This addresswas written by Bishop Kenneth Carder and delivered at the Giving and the Gospel Symposium held October 23, 1997 in Nashville, Tennesssee.
Wesley and Giving
INTRODUCTION
My attention perked up at a civic club meeting several years ago when a very successful local entrepreneur said, “I owe my financial success to Jon Wesley. I have followed his formula and it works. Wesley said that we are to earn all we can and save all we can. If we earn and save we have capital to invest in new ventures.” Since he was member of the congregation I served and I knew something of his giving level o the church, it was obvious that he knew just enough about Wesley to be dangerous. I later preached a sermon entitled “On Being Two-Thirds Wesleyan.” The sermon was not nearly as popular as the entrepreneur’s speech to the Rotarians.
A local church newsletter carried this announcement: “Back by popular demand: ‘Save All You Can.’” The article reads, “The next sessions of the popular seminar sponsored by the Work Area on Stewardship will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, July 21 and Wednesday, July 23 … The seminar is based on the second part of John Wesley’s personal financial package, “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all youcan.” Led by (a financial and investment counselor), it will address savings: how to start, methods, goals and debt management. ______has more than 16 years experience with money management and teaching people to plan for a financially fit future.”
I suspect that had either the entrepreneur or the financial planner read Wesley’s sermons on wealth and stewardship they would have looked elsewhere for names to drop in support of their agendas. However, you are to be commended for dropping Wesley in to the agenda of a symposium entitled “Giving and the Gospel.” Wesley clearly understood the relationship between the gospel and giving. And failure to place the emphasis on Wesley’s third component, ‘give all you can’, is to use Wesley to endorse the very things he resisted. This symposium has rightly captured the essence of what Ted Jennings calls “Wesley’s evangelical economics” under the title “Giving and the Gospel.” One cannot adequately understand or appropriate Wesley apart from his convictions and practices regarding money and its use.
Wesley and Money
In the mid 1780s, toward the end of Wesley’s long life, his sermons and writings reflect a growing concern for the future of ‘the people called Methodist.’ Toward the middle of the decade, he toured the Methodist work across Britain. He returned to London somewhat discouraged and pessimistic. August 4, 1786, he wrote these often quoted words, “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.” About a year later, he wrote the sermon “On God’s Vineyard” (October 17, 1787). In it he expresses his fears that maybe he has sown ‘wild grapes.’
Even though the movement is numerically strong, now about 50,000 in England, a new church has been formed in America and is growing rapidly. By the standards of church growth, the movement is strong. However, Wesley feels that the signs of demise are evident.
The most evident threat, according to Wesley, is the growing wealth of the Methodists. Wesley believed, as he expressed in several sermons, most noticeable being “Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity,” that Christianity has within it the seeds of its own demise. Discipleship makes us more diligent and frugal and as we become more diligent and frugal, wealth increases. He observed: “…wherever riches have increased, (exceeding few are the exceptions), the essence of religion, the mind that was in Christ, has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore, do I not see how it is possible … for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality; and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.” (Thoughts Upon Methodism, similar quotation in Causes of Inefficacy … )
Wesley considered wealth and the failure to give as the most serious threat to the Methodist movement in particular and Christianity in general. The Methodist movement would fail and continue only as a dead sect if the Methodists forgot how to give. By 1789, two years before this death, Wesley noted that the Methodists had all but ignored the third point of his sermon on “The Use of Money” which was printed some thirty years before. He wrote in 1789:
Of the three rules which are laid down … you may find many that observe the first rule, namely, ‘Gain all you can.’ You may find a few that observe the second, ‘Save all you can.’ But how many have you found that observe the third rule, ‘Give all you can’? Have you reason to believe that five hundred of these are to be found among fifty thousand Methodists? And yet nothing can be more plain than that all who observe the first rules without the third will be twofold more the children of hell than ever they were before.
Wesley’s own personal commitment to giving, however, remained consistent throughout his life. As a student at Oxford, Wesley lived on twenty-eight pounds. He earned thirty pounds, so he gave away two pounds. As his earnings increased, he continued to live on the same twenty-eight pounds. When he earned 120 pounds, he gave away ninety-two pounds. Wesley wrote to his sister, “Money never stays with me. It would burn me if it did. I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it should find its way into my heart.” He told the people that if at his death he had more than ten pounds in his possession, they could call him a robber. Richard Heitzenrater reminds us that at his death, Wesley was borne to his grave by six paupers, who were paid one pound each, thus depleting his resources. Even the draperies used in the memorial service were taken down, sewn into dresses, and distributed to poor women in London.
Wesley’s Rules Regarding Wealth
Wesley wrote in 1786:
How, then, is it possible that Methodism, that is, the religion of the heart, though it flourishes now as a green bay-tree, should continue in this state? For the Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently they increase in goods. Hence they proportionably increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away.
… What way, then, (I ask again) can we take, that our money may not sink us to the nethermost hell? There is one way, and there is no other under heaven. If those who ‘gain all they can,’ and ‘save all they can,’ will likewise ‘give all they can;’ then, the more they gain, the more they will grow in grace, and the more treasure they will lay up in heaven. (Thoughts upon Methodism)
The secret, then, to Methodism’s renewal and revival has more to do with distributing our wealth than defining our doctrines, fulfilling our stewardship more than refining our structures. Or, a focus on giving in the Wesleyan tradition might help to clarify our doctrines and shape our structures. Wesley’s sermon, “The Use of Money,” is a helpful starting point. His rules for the use of money are integral to his basic theological, ethical, missional agenda. Let us look briefly at his three rules and their theological foundation.
“Earn all you can.” Do we need any admonition to earn all we can? Close reading of Wesley, however, will quickly reveal that he was not giving theological rationale for an aggressive acquisitiveness which characterizes much of American society. Rather, the emphasis in Wesley is on earning all you can through participating fully in God’s healing and creative work in the world. His sermon, in fact, is a polemic against destructive ways of earning. He warns against earning money by hurting oneself or others or the world around us. The emphasis in Wesley’s sermon is the restrictions on the pursuit of wealth by exploiting others, gaining from the pain and suffering of others, including suffering on oneself or others.
For Wesley, work is a means of participating in God’s creative and healing activity in the world. How one gains wealth is fundamental to stewardship, not just how one distributes accumulated wealth. Gaining all we can is to be understood, in the Wesleyan tradition, as participation in God’s efforts to heal and redeem all creation, not as permission to “feather the nest” and increase one’s own opulence. Our labor is part of the giving, not the means to personal gain. Therefore, earning all we can is a call to give ourselvesto God’s mission in the world. It is not a cheer for compulsive workaholism nor a pious motivation for exploitation of others or the earth for personal gain. Giving in the Wesleyan tradition, then, includes how we earn the wealth, not just how we use the wealth earned.
“Having gained all you can, by honest wisdom and unwearied diligence … Save all you can,” said Wesley. Again, Wesley’s emphasis is a challenge to the contemporary practice of accumulating and hoarding rather than an endorsement of the practice. He was not calling for ‘the people called Methodists’ to invest wisely and build large savings accounts. In fact, he went so far as to compare such practices to “throwing you money into the sea.”
“Save all you can” is Wesley’s call to a simplified lifestyle. It is a warning against extravagance, opulence, and self-gratification. Wesley’s list of superfluous expenses would indict most of us. Expensive furniture, clothing, entertainment, unnecessary foods and books, and “elegant gardens” are among his list of unnecessary expenditures. He could not reconcile the acquitting of luxuries with the needs of the poor for the necessities. He strongly denounced opulence as an affront to God. He considered anything we have that is unnecessary as having been extracted from the blood of the poor.
Stewardship in the Wesleyan tradition, therefore, includes not merely using what we have but what we choose not to have in order for others to have the necessities for living. Foregoing acquisitiveness in order for the poor to live is a form of giving. It would be well for us in North America to recognize that the opulence we enjoy is extracted from the poor of the world. For example, about one million Asian children labor in cramped quarters, making carpets for sale in the West.
Walter Wink quotes a Brazilian presidential candidate, Luis Ignacio Silva, “I tell you that the Third World War has already started – a silent war, not for that reason, any less sinister. This war is tearing down Brazil, Latin America, and practically all of the Third World. Instead of soldiers there are children dying; instead of destruction of bridges there is the tearing down of … entire economies … It is a war over the foreign debt, a war which has as its main weapon, ‘interest’, a weapon more deadly than the atom bomb, more shattering than a laser beam.”
Are we willing to earn less on our stock investments in order to relieve the burden on the economies of the Third World? Are we willing to pay more for Nike shoes in order for workers in Asia or Africa to receive a decent wage? Are we willing to simplify our living so that others may simply live? Wesley would answer with a resounding “yes.” It is evident, however, that his descendents are less willing to save all they can so that others may have life’s necessities. Stewardship, though, has to do with what we are willing to do without as surely as it has to do with what we are willing to acquire.
Wesley’s third rule of stewardship, however, gives meaning to the first two. We are to gain all we can and save all we can so that we can give all we can. Hear Wesley’s own words: “Save all you can, by cutting off every expense which serves only to indulge foolish desire, to gratify either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life. Waste nothing … on sin or folly, whether for yourself or your children. And then, give all you can, or in other words give all you have to God.” Earning, saving, giving are all means of giving oneself to God!
Giving, for Wesley, is rooted in the very nature and activity of God. Giving is an expression of grace, which is all in all. God’s very nature is love, which is the empting of oneself on behalf of others, the giving of life, abundant and full life. Grace, God’s unmerited love poured out to humanity supremely in Jesus Christ, is who God is. Love for God, therefore, inevitably involves giving of oneself to God and the neighbor. One cannot love and fail to give!
Wesley observed that wealth changes our priorities and our relationships. We begin to assume an unrealistic independence and self-reliance. We think we have done it, that we are in control. We forget how to receive and how to give. That is the reason Wesley believed that true religion never goes from the powerful to the weak, but from the weak to the powerful. He found the poor, therefore, more responsive to the gospel than the wealthy. The wealthy, or ‘polite’ as he sometimes called them, had difficulty understanding the gospel. The logic of grace was foreign to them. They operate by the logic of exchange.
Wesley often changed his sermon when the ‘polite’ showed up in the crowd. On one occasion he wrote in his Journal after observing the well-to-do in his audience: “So I spake on the first elements of the Gospel. But I was still out of their depth. O how hard it is to be shallow enough for a polite audience.” It was not that Wesley was anti-intellectual. He found that the poor almost intuitively understood the gospel as a gift, while the well-to-do constitutionally resisted the gospel in favor of their own works righteousness based on the ability to control their lives through their fortunes.
It is important to note that Wesley’s rules for giving were shaped by his understanding of God as one who is especially present with the poor and by his own relationships with the poor, whom he called “Christ’s poor.” Everything Wesley did was evaluated in terms of the impact on the poor – the places he preached, the kind of meting houses, the classes, where he traveled, what he published. The collections he tool were primarily for the poor. The poor were his friends. He lived with them, caught their diseases, and begged for them until the very end. Listen to this passage from his Journal, January 4, 1785, at the age of 82:
At this season (Christmas) we usually distribute coals and bread among the poor of the society. But I now considered, they wanted clothes, as well as food. So on this, and the four following days, I walked through the town, and begged two hundred pounds, in order to clothe them that needed it most. But it was hard work, as most of the streets were filled with melting snow, which often lay ankle deep; so that my feet were steeped in snow-water nearly from mourning till evening.
His concern for the poor was holistic. Yes, he preached the gospel to them and called them to conversion, nurtured them in class meetings. But he also developed a free health clinic, started a school, a sewing cooperative and a lending agency for the poor. They were his friends and special friends of Jesus, so giving to them and for them as a means of serving Christ was his lifelong passion.
Affluence, according to Wesley, tends to separate us from the poor, and in so doing separates us from God and the motivation for giving. When the poor are our friends and considered to be members of our family and special friends of Christ, giving to alleviate their suffering is a joyful passion and a glad participation in Christ’s ministry.
The solution to the world’s poverty lies not in the motivation of the poor to work, as is a popular myth propelling so-called welfare reform in this country. It lies in motivating the wealthy to give! A mere $2.5 billion a year could end a majority of childhood deaths. The only two places in the world where hunger has increased in the last twenty years are Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. As unbelievable as it may sound, the combined wealth of the world’s seven richest people could end world poverty. A United Nations Human Development Report, June 22, 1997, notes that an $80 billion anti-poverty program would provide access to basic social services and eradicate poverty. This is equivalent to the net wealth of just seven billionaires.