Sermon for Trinity 15 28th Sept 2025 (St Thomas, Southborough) - 8am
Readings: 1 Timothy 6.6–19 and Luke 16.19–31
Opening Prayer
Give us grace, O Lord, not only to hear your word with our ears, but also to receive it into our hearts and to show it forth in our lives, for the glory of your great name, Amen.
The love of money
Our epistle reading this morning contains the famous phrase: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”.
The context for this in the epistle is in a critique of people who were undermining the message of the scriptures and the gospel by providing false teachings. We are not told what these teachings were, but are told of their effect, which was to confuse and divide the congregation. We are also told of their motivation which was to become rich.
The false teachers were undermining sound teaching and spreading disunity out of a desire for riches.
In today’s language, these might be called “grifters”. People who focus on becoming rich, regardless of the wider effects of their actions. We might think of certain people who spread conspiracy theories about medicines in order to gain political power, but who don’t care about how their words might affect the health of others.
Our gospel reading speaks about another kind of evil that the love of money leads to.
Jesus tells about a very rich, unnamed man, who spends his life enjoying his riches, “dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day”.
For the Bible there is nothing inherently wrong with being wealthy and enjoying life. However at the gate of this very rich man, is a destitute
person called Lazarus, who is sick and hungry, desperate even for scraps off the rich man’s table.
As we learn later in the story where the rich man is in hell and Lazarus is in heaven, the rich man knows Lazarus’ name. So he knew the poor man’s name, and presumably he knew his situation, yet he was so preoccupied with his rich lifestyle that he did nothing to help that poor person. To have helped Lazarus would not have cost the rich man much, it wouldn’t have reduced his wealthy lifestyle in any significant way.
The rich man was so caught up in his lavish lifestyle, in his love of money, that he was blind to the sufferings of someone very near to him, and did not do even a small thing to help him.
We might see a parallel with many of us, particularly in the affluent western world. It is tempting to be so caught up in our comparatively wealthy lifestyles that we ignore the situation of the poor in our country and around the world. We might prefer to turn the news off, or not read about them in the newspaper or on the internet.
In our gospel story poor Lazarus has a terrible time in his life, and the rich man a wonderful time, but it wasn’t not too long before the tables were turned completely – a cautionary tale!
Proper Focus
In both these cases – of the grifter who wants to get rich at all costs, and the already rich who are completely absorbed in their riches – the root problem is the “love of money”, a case of misdirected focus.
The epistle says:
“we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it”. And advises us not to:
“set our hopes on the uncertainty of riches”.
Although there are pleasures in this world, particularly for those who are rich, these are all temporary besides the eternity of God, and the offer of eternal life with God that we have in Jesus Christ.
What is in the world, whether good or bad, is passing. What is eternal is with God.
As we shift our focus to God, who is what is truly important and eternal, we move away from a false love of money, which is trivial and impermanent.
Shifting that focus to God, leads as the epistle says to being
“rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future”.
All that we have is a gift from God. As we focus on God, we realise that all we have is a gift from him. We want to share those gifts he has given us, and as we share those gifts, we become closer to God, we share more and more in his eternal life.
At the end of our gospel story the rich man asks Lazarus to return from the dead to warn his brothers. But Abraham refuses as this would not make any difference to them. They have the wrong focus. If the brothers were focused on God, they would understand the message given in “Moses and the prophets”. That message is summarised by Jesus in his great commandment:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself”.
Conclusion
As the epistle says, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”.
A focus on money, whether grasping for it like the grifter, or being consumed by it like the rich man, leads to evil things.
The evil things are the effects on others, those mislead by the grift, or neglected poor, and on us, as we can lose our share in the eternal life offered in Jesus.
Our readings call us today to keep our focus on God, on being close to him by generously sharing our gifts with others, as he has shared them with us.
Closing Prayer
Loving father,
we thank you for sending us your son, to give us the possibility of eternal life with you,
we thank you for the gifts you have given us in this life,
we pray that you can help us focus on you, and follow the command of your Son to love our neighbour as ourselves, sharing generously the gifts you have given us with others,
in the coming week empower us to be alert to the needs of others, and to be quick to help in any way that we can,
We ask all this in the name of your son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen