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Invitation to a Journey Session Thirteen: Traveling Light: Wesley and Stewardship
When one looks at the simplicity of Wesley's lifestyle, his complete indifference3 to money except as a means to ease the hunger, pain and misery of the poor, and the manner in which he poured himself out for others, it seems evident to those who know his story that few leaders in Christian history were as thoroughly sold out to Christ.
--Stan Ingersoll
Millionaires seldom smile.
--Andrew Carnegie
Whoever has sufficient food to eat, and raiment to put on, with a place where to lay hes head, and something over, is rich.
--John Wesley
I. Historical Context
Albert Outler, in the Preface to Wesley's sermon, "The Use of Money," describes some of the historical context of eighteenth-century England which, together with Scripture, served to shape and inform Wesley's views on stewardship:
The world in Wesley's day was largely the creation of an alliance between the plutocrats of London, Bristol, etc., and the great Whig landed gentry. In ways distortedly described by its anti-bourgeois critics (Max Weber, Werner Sombart, Ernst Troeltsch, R.H. Tawney), this new capitalism had expropriated the so-call 'Calvinist work ethic' and had exploited it to advantages that no good Calvinist would ever have approved. As a result there was a steady accumulation of venture capital in Britain and, correspondingly, a shocking contrast between the Georgian splendours of the newly rich and the grinding misery of the perennial poor (not least, those lately uprooted from ancestral villages and now huddled in and around the cities and pitheads). These masses were Wesley's self-chosen constituency: 'Christ's poor'.
By both birth and breeding Wesley had a deep aversion to ostentation and to arbitrary power conferred by rank or wealth. Conversely, he was deeply committed to a work ethic that saw sloth as sin (even the idleness of excess sleep) and that condemned self-indulgence as a faithless stewardship of God's bounties in creation... Thrift, industry, honesty, sobriety, generosity were all Christian virtues; their warrants rested in the twin love of God and neighbor, and thus they were included in the agenda of holy living. (WJW, 2:263-4)
Outler further notes that Wesley preached at least 27 times from Luke 16:9 ("use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. In this way your generosity stores up a reward for you in heaven," NLT) between 1741-1758; this reflects Wesley's constant concern for his Methodists concerning materialism and surplus accumulation.
II. Wesley On Stewardship
Sermon on the Mount, III
Owe no man anything (i.e., avoid debt)
Provide for those of your own household
Give or lend all that remains from day to day or year to year, giving priority to those of the household of faith (Par. III.12)
Sermon on the Mount, IV
Wesley: "Cut off all unnecessary expense, in food, in furniture, in apparel. Be a good steward of every gift of God, even of these his lowest gifts. Cut off all unnecessary expense of time, all needless or useless employments." (SOM, IV, par. IV.4)
Sermon on the Mount, VIII
Both heathen peoples and [European] Christians generally observe the commands of God. So what distinguished the two? Answer: Christians are guilty of "laying up treasure" (i.e., accumulating surplus wealth) while heathen peoples are not. (cf. Pars. 9-10)
"laying up treasure" defined: procuring more than you need of money, resources, etc. Wesley notes:
...it is the designedly procuring more of this world's goods than will answer the foregoing purposes [e.g., paying off debt, providing basic necessities for ourselves and our family]; the labouring after a larger measure of worldly substance, a larger increase of gold and silver; the laying up any more than these ends require is what is here expressly and absolutely forbidden [by Christ]. If the words have any meaning at all, it must be this, for they are capable of no other. Consequently whoever he is that, owing no man anything, and having food and raiment for himself and his household, together with a sufficiency to carry on his worldly business so far as answers these reasonable purposes - whosoever, I say, being already in these circumstances, seeks a still larger portion on earth - he lives in an open and habitual denial of the Lord that bought him. (Par. 12)
Wesley firmly believed that by accumulating and hoarding wealth and material resources, Christians corrupted their souls, robbed the poor and hungry and naked, and subsequently became accountable to God for the distress which they failed to alleviate. Near the end of the sermon, he elaborates again:
Don't accumulate more than you need
Don't trust in money, material resources, etc.
Don't seek to increase in goods
If you ask, 'but what must we do with our goods, seeing we have more than we have occasion to use, if we must not lay them up? Must we throw them away?' I answer: if you threw them into the sea, if you were to cast them into the fire and consume them, they would be better bestowed than they are now. You cannot find so mischievous a manner of throwing them away as either the laying them up for your posterity or the laying them out upon yourselves in folly and superfluity. Of all possible methods of 'throwing them away' these two are the very worst - the most opposite to the gospel of Christ, and the most pernicious to your own soul. (Par. 23; Wesley quotes a lengthy passage from Williams Law's A Serious call to a Devout and Holy Life here to substantiate his position. Law had a marked influence on Wesley.)
Wesley's sermon, The Use of Money
This sermon provides the clearest summary of Wesley's economic views. It is the positive side of his position which has been more negatively stated in Sermon on the Mount, VIII. This sermon completed the first four volumes of Wesley's sermons, published in 1763. Wesley's theme here, and subsequently, would become a counter-attack on the huge success of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
The aim of the sermon is to provide clear guidelines to the use of money. As in other sermons and writings, Wesley does not condemn money as inherently evil. He takes an amoral position. His focus, rather, is on those who possess money, and their responsibilities under God as stewards.
The Use of Money: Three Principles
Gain all you can
Caveats:
not at the expense of life or health;
not at the expense of the law;
not at the expense of our integrity;
not at the expense of our neighbor (including selling things which impair health and profiting from our neighbor's intemperance or unchastity).
Save all you can
don't waste money on indulgent pleasures;
avoid superfluous expense in clothing, furniture, costly art; resist temptation to "keep up with the Joneses";
use discretion in purchases for your children;
save judiciously and invest wisely.
Give all you can
[God] places you here not as a proprietor, but a steward... If you desire to be a faithful and wise steward... first, provide things needful for yourself - food to eat, raiment to put on, whatever nature moderately requires for preserving the body in health and strength. Secondly, provide these for your wife, your children, your servants, or any other who pertain to your household. If when this is done there be an overplus left, then 'do good to them that are of the household of faith'. If there be an overplus still, 'as you have opportunity, do good to all men'. In so doing, you give all you can; nay, in a sound sense, all you have. For all that is laid out in this manner is really given to God. (Par. III.2-3)
A Litmus Test for Spending Money:
Questions to Ask When in Doubt About Expenditures
Am I acting according to my character, i.e., as a steward and not an owner?
Am I doing this in obedience to God's Word?
Can I offer this expenditure as a sacrifice to Jesus Christ?
Will I be rewarded for this at the Last Judgment?
If still in doubt, seek wisdom in prayer.
For Further Reading:
John Wesley. "The Use of Money." (WJW, volume 2). See also other sermons, including: "The Danger of Riches"; "On a Single Eye"; "On Friendship With the World"; "The Danger of Increasing Riches"; "The Good Steward"; "On Riches";
John Wesley. "Thoughts on the Present Scarcity of Provisions." Works [Jackson], 11:53-58.
Manfred Marquardt. John Wesley's Social Ethics: Praxis and Principles. Nashville: Abingdon, 1992.
Randy Maddox. Responsible Grace. Nashville: Kingswood, 1994.
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