Tradition is a funny thing.

In John Wesley’s day, poverty and unemployment were rife…

and those who did have jobs worked in appalling conditions.

Due to the oppressive social conditions…

drunkenness was rife.

Cheap gin was widespread––

it was sold in little shops throughout the poor quarters of towns…

and there were whole laneways filled with grog shops.

Meagre wages were squandered on gin so that families suffered.

Furthermore, domestic violence resulting from drunkenness was also rife.

So, Wesley strongly condemned “hard liquor”.

In doing so, he was seeking to redress a destructive social practice of his day.

He was trying to change a specific set of circumstances.

Divorced from those circumstances, his teaching was later misconstrued.

A century later, Methodism adopted a policy of total abstinence.

Alcohol, in all its forms, was presented as “the devil’s creation”.

It was blamed for all of society’s ills.

So abstinence became a symbol of genuine conversion.

Thus, to be a Methodist, you had to sign a pledge of abstinence.

And this was linked back to Wesley’s denunciation of liquor…

although total abstinence was never Wesley’s aim.

Methodists thought that they were following Wesley––

they thought that they were being faithful to his message and intent––

but, in reality, they were not.

The tradition that evolved was actually a distortion. 

 

Tradition is a problematic thing.

In the passing along, in the establishing, in the enshrining, things get distorted.

Sometimes that distortion can be deliberate––

when traditions are usurped and massaged to suit a particular agenda.

But that distortion can also be unintentional.

The very act of preserving something in the context of a culture that is always changing…

inevitably alters its meaning.

Nowhere do we see that sort of thing more than in Christian tradition––

even at the very heart or core of what we understand Christianity to be about.

The origins of the Christian faith lie within a vastly different culture from our own.

And I don’t just mean vastly different in terms of material culture––

such as the different technologies that we possess––

but in terms of non-material or subjective culture.

Theirs was a collectivist culture.

They had a collective or group-centred worldview.

The individual was subordinate to the group––

especially the family or kin-group––

such that the health and survival of the group was of paramount importance.

Individual needs, desires, and goals were always subordinate to those of the group.

On the other hand, we live in a strongly individualist culture…

where our needs, desires, and goals as individuals are paramount…

where self-actualisation and self-fulfilment…

are the greatest goods.

Religion, for us, is always understood and practiced within that world-view––

within that mindset.

Religion, for us, is about helping me to cope with life…

making me a better person…

or, ultimately, about my eternal destiny or “salvation”.

And how we live as people of faith––

how we think ethically––

also reflects that individualism.

So, when we come to this morning’s reading from First Timothy––

and especially that famous line, “the love of money is the root of all evils”–– 

we hear it and we read it…

out of our cultural perspective and our worldview…

which is inherently individualistic.

We hear this as a warning to us not to be greedy…

to be content with what we have…

and not to be envious of people like Gina or Rupert or Clive…

whose attitude and way of life this seems to critique.

 

But the first-century world wasn’t just collectivist in outlook… 

it was also highly polarised in reality.

There was no middle-class as we would understand it.

A very small group––

probably not much more than one or two percent of the population–– 

controlled more than ninety percent of the land and wealth.

The rest, generally, struggled to eke out an existence;

struggled to survive from day to day.

For them, social mobility was basically non-existent.

Thus, when the author of First Timothy declares that 

“the love of money is the root of all evils”…

he’s not addressing the average person.

He’s speaking to those who were already rich.

And while he critiques the desire to become rich…

that’s referring to those who were already ‘rich’––

as we would understand it––

but who were tempted to take advantage of the poor…

lending them money so that they became indebted…

with the hope that they would default…

so that you could acquire more land and hence more wealth.

Instead, the author holds out the offer of eternal rewards… 

if they exert a measure of self-control and give something back.

Nowhere does he critique the system…

which created and maintained the enormous disparity and disadvantage.

His instructions, here, amount to little more than an encouragement to give a bit more to charity.

He’s effectively reinforcing the status quo…

propping up the system…

and helping to enshrine the sense of privilege.

His outlook is, once again, socially conservative…

reinforcing the structures of society…

and, in parallel, the structures of the church.

In so doing, he effectively subverts––

not just the teaching of the genuine, historical Paul––

but, even more so, the teaching of Jesus.

This is a far cry from the sort of thing that we find in the Gospels…

where Jesus encourages the rich to sell what they have accumulated…

and give to the poor without placing them in debt.

This is also a far cry from the Jesus who railed against the moneychangers in the Temple…

and the collusion of the religious establishment in the exploitation of the poor.

Contrary to the assertion of the author of First Timothy…

it’s not the “love of money” that is the “root of all evil”––

it’s the maintenance of the social status quo…

and it’s the enshrining of privilege and disadvantage.

 

Let’s face it…

whether we acknowledge it or not…

our comfort…

our way of life…

is propped up by the disadvantage and exploitation of others.

Our cheap goods come at a great cost to others––

the cost of their lives…

and the cost of destitution.

We live in a world where profit is privileged over people––

and the environment––

and we bear the consequences of that in so many ways.

As Martin Luther King jr once pointed out:

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered”.

 

Part of the problem, of course… 

is that the Christian faith has too often been reduced to an individual spirituality…

and a personal piety.

But Jesus wasn’t executed because he called people to an individual spirituality. 

Jesus wasn’t executed because he called people to a personal piety.

Jesus was executed because he challenged the system and structures––

including the religious collusion with wealth and power.

We are not being faithful to Jesus unless we follow his example;

unless we stop turning a blind eye to the exploitation that props up the status quo;

unless we recognise that it’s our love of comfort and security…

that is at the root of most of the world’s evils.