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Should an economic stimulus package favor the jobless or their potential employers? Is shopping really a patriotic duty? How will the recession and September 11 affect year-end charitable giving?

John Wesley (1703-1791) didn't worry about those specific questions, but he knew plenty about economic uncertainty. In his day, Britain experienced rapid urbanization and the beginnings of industrialization. This caused rural economies to collapse and created numerous problems in city centers: overcrowding, disease, crime, unemployment, debt, substance abuse, and even insanity (London established its first asylum in 1781). Meanwhile a small upper class spent large sums to distance itself, literally and figuratively, from the growing problems. This top five percent of the population controlled nearly one-third of the national income.

Wesley, from lower-middle class stock himself, consorted mostly with people who worked hard, owned little, and could never be certain of their financial future. But he preached so widely and became so well-known that his income eventually reached £1,400 per year—equivalent to more than $160,000 today. Still, he chose to live simply but comfortably on just £30 while giving the rest away. In fact, he donated nearly all of the £30,000 he earned in his lifetime. He once wrote, "If I leave behind me ten pounds … you and all mankind [can] bear witness against me, that I have lived and died a thief and a robber."

This is the context for his curious sermon on Luke 16:9, titled "The Use of Money." It's hardly a typical stewardship sermon, but it gives an interesting perspective on our current economic season.

"'The love of money,' we know, 'is the root of all evil;' but not the thing itself. The fault does not lie in the money, but in them that use it. It may be used ill: and what may not? But it may likewise be used well: It is full as applicable to the best, as to the worst uses. It is of unspeakable service to all civilized nations, in all the common affairs of life: It is a most compendious instrument of transacting all manner of business, and (if we use it according to Christian wisdom) of doing all manner of good.

"It is true, were man in a state of innocence, or were all men 'filled with the Holy Ghost,' so that, like the infant Church at Jerusalem, 'no man counted anything he had his own,' but 'distribution was made to everyone as he had need,' the use of it would be superseded; as we cannot conceive there is anything of the kind among the inhabitants of heaven. But, in the present state of mankind, it is an excellent gift of God, answering the noblest ends. In the hands of his children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked: It gives to the traveler and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of an husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We maybe a defense for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain; it may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame; yea, a lifter up from the gates of death!

"It is therefore of the highest concern that all who fear God know how to employ this valuable talent; that they be instructed how it may answer these glorious ends, and in the highest degree. And, perhaps, all the instructions which are necessary for this may be reduced to three plain rules, by the exact observance whereof we may approve ourselves faithful stewards of 'the mammon of unrighteousness.'

"The first of these is (he that heareth, let him understand!) 'Gain all you can.' Here we may speak like the children of the world: We meet them on their own ground. And it is our bounden duty to do this: We ought to gain all we can gain, without buying gold too dear, without paying more for it than it is worth. But this it is certain we ought not to do; we ought not to gain money at the expense of life, nor (which is in effect the same thing) at the expense of our health. …

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November (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45