Thursday, October 27, 2011

What Jesus Said about Your Money, Part 30 of 31

TEXT: "Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?" (Luke 16:11).

IDEA: Money is unrighteous.

PURPOSE: To make listeners consider how money can be very dangerous.

MART: Alice, have you ever thought about what a great invention money is?

ALICE: Invention? I don't think about money as an invention.

MART: Well, someone, somewhere, must have invented it. Centuries ago people got their goods through a barter system. If you were a fisherman, you would trade your fish to a farmer for grain. If you made cloth, then you swapped your cloth with someone who had animal hides.

ALICE: That's still true in many cultures today. People barter with one another for what they need. It could be a cumbersome system.

MART: But then someone invented money. I wonder who he was. Merchants began to use bits of polished shells or pieces of metal to represent value. Whoever invented money made a wonderful discovery.

ALICE: You do wonder who came up with the idea.

MART: Or how he convinced other people to go along with it. After all, unless everyone buys into bits of metal or colored shells as money, the system won't work.

ALICE: Well, money was handy. Especially if you carried on trade outside your village. You wouldn't have to lug bulky goods with you to buy things. You could carry a lot of money around in a small purse.

MART: But someone had to back it up. Trading companies or governments had to stand behind the value of those bits of metal—the coins—and determine what they were worth. Whoever invented money had to have a lot of wealth himself or the system wouldn't work.

ALICE: Money goes way back in history. Archaeologists have found coins in China and India that are at least seven thousand years old.

MART: You can purchase Roman coins in Israel today that are as old as the New Testament. They're made of bronze or silver and even gold.

ALICE: What fascinates me is paper money.

MART: You don't like to have only coins in your pocketbook?

ALICE: No, not that. What intrigues me is how much faith money demands. Up until the 1930s every dollar bill was backed by gold. Now a bill is backed by about only 25% gold. The rest is simply the confidence people have in the government that stands behind it. It takes a lot of faith in the government to save money or to take money for a product that we have to sell.

MART: That's kind of a disturbing thought. Look at this $20 bill. Merchants all over the world accept it. That says something about the trust they have in the United States.

JACKSON: Pardon me, Sir, would you get your thumb off my face?

MART: Alice, what did you say?

ALICE: I didn't say anything. That $20 bill just said something. I've never heard a $20 bill speak before.

JACKSON: Haven't you heard that "money talks"? Well, I have a lot to say.

MART: Twenty-dollar bills don't talk.

JACKSON: It's not the $20 bill talking. It's me. Andrew Jackson. If you'd just get your thumb off my face, I'd like to talk to you. I deserve a little more respect than you are giving me.

MART: Respect?

JACKSON: I'm Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States. I held the office from 1829 to 1837. Quite a bit before your time, young man. Do you realize that I'm considered the first president of the Democrat party? That party still around?

ALICE: Yes, it is. It's still quite strong.

JACKSON: That's why they have locked me into this $20 bill. It's their way of honoring me. Some honor! I feel like a prisoner. All I do is look out through this window every day.

ALICE: You can see out of the window? You're only a portrait!

JACKSON: That's what most people think. They give me no consideration. It's not an easy life, staring out from a $20 bill. Men fold me in two right down the center of my face. They stick me in their wallet. Women stuff me in a purse. It's pretty dark and stuffy in there. Sometimes the smell of perfume in a purse gets to me. But when I see daylight, I often don't like what I see. Worse, I have to suffer these indignities in silence. I never get a chance to tell my story.

MART: Your story?

JACKSON: Yes. What I've been through since I was sent out of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. I wonder sometimes whether we wouldn't be better off if they had never invented money.

MART: It must be a hard story. You look rather grim.

JACKSON: What I have seen would upset anyone. Even someone who has been around as long as I have.

ALICE: I can't imagine what has happened to you.

JACKSON: Do you realize that people will do almost anything to get their hands on me?

MART: What do you mean?

JACKSON: Did you read about that liquor store robbery in Detroit a couple of years ago? Two young men shot the owner.

MART: Well, no. At least I don't remember.

JACKSON: That shooting was over me and some of my friends. Those two thugs raided the cash register and they scooped us up and ran. Can you believe it? People kill one another over the likes of me.

ALICE: That must be disturbing.

JACKSON: Ma'am, people live and die for me. One of those boys who robbed the store was on drugs. He passed me on to a drug dealer to buy a small amount of crack. About enough for a fix. By the way, do you know how to stop the drug trade in your country?

MART: If you have the answer to that, we'd like to know it.

JACKSON: Take the money out of it. If it weren't for money, for me and my friends, no one would deal drugs. No one. There's nothing people won't do to one another to get hold of me.

ALICE: But how do you take money out of the drug trade?

JACKSON: That's not my problem. I don't make policy any more. I'm just telling you what makes people do what they do. It's money.

ALICE: Well, I have to admit that what you're saying . . .

JACKSON: Do you know it was for me and a couple of more bills like mine that a young woman went to a hotel in Chicago and sold herself to a visiting businessman. Not love, not passion, just a desire for money. She put me in her purse and that was it. If I weren't there, it wouldn't have happened.

MART: I'm sure your story would be rated X if it were turned into a movie.

JACKSON: That's something else. Pornography. That's why they make those X-rated movies. Not art, not entertainment, money. They call it "the bottom line," but it all adds up to money.

MART: Do you know that Jesus referred to money as "unrighteous"? I guess He knew what you know, President Jackson.

JACKSON: When I become the big thing in your life.

ALICE: By "I" you mean money?

JACKSON: All right, when money becomes the big thing in you life, you'll do almost anything to get it. You'll lie on your expense account, you'll defraud on your income tax, you'll cheat, you'll steal from the grocery store, you'll destroy your family over it. You two are Christians, aren't you?

ALICE AND MART: Yes, we are.

JACKSON: Then you had better be careful. I've seen all kinds of religious people end up worshiping me. I become the most important thing in their lives. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Ulysses Grant, Ben Franklin and I become what they devote their lives to.

MART: During our conversation, President Jackson, I've been thinking about something Paul wrote to his associate Timothy: "Godliness with contentment is great gain," he wrote. "For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (1 Timothy 6:6-10). Things haven't changed much in two thousand years.

JACKSON: Not many folks I've met pay much attention to warnings about money. Not very popular. But I must go now. As you have noticed, I don't stay in one place very long. But the next time you take out a $20 bill, take a look in the window. I'll be there looking out. I'm always interested in what folks do with me.

ALICE: Thank you for coming and talking with us.