving honor to his father and his mother. And so you have two things involved here with Esau’s birthright. One is that Esau will inherit a ton of stuff, money and riches. The other is that Esau has a status, an honor, a responsibility, as his father’s firstborn.
One day, Esau went out for a hunt and came back so hungry he thought he was going to die. His brother Jacob had some stew and Esau wanted it. More than anything in the world, he wanted that stew. So Jacob offered it to him in exchange for his birthright. And Esau paid it, he paid with his status as the firstborn son. For a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. After all, Esau said, “Look, I’m about to die, so what profit will this birthright be to me?”
Now what does this teach us about money?
First, it teaches us a basic rule of capitalism, of a free market economy. That a thing’s worth is determined by how much you are willing to pay for it. You wouldn’t think bread and soup would be worth a birthright, but if you want it bad enough, you’ll pay anything. This is how things are valued in our world. How much do I want it? If people want it enough, if there’s a high enough demand, it’ll be worth a lot. And if people aren’t willing to pay for it, it’s worthless. So in times of famine, as in our Old Testament lesson, oil, water, flour are worth their weight in gold and more, because people are willing to pay dearly for it. Or in times of Covid, hand sanitizer and masks all of a sudden triple in value. Because we want them. That’s all money is. It’s the quantifier of our desires.
Second, this story teaches us that our sinful nature will always think in terms of money, even when it comes to things that can’t be bought or sold, that money can’t buy. That’s what Esau did. Esau put a price, a monetary price, that’s what soup is, on his status as his father’s firstborn. He converted a priceless gift of God into a quantifiable entity that could be bought and sold. He treated his integrity, his honor, his conscience, his respect and love for his father, priceless things, as purchasable. His words are absolutely wrong, “Look, I’m about to die, so what profit will this birthright be to me?” Well, everything. Better to die with a good conscience than to live with an evil one. There are things worse than death. There are things that we should never, ever put a price on. What monetary price could I put on my wife’s love for me, or my marriage, or my children? What price could I put on my own integrity and honor? What price could I put on my faith in Christ or on my Baptism or on the body and blood of Jesus put into my mouth? These are incommensurate with money. Money can’t measure their worth. And if these are things that I truly value, that I will never give up, that I treasure, then money recedes into the background. It can’t give me children. It can’t give me my wife’s love. It can’t buy me faith or Baptism or Jesus’ body and blood. It can’t give me integrity or honor or Christian virtue or care for others or a forgiving heart or contentment with life. Only God can give these things.
This is why Jesus says you can’t serve both God and money. Because if you serve money, then you’ll value everything according to what money can buy. And money can’t buy virtue or faith or Jesus. Money can only buy you stuff.
So when it comes to things, yes, we human beings can decide their value in money. You can put the worth of a couple sparrows at a penny. Fine. And a man can give up his inheritance for a glass of water, if it’s worth that much to him. But when it comes to spiritual things, we may not decide their value. God decides their value. Money can’t buy them, governments can’t bestow them, and we have no right to give them up.
This goes for church and for life itself. These are things money can’t buy. These are things that God gives worth to, not us. And the worth He puts on you, on human life, and on His Church is His Son. He purchased His Church with His blood. He redeemed every human life with His death. This is why we oppose abortion with all of our being. I’m tired of hearing politicians talk about abortion as if it’s about a woman’s reproductive rights. What a ridiculous lie. It’s about money. Pure and simple. It’s about valuing a child’s life according to money and not according to the blood of God shed for that child. You dispense of a child because you’ve seen the money the child will take from you, the enjoyment you could have without him, and you valued him at less than what your money could give you. I’ve heard abortion advocates praise their decision to kill their own baby, because it gave them the chance to become rich and happy, unencumbered by the burden of an unwanted child. And the same is often the case with birth control. The reason a lot of people don’t want kids is because of money. We put a valuation on children, and see that they’ll cost us too much. This is what our young people are taught. Counselors and economists and even pastors – I’ve seen this done by LCMS pastors too, this is so widespread – they will actually quantify how much a child will cost. They put it into a calculator. Each child will cost you $800,000 from cradle to college. Besides that being obviously untrue (Lisa and I have seven kids so far, and I did the math, I put it into a calculator, $800,000 x 7 = $5,600,000, and it would take me 80 years given my current income to make that much, and these kids will be just fine, they’re not going to starve; God will provide), but besides the ridiculousness of that number, the very idea of quantifying the cost of children in terms of money is repugnant to the Christian mind. It’s to transfer the priceless things of God into the realm of things that perish. It’s to do exactly what Esau did, trade the priceless things of God for the desires of the belly.
And this is still the way of the world. At camp this year I asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. Everyone named a career. In other words, we’re teaching our kids to look at life and their future as career and making money. Now obviously that’s part of life, it’s part of the Christian life, God tells us to work hard. But we need to check our priorities here. Life is not about a career, it’s about being a Christian. I’ll give you three reasons why we have to stop focusing education and upbringing on getting a career. First, it puts horrible stress and worry on our children. Second, it’s frankly not that important what job they might get when they’re older. Third, it teaches our children that the goal of life is to make money. Let’s teach our kids to look forward to living the Christian life. To keep their virtue, to keep the ten commandments, to seek Lutheran spouses, to love and desire children and family if God gives it, to be Christian fathers and mothers, to be content with life, to work hard and never complain, to suffer with dignity our crosses, to stand up for the truth of the Bible, to trust in Christ always and attend church every Sunday, to pray daily and read God’s Word, to give our money to the church and to people in need. These are things that last forever. And they’re things that won’t put constant anxiety and worry on us or our children. Because the God we serve lifts our worries from us and bears them for us.
But serving money will always stress you out. When Jesus calls money a false god, he’s obviously not saying that anyone actually prays to a 100-dollar bill or gets down and worships a bank. He’s saying that people put their hope and trust in what money can get them. And money is a pathetic god for two reasons. One we’ve already talked about. It can only get you stuff. And you have to leave your stuff here when you die. You can have all the money in the world. You can buy presidencies and shape the course of western politics with your money. But you will die. And the kingdoms your money props up will fall. He who reigns in the heavens will laugh. And eventually no one will even remember your name. That’s the great hope money offers. But second, the god of money will only increase your worries. He’ll never take them away. It’s very significant that when Jesus tells us not to worry, he does so only after attacking money as a false god. If you serve money, if money is most important, then you worry about your job security, you worry about paying for college, you worry about elections and stock markets, and all money can do is urge you to get more of it, always more, that’s the only solution it offers for your worries, and there’s no end to it. The god of money will never let you be content. He makes you fight with your spouse. He makes you envy your neighbor. He doesn’t love you. He wants to make you as pathetic as he is.
But your God gives peace. He takes worries away. And I don’t mean that you’re not a Christian if you worry. That’s ridiculous. Of course you’re going to worry. Why else would Jesus tell you not to worry? Because you do worry. But Jesus answers your worries, you see. We value a sparrow at a dollar. And God cares for them. God values you with the life of His Son. He will care for you. You are worth more than birds. You’re worth the life of God. You see the fields that can be bought and sold with money, and God cares for them, beautifies them, clothes them. You are worth far more. You are worth the blood of Jesus. And so He will clothe you. He’ll take care of your body. And you know this because He clothes you with His own righteousness. You know this because He has suffered for your life, so precious it is to him, so great was His desire to free you from the vanity of sin and the worship of money and to bring you into His Kingdom to live with Him now and forever, forgiven of all sin and filled with His Spirit. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, Jesus says. The Kingdom of God is the reign of God, it’s an active thing. God reigns over you. He reigns in you. And his reign, his ruling, casts out the false gods, casts out the devil’s lies, the worrying about money, the thought that your value depends on you or what you have or haven’t done. He gives you your birthright and He convinces you never to throw it away for anything, because it is everything. You are God’s child. God sought you out. The Son became a man for you. He shed His blood for you. He brought you to the faith. God makes Himself your Father in your Baptism and then feeds you with the living body and blood of His Son. Jesus gives you His own righteousness, His perfection, priceless innocence that comes at no price to you, that He gives because He loves you and He’s invested Himself in you. That’s what your worth. God gives you an inheritance, makes you an heir of everything beautiful and good and true, to inherit it with His Son by the power of His Spirit. These are things that can’t be bought and they make our spirit so glad, so glad that it can laugh at the silly thought of worrying about money. No, God rules over us. His Kingdom come. His gracious will be done. Amen.