In my last night before departing Sydney, I had dinner with a good friend, Peter Murphy, and his wife, Edwina, a brilliant scholar who recently authored the article, “Sell Your Possessions: Cyprian, Luke, and Wealth” (Colloquium 49/2 2017). Great article! Therein she shows how the bishop (Cyprian of Carthage) used Scripture and teaching to champion the only right use of wealth: be rich toward God.
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:20-21
Murphy reports this from Cyprian of Carthage (in Dom. or. 20; CCSL 3A:102–3): “So also God rebukes the rich fool, who thinks of his earthly wealth and boasts in the abundance of his overflowing harvests, saying, “You fool, tonight your soul is required of you; then whose will be those things which you have prepared?” The fool who was to die that very night was rejoicing in his stores, and the one to whom life was already failing, was thinking of the abundance of his food. But, on the other hand, the Lord tells us that he becomes perfect and complete who sells all his goods, and distributes them for the use of the poor, and so lays up for himself treasure in heaven.”
Then she adds this profound thought: “Cyprian uses the rich fool to demonstrate the reversal which will take place in the future — those who rejoice in the abundance of their possessions will lose them, but those who renounce them and give generously will be rewarded.”
Neither Edwina nor Cyprian suggest this reversal; they just alert us to what Jesus is telling us. Friends, on this Lord’s day (which I will spend flying all the way home in my 24-hour journey), resolve to ready yourself for reward. Make the reversal. Give generously, according to your ability. Renounce all the world says money can do for you and put it to work, be rich toward God.
Are you ready for the reversal? Remember, “those who rejoice in the abundance of their possessions will lose them, but those who renounce them and give generously will be rewarded.”