The love of money

Hello everyone! Back again for another TUC Talks and looking at the reading for Sunday, the 9th of August.

Um, yeah, so welcome.

I'm still trying to work out whether TUC Talks is the perfect name, but I think we just have to wear it and roll forward anyway.

Today I have the great pleasure of having Michael Thomas.

Michael is the father-in-law of the winner of the Pearly Spurtle from last Saturday.

Um, he has other claims to fame, but I think that's the most interesting thing at this point in time.

He is also a minister in the United Church from the Lower North Shore, so I thought it was worthwhile talking to him about the reading for today.

Hello, Michael.

Yeah, g'day Richard.

I was also in uh Terrible Uniting Church on Sunday morning to hear your sermon.

So it might be unusual for your guests.

Well, actually, some of the people are from a congregation, so you know, occasionally they do actually hear it.

But um It was an excellent sermon, by the way.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um, so everyone, the reading for this Sunday just gone was 1 Timothy 6, 6 to 19.

And it had that really interesting line in it that says that the love of money is the root of many kinds of evil.

I don't think it was interesting.

All kinds of evil.

All kinds of evil.

Not not money is the root of all evil, which is an idiomatic way of saying it, or the love of money is the root of all evil.

But the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

Yes, yes.

And I did like that at the end he gave that little sort of and now, could you tell the rich people in your congregation this bit?

Um, so yes, that's that's the reading for this Sunday.

I found it a I find it a really interesting one, and for me this week I linked it to the little housing crisis that we're going through at the moment.

Um, what did you think of the passage from one Timothy?

I find it a fascinating passage, Richard, and I just want to be clear early on that I haven't been selected for this conversation because of my own net wealth, but I've been chosen because uh I've spent a lot of my ministry ministering on the North Shore of Sydney.

I grew up on the North Shore of Sydney.

Did you grow up on the North Shore?

I did.

Wow.

Yes, I went to school with Elle McPherson.

She was a couple of years behind me at Clara High School, and that was my claim to fame before my son became the uh porridge champion of the country.

Well, there you go.

So, look, because of that, I I I did actually want to get someone that had a bit of an interest in how do we understand this passage in relation to wealth?

Because the reality is we are Australian, therefore there are very few poor people in Australia.

There are some, but ultimately as a nation, we use fresh water to flush our toilets.

We we have uh three meals a day.

We are wealthy compared to the bulk of the world, aren't we?

Of course, but I I I'm not quite sure I completely agree with you, Richard.

I think there's a lot of uh a growing amount of inequality and wealth in Australia.

There are poor people that are excluded from uh the kind of uh benefits that you and I enjoy, and that people a lot wealthier than us absolutely delight in.

And so the the message of this passage I think, as you indicated on Sunday, is a really important message for the Christians of Australia and it's an important message for the way we organise our society.

Yeah, because and and I suppose one of the things that I went down, and I'm pretty sure that you'd probably think of as well, is that it's about the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

If we become obsessed about finances, that can be the damage, can't it?

Oh, absolutely.

And, you know, as you said in your sermon, Jesus says an awful lot about wealth and how it's used.

And people have been wealthy since the beginning of time.

And certainly in the biblical period, there were those that were very wealthy.

It seems in the early church, Jesus had followers who are from uh merchant classes and extremely well off, as well as his ministry engaged with those at the very bottom of the pile.

So the Christian church, in my opinion, has a significant role to play in our society because it speaks to all levels of society.

Yeah, it's always, and I think it's always been that there have been wealthy people a part of it.

Uh, for me, doing some of the research for this week, some of the stuff that I found fascinating that I sort of knew but I hadn't really thought through, was that Paul, who writes this, if we take one and two Timothy as being written by Paul, the author of this was funded by wealthy benefactors supporting him quite often.

Not always, but often, and his scribe was funded by Phoebe, which, you know, like here's the bloke who's so Paul, and for me, I imagine Paul pacing up and down, ranting out the words of one and two Timothy to this poor scribe that's trying to write it all down, and I've forgotten his name, but anyway, like there's a bloke that's writing it down, and he's talking about, you know, money is the root of all kinds of evil.

The love of money.

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

And this bloke is being funded by Phoebe, who's actually quite a wealthy woman who's who's funded a support person for for Paul.

So he's you know, bite the hand that feeds you.

Absolutely.

And and that was the I guess the paradox of the early church that it it ri required huge resources to do what it did, and those resources were provided by the early believers, and there was this uh version of the story that said that uh the believers were to hold all their things in common, and there was this attitude in Luke, in Acts, in Luke Acts, that uh was very much a countercultural message.

Yes.

I always say to my people when I when I read that first three or four chapters of Acts that it really did not last that long, that everything in common.

And if you look at it, one of Paul's missionary journeys, he's actually sending money back to the church in Jerusalem.

And I know it's partly because there was a drought in and around Jerusalem, but also they've gone through the money, they've they've they've done this living in common thing, and now they are needing support from the other churches out there, and so you know the Corinthian church is sending money back to Jerusalem to help them.

Yes, that's a fascinating little part of the story, isn't it?

I the other part of all this that I find fascinating is the idea from the New Testament about the role that money is to play in the in the life of the believer is very countercultural.

There's a great story about uh American Christians being quoted from James and believing that what they're reading comes from the Communist Manifesto from Karl Marx, not actually from the scriptures.

So there's a very interesting New Testament theme about how money is to be used by the believers, absolutely.

Which and so if we look at all of those passages, when Paul is saying here that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, really what he's saying is about an attitude, isn't it?

The attitude of us becoming too obsessed by becoming wealthy and obsessed by by building our personal wealth rather than caring for others in the process.

Do you see that as I I see that and I agree with you, Richard.

I I do think, though, that that um qualification can be taken a little bit too literally by some who are very happy to enjoy that their wealth and continue enjoying their wealth.

It's very clear from the New Testament that there's this command for Christians to use their resources in a way that matches their values and to to just make the promise that your your attitude isn't terrible, but but maintain your wealth and continue driving yourself forward financially, uh possibly needs to be taken in the context of the rest of what the New Testament has to say.

And look, for us as a church, like the Uniting Church, we we have in Australian society, we have some wealth, don't we?

Like we've got some great land.

Significant wealth, and if we squander that wealth, it it's on our heads, isn't it?

It's it's uh it's a it's a wealth that comes like all wealth comes with a responsibility.

It's a bit like you know, quite often historically I've heard people look at the Catholic Church and say, well, they they're so wealthy because they've got so much land and the Vatican and all the stuff that they store up, and that is true.

They are quite wealthy.

Like if you go to the Lunceston, go into Launceston, the cathedral down there has a golden cockerel sitting on, I think it's only nine karat gold, but a golden cockerel on the roof.

Um, and I can still remember the debate when I was young about should there be a golden cockerel be putting on the cat top of the Catholic Church down there, and all sorts of argument about it.

It was too far up for anyone to steal.

I think the golden cockerel in Launceston is nothing compared to what you see in Vatican City, but uh I guess for you Tasmanians you had to see it somewhere.

Well, you know, it's a it's a big thing for down there.

And but the uniting church is the same because in some of our places, like on the lower north shore, because it was established quite early in the Australian colony, there's there was a Presbyterian church and a Methodist church and a Uniting Church, you know, and a congregational church.

And at Union, there were three churches within two city blocks in some spots, weren't there?

That's right.

And as you m pointed out on Sunday with your conversation about the housing crisis, actually, for the lower north shore of Sydney, most of the wealth that uh is currently in those areas is actually in the houses the church is owned for ministers to live in.

So the the churches themselves, often because they've got heritage listings, if they were to sell, wouldn't sell for particularly high prices.

But many of the houses that church owns on the lower north shore of Sydney are worth an absolute fortune.

And that reality is something that church has to be very responsible with.

Yeah, and because and it actually I think plays the same game with our personal wealth and with the corporate wealth of the church.

Like we've got to think about how do we do this, how do we live our finances out responsibly and somewhat collectively.

Like, you know, when I mean somewhat, you need to build up, you know, I need to build up enough to retire, I need to build up enough to buy my house, I need to do all of those things.

And the reality is that's gonna be a a sizable amount of money that I will have as a personal wealth, but I also can't just be excited to build that up more and more.

I've also got to have a collective responsibility as well.

Absolutely, and you made that point very, very carefully and well on on Sunday.

I think the church makes a terrible mistake when it it assumes a kind of Marxist approach to the wealth of that we have.

And when people go down that path, I make a point of uh remembering the late days of the Soviet Union where 4% of the land produced 48% of the wealth.

And the reality is private ownership, all these things are not bad in themselves for the Christian.

It's it's how we deal with it, the resources that we have that's important.

Oh look, I I'm a little bit of a socialist myself, I've got to say.

I, you know, I I I do have a yeah, a bit of a thrill about it.

But um Well, I guess uh to make a point more about people than p um property, uh, there's again another great story to me from the Soviet Union.

Uh Stalin believed that doctors were really just glorified mechanics.

So he started paying the mechanics the same as he paid his doctors.

He executed those that uh complained, and the net result was a terrible health crisis for uh for the Soviet Union.

So did he really?

Oh, he did, yes, yes, yes.

A glorified mechanic.

That was his argument.

I've got a few doctors in the congregation.

I don't know how excited they'll be hearing that.

I'm I'm well just don't call yourself Joseph, yeah, Richard.

That's fantastic.

Never heard that.

So look, uh the reality is uh wealth is a really interesting matter.

I've I've known a lot of rich people in my day, in and out of the church.

I think the worst approach that can be taken by a wealthy person is to believe that they're wealthy because they're so smart.

And almost inevitably that's just not true.

And nearly always, like not every time, but quite often, wealth is is a family legacy, isn't it?

Like and therefore to assume that your wealth is some kind of entitlement just because your parents made some money is is a dangerous assumption.

And for a Christian, it's an outrage, absolutely.

Yes.

I have a very good friend from the car world, not from the from the church, who makes the argument that there's two ways to get wealthy in this country.

One is to own a company, and the other, which is the path he chose, which was to get retrenched a lot.

So he was the CFO for some big um companies in Australia, worked for some famous entrepreneurs, and he managed to organize to get retrenched three times, and he organized his own payout and ended up being very wealthy as a result.

So that's that's my view about wealth almost always.

It's it's an accident of history or a bit of good fortune.

So what what is our responsibility if we are someone that there has been an accident of history or good fortune and we have a bit of finance?

What what is the responsibility of a Christian in that context?

Well, I'm I'm a big believer, Richard, in the in that saying, noblesse oblige.

In other words, to to whom much is given, much is expected.

And so if you are a wealthy person, as you as you say, you and I are, and most of the people in our churches, there's a great responsibility upon us to to use that wealth well.

And and I suppose one of the things for me is we need to try and work out where we apply that into society, don't we?

We need to work out where we apply our part of our wealth and where we put our energy to make sure that we are improving society in a way.

And and if we're a Christian, it's it's in the in the terms of the gospel.

How are we presenting the good news of Christ?

Whether it's just by feeding someone, because Jesus said go out there and feed someone or visit the people that are in prison.

It's actually finding that spot in society that we can apply our wealth to transform the world for good.

Absolutely.

And and I'm sure, as you know, Richard, the the churches in this country that are uh successful are nearly always churches that take seriously that responsibility they have to the poorest of the poor.

The the churches that uh that best represent gospel values are ones that are are serious about making sure they have a a place to play, a role to play in the society that beyond just uh worshipping and praying on a Sunday.

Because that's one of the reasons why our church does the repair cafe.

We we believe and and we I've been talking about it a lot over the last six to twelve months to sort of try and emphasize it.

We believe that it's a way that we engage the community, but more and more it's to help people just repair things rather than try and buy something new because rampant consumerism is becoming more and more a part of society.

Like we're built-in redundancy is actually a lot is a part of many products we buy nowadays, isn't it?

Absolutely, and what a great gospel initiative to to say, look, enough is enough.

Let's let's maintain things, let's fix things that are broken.

I think it's a fantastic ministry of the terrible United Church.

It it's very important, and and I think it's us reminding ourselves that if we have finances, we actually share them with others, and if we have resources and skills, like wealth is not always just money.

Sometimes it is the resources we have or the ability we have, and to try and shape the world for the better with the skills, the finances, all that we hold.

Absolutely, and that's that's the other part of no bless oblige that I didn't really get to, and that is often people who are financially well off, part of why they're financially well off is they have gifts and skills and abilities that in the church can can do great things, and harnessing those gifts, skills, and abilities is you know part of what that whole idea about spiritual gifts is all about, using that which can transform the world for the best possible purpose.

So now you were you're saying a quote there.

What is that what is that saying?

No, blessed liege essentially just means uh if you if you have something, you have an obligation to do something with it.

If you have something, you have an obligation to do something with it.

Whereas our society says, if you've got something, use it, enjoy it, and be glad to uh limit the opportunity that other people have so that you can continue to enjoy that wealth.

That's that's part of this terrible direction that our society is heading towards inequality where the the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.

And eventually that won't work.

And the Old Testament prophets were clear that that wasn't a path that was great.

The uh the year of the Jubilee was meant to arrest those kinds of directions.

And for one reason or another, Western societies like ours have forgotten that uh left to its own trajectory, what will happen will be social dislocation, a broken society.

And the church needs to be part of making sure the rich don't always get richer and that the poor don't get poorer.

The year of Jubilee that you mentioned, that is a really interesting piece from Leviticus.

And and for those that haven't heard it, the in Leviticus, they think that it was set up but never actually functioned.

Very hard to get rich people to give up what what they think is rightfully theirs.

That's right.

So so in the year of Jubilee, at the end of 50 years, all the money went back to the well, not all the money, but all the um the land went back to the common and was redistributed.

Is that that's basically the question?

Essentially, that's what was meant to happen, and as you say, it the it it probably didn't happen anywhere near as much as it should.

But certainly the the theme of of much of the Old Testament that we we uh have inherited from our Judeo-Christian background is about ensuring that the rich oppressors don't get rich, they don't uh put their finger on the scales and uh and uh can and oppress the poor.

For that's what will happen automatically and naturally if things are left to their own devices, the rich will get richer.

And that's not the way that uh societies are meant to operate according to our faith.

And and for me, one of the things that was interesting is I was describing the Roman Empire that this letter was written into about how the wealthy climbed over the back of the poor and all that.

And you could easily look at that as a little piece from history and say, Oh, aren't those Romans terrible?

But the more you describe it, the more it is Australia today.

Even worse if you look overseas, if you think about Jeff Bezos and his wealth, and you think of the wealth of the people who work in his warehouses and factories.

The way of the Old Testament was was the natural way.

Christianity stood in the way of that and and should continue to stand in its way.

Yeah.

And even in Australia, there's debate at the moment about modern-day slavery happening on our shores in some of the produce industry.

And that that is fascinating.

That we we've always looked at slave for me personally, I've always looked at trying to end modern slavery by making sure that I buy the right stuff from overseas to make sure that I'm not buying chocolate that has got slavery in its line, or fish that's been coming out of factories that has got slavery in its line, all of those things to discover that I've got to try and work out what produce I buy in Australia that has not been affected by slavery.

There's a very interesting piece in the press last week, Richard.

You might have seen about the carnival cruise lines and the uh the fact that people enjoy cruising and need to do that with the understanding that the people that are serving them and making that uh cruise enjoyable for them might be earning$2 an hour.

And that's an appalling thought.

An appalling well m yes.

And and many of the boats that that service Australia, like the crew, are not are are heavily underpaid by our terms.

The reality is they might not be from where their country is, but that's offshore and international.

International waters, and I suppose you're right, that's not really Australia's problem, but certainly what you're saying about the produce industry and much of much of commerce in this country is fueled by uh greed and by people not being paid properly.

I always think of that famous saying behind every great fortune there's a great crime, and I think that's something to bear in mind when we think about wealth in this country and in our world.

And I and so, in a sense, some of the stuff that we as Christians trying to live out the gospel in our lives is to make sure that we don't just buy the cheapest product because it's the cheapest product, but we've got to try and make sure that we buy stuff that is just and equitably produced.

And that's in a sense making sure that we distribute the wealth appropriately, like that the person that's made our food has been paid appropriately, the the person that gives us entertainment has been paid appropriately, that that we've that we make sure that what we consume is done with equity and fairness.

And there's there's a it's a bit difficult to do, but it's a responsibility for us to at least try, isn't it?

Absolutely it is.

And I think you can go down a whole lot of rabbit holes becoming obsessive and weird about it.

But if in a in a relaxed Christian kind of way, each of if each of our decisions are based around the fact that we are people of faith and that we claim that we're followers of Jesus of Nazareth, everything will be different.

And and there are a few apps out there.

I think the Baptist World Aid produces World Aid?

Anyway, the Baptist Church I think produced a fantastic app that helped you with the produce, like the sh the products that you buy, whether there's slavery in in their history.

Um, one of my good friends, um Fuzz and Carolyn Kiddo, who were youth workers in the United Church, they've now they work for a an org, they're sort of the organization Be Slavery Free, and they're some of the people.

So that Four Corners article, some Fuzz was a part of that because of some of the work you've got.

So it was Carolyn, she was on the screen.

Ah, I didn't I didn't see it.

I just someone rang me and said they saw Fuzz.

Yeah.

Carolyn's an incredibly intelligent woman.

I've got a lot of respect for her too.

Um, yeah, they they that's that's the stuff that they are doing, trying to make sure that there is a serious assessment of chocolate and other products that come from overseas that slavery's not in the line.

I grew up being very proud of the fact that as a Christian person I was in living in the um in the wake of Wilburn William Wilberforce, yes in in supposedly reading the world of slavery, but it's a never-ending battle.

Yes, there are more slaves today than there have been at any point in time in history, if we take the definitions of modern-day slavery.

And it it in every um generation since Jesus' time, since the Old Pro Testament prophets, I guess, uh it has been part of the Christian faith, part of the Judeo-Christian faith that uh we engage to make sure people are properly treated.

Yeah.

So Paul, in his little rant, you know, nice enough rant, but a fairly clear rant that he gives.

I do like his final words, his advice.

Let's hear them again.

He says this teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable.

I do like that he calls it unreliable.

Their um their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.

Tell them to use their money to do good.

They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others.

By doing this, they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future, so that they may experience true life.

That's a fantastic ending to that uh little passage that you uh preach from.

Yeah.

For me, I think the thing of if we want to have like, you know, it talks about Jesus came so that we may have life and life in all of its fullness.

And I actually think there's two sides to it, isn't there?

The fullness of life for a person who is being generous, that actually does it gives us a fullness of life to be generous with what we have, and it gives those that we are generous to.

Although I do hate the what the idea of the person that I'm being generous to being an object that I'm being generous to, but you know, it gives both it gives life to both.

Absolutely, it does.

And uh generous too is probably the problem wrong way of putting it.

Yeah, I know it is, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

It shouldn't be a patronizing beast.

Um, I don't know, but but whatever the right term is for those that we for those that we share with, it it lifts both up.

It doesn't just lift one up, it lifts both up.

Yes, and our our understanding of of what the kingdom of heaven looks like has people flourishing in in every part of their lives.

Yes, yes, it is.

And wealth is a big part of our lives.

Um Michael, what other things did you gain from that passage as you were listening to it or or contemplating your the person that was trying to preach about it in front of you?

Well, I I'd I I particularly enjoyed the the fact that you wrestled with with the reality that the the passage isn't just saying money is a root of all evil, it's the love of money, it's the root of all kinds of evil, not all evil.

Yeah.

I I think the fact that you wrestled with that made the made the point that the uh the way our society remembers that passage is to misunderstand it.

And it's complicated.

You made the point that it's not easy, these are complicated things.

If you were trying to solve the housing crisis, it's not easily done.

You made the point that uh that it wouldn't be much fun to be a politician making these decisions.

No, so I think that's that's that was really my takeaway that uh there's there's not simple answers in this matter, as there are not simple matters in anything to do with that, faith.

For me, the housing crisis thing is something it fascinates me, that one, because there was so much animated discussion about house prices rising and how passionate we got that it it people were not able to get into the housing market, and now that something has happened, the passion that we're hammering hammering people with about how dare they make my personal wealth deplete, it's a really interesting struggle here.

Like and of course, we can't make some, you know.

I I'm not an economist and I'm not someone that understands the whole picture, but we've got to make it more affordable.

John Howard famously said that he he didn't ever have people coming to him saying, I want you to make my house worth less money.

And that that point has been proven very much by this point that you've just made, this uh reality when it came that that the prices weren't gonna continue to rise at the rate they had has caused a lot of anxiety and disquiet.

And a really interesting um a really interesting graph that I saw, I think it might have been on insiders, um, this week.

I'm not too sure, it was somewhere.

Um that you know house prices are still rising in the lowest price housing suburbs.

So the places at the moment that house prices are dropping are in the wealthiest suburbs.

So the most desirable houses are dropping.

And so when they talk about house prices dropping, they're actually talking about house prices dropping across the board.

But Western Sydney is still rising.

Yes, and I think you made this point on Sunday.

If you didn't, I'll make it now.

Something structurally very poor has happened that back when we were young, people needed, you know, five times the annual salary to buy a house, and it's now 14 or 15 times.

Yeah.

I live on the lower north shore of Sydney, and a little workers' cottage came up in Willoughby a couple of years ago, and I did the maths, and it would cost me 52 annual minister stipends to buy a little workers' cottage.

52 years of salary.

So that's that's clearly a broken system.

Yes.

And it has to be fixed.

It'll it'll be painful to to fix it.

But uh it it it clearly could not keep going on the trajectory that it was on.

And and to fix it does mean that we're all gonna hurt a little bit.

Like it it's it's not simple, but but justice and equity isn't always simple, is it?

Absolutely, it's not, but you can't have a society where children can't afford to live in the in the general vicinity of where their parents had had lived.

It's an interesting point on the Central Coast.

You know, the some of the values have gone to the point where people can't live in the communities they grew up in, and and that's just not good for people.

So, you know, I'm at an age now where I have children.

My youngest, my youngest child is at university, and my oldest two children are working.

I I know a number of friends that are of a similar age to me where their children are still living at home.

I've got two living at home, but one of them is traveling to Sessnock and back to work, so he's gonna have to find a house up there eventually.

He's starting to look.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Yeah.

But like the reality is that kids need to live till they're 25, 30, or or so just to just to build up enough capital to even rent sometimes in some places.

Yes, and the changes that were made so that people pay for their own education sounded like a great idea.

But what we've found is that we now have a generation of kids who have a big hex debt just at the time when they need to be finding cash to buy a house, and those sorts of things need to get fixed.

Yeah.

And and so again, coming back to the idea of none of this is simple, and therefore we should not say, well, it's all too difficult, I do nothing.

And so when it comes to our shopping behaviors, not becoming obsessive about it, but if we know that a piece of chocolate that we, you know, a block of chocolate that we're going to buy is fair trade, or a block of chocolate that we're buying is not fair trade, if it's an extra dollar to buy the chocolate is a luxury item anyway.

If you're buying a luxury item, you shouldn't buy a luxury item that is in that is embedded in slavery.

Don't buy the chocolate.

If you can't buy the chocolate that has at least a bit of justice embedded into it in the fair trade.

I think that's really good advice.

Yeah.

Um, now, Michael, anything else before we finish up?

I've just enjoyed the chat, Richard, and uh I'm I'm looking forward to uh to I might even get invited back sometime.

Oh look, that would be fantastic.

It's always good.

I've got next time someone lets you down and I'm the second choice, I'm happy to be the second choice.

Oh, look, I'll I'll I'll pick you up as a backup any day.

Um thank you so much, Michael.

Um now just a couple of notices for our congregation.

There isn't too much to mention as far as notice sheet stuff at the moment.

We're we're sort of in a gearing up for Christmas stage, which is I know it's middle of the year, but I'm starting to think about it.

Um but there is the repair cafe at the end of the month.

So the last Saturday of the month is the repair cafe.

And also just to keep for those that are involved in the holiday kids club, this time round it will be the second Wednesday of the school holidays rather than the first Wednesday, because there's a few other things there's that people are going to be involved in the first Wednesday, so we've made it the second Wednesday.

But um, beyond that, thank you so much for listening.

And Michael, thank you so much for being involved.

And everyone, I will talk to you next week on TUC Talks.

Bye.