A Review of Walter Brueggemann’s “Money and Possessions”

Money and possessions matter. They might not always come up explicitly in our ordinary, everyday conversations, but when Jesus tells His disciples to sell their possessions because “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”¹Luke 12:34, NRSV. or bluntly says, “You cannot serve God and wealth,”²Luke 16:13, NRSV. His words are especially challenging for many of us because they ring deeply true, even if we usually avoid thinking about them. Nevertheless, we often try to keep faith and money in separate spheres of life. In his new volume, Money and Possessions, Walter Brueggemann insists that this is both unsustainable and undesirable: “We live in a society that would like to bracket out money and possessions (politics and economics) from ultimate questions. The Bible insists otherwise.”³p.12.

Given the vast number of relevant biblical texts, any discussion of wealth and possessions in Scripture cannot avoid being selective. Nevertheless, Brueggemann’s striking overview is a valuable resource that many Christians will hopefully appreciate. He’s an Old Testament scholar, and it’s in the portions of the book dealing with the Hebrew Bible that his command of the biblical material and passion as a theologian come through most clearly. In the chapters exploring money and possessions in the New Testament, Brueggemann is—as he himself admits—on more unfamiliar ground.⁴p.xx. Hence, he turns more frequently to the works of New Testament scholars like Luke Timothy Johnson⁵See especially his Sharing Possessions: What Faith Demands. 2nd Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011). and Ellen F. Davis in the latter chapters of the book.

Israel’s Testimony Regarding Wealth and Justice

Within the Old Testament narratives, the Exodus looms large, both in general and in terms of money and possessions. That makes it significant to see at the core of Israel’s testimony the command given at Sinai, “You shall not covet…”⁶Exodus 20:17, NRSV. Brueggemann contends that this prohibition against coveting is a central feature of the books placed at the beginning of the Old Testament canon.⁷p.15. He explains, “the term ‘covet’ in truth concerns not only an attitude of wanting but also an action of taking… The prohibition concerns the acquiring of what belongs to another.”⁸pp.16-17. Such unchecked wanting/taking of possessions is harmful not just because it’s against God’s will but because it ignores the well-being of one’s neighbor:

It is the reality of the neighbor that is the God-acknowledged check on addictive acquisitiveness. The neighbor is a line that must not be transgressed, because the neighbor is an undeniable social fact that will not go away.⁹p.17.

For Brueggemann, it is important to look at Israel’s Sinai-defined vision of life in the contrasting light of their time in Egypt. Concerns of neighborliness weren’t on Pharaoh’s horizon. Brueggemann comments that while God’s people are called to love persons and use commodities, Pharaoh did precisely the opposite, choosing instead to use people and love commodities.¹⁰p.25. For Pharaoh, the Sabbath is a preposterous idea. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised to find the Sabbath near the center of Israel’s post-Exodus vision of life since, “It is an active form of resistance against insatiable desire… coveting is in contradiction to the alternative of sabbath.”¹¹pp.21-23.

Studying the Old Testament’s wisdom literature through the lens of money and possessions, especially in the Book of Proverbs, can be complicated. Brueggemann affirms that, “for the most part, wisdom teaching is committed to the proposition that creation is ordered so that deeds produce consequences.“¹²p.121. Proverbs encourages readers at multiple points to pursue diligence and avoid laziness so that they avoid poverty.¹³For example, Proverbs 10:4, 12:11, 12:27, 14:23. Does this mean that Proverbs imagines laziness to be the only cause of poverty? Brueggemann suggests this line of interpretation is overly-simplistic, pointing out that Proverbs also contains many passages that display a deep concern for the poor and deconstruct assumptions about the autonomy of personal wealth.¹⁴Proverbs 14:31, 21:13, 22:9, 29:7.

Yes, money and possessions are gifts from God.¹⁵1 Chronicles 29:10-22. Nevertheless, those with money have neighborly obligations. Wealth “is not… to be secured at the expense of or withdrawal from the common good.”¹⁶p.129. The majority of the Old Testament is concerned, at least in Brueggemann’s eyes, not with extolling the goodness of riches, but rather with calling out those who pursue possessions without restraint and unmercifully ignore those in need. These matters are profoundly theological in addition to practical. Greed, coveting, and idolatry are unfortunately connected to one another in Brueggemann’s eyes.¹⁷pp.38-40. Hopefully, I’m not the only one who is immensely challenged by this to be more intentional about how (and where) I spend my money, and to grow in charity. There is more of Brueggeman’s survey of the Old Testament that we could go into,¹⁸His exploration of the Psalms and prophetic books, for example, do not disappoint. but for the sake of space we must turn to the book’s examination of the New Testament.

Money and Possessions in the New Testament

It may be because he was forced to condense his exploration of money and possessions in the Gospels into a single chapter, but I repeatedly experienced a desire for Brueggemann to slow down and dig more deeply into scripturally relevant passages as he surveyed them. This isn’t a major criticism of the book, given the space constraints and his background in the Hebrew Bible, but I admit that I found Brueggemann’s treatment of the Gospels to be less thorough than his chapters on the Old Testament.

Nevertheless, Brueggemann finds in the Gospels a portrayal of Jesus as someone who cared about material issues, especially when it came to how those on the margins of society suffered at the hands of an “economy of extraction” practiced by Roman authorities and other ruling powers.¹⁹p.187. Brueggemann highlights the radical either-or nature of Jesus’s teachings regarding God and wealth²⁰For example, Luke 16:13. when he says:

The choice required is complete and nonnegotiable… if the either-or of God/Mammon is taken seriously, the economy must be deprived of its sacred character and its sacred power. That is, it must be “profaned”… it can be seen that the giving of alms is an act that profanes money, robs it of its sacred quality, and submits it to the rule of God, who is, as Creator, always generously giving.²¹pp.194-195.

With the parable in Matthew 25:31-46, Brueggemann deems it to be, in regards to material goods, “an insistence that material resources (money and possessions) are not an autonomous zone” but are possessed in the context of community.²²p.200. Given the emphasis on looking out for one’s neighbor in these texts, I’d also suggest that Jesus’s expansion of the definition of “neighbor” in the parable of the Good Samaritan is surely relevant to this topic.

Reviewing Paul’s perspective on these issues is difficult, according to Brueggemann, because “his views on money and possessions are scattered throughout his letters and admit of diversity and complexity.”²³p.219. It’s clear, though, that the overwhelming nature of God’s gift in Christ was central to Paul. Hence, Brueggemann brings up 1 Corinthians 4:7²⁴“What do you have that you did not receive?” (NRSV). to suggest that for Paul, all of life is based on the gift of God in Christ. While Paul’s words aren’t centered on economic concerns, Brueggemann suggests that they are nevertheless relevant to them. Turning to Romans 12, we see Paul pleading with his audience to be transformed in conformity to Christ so that they no longer live according to the pattern of “this world.”²⁵Romans 12:2, NRSV. Brueggemann brings this admonition into the realm of economic concerns when he suggests that it also means that Christians need not be conformed to the economic assumptions and practices of this “present economic world.”²⁶p.222.

In Galatians 6, Paul begins by urging his readers to “bear one another’s burdens,” but then finishes by also saying that “all must carry their own loads.”²⁷Galatians 6:2-5, NRSV. How should readers make sense of this? Here, Brueggemann turns to perspective of Richard Hays, who stresses the importance of reading both these verses together, thereby allowing us to maintain them in tension and affirm both that we are personally accountable to God and called to live in community, mutually helping one another.²⁸p.235.

I wish we could take the time to stroll through Brueggemann’s chapters on money and possessions in James, Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation. Unfortunately, we must shift instead to a few closing observations. I do, however, want to point out that the Letter of James especially echoes themes found in the Old Testament’s wisdom literature, and Revelation is distinctive in its use of Israel’s prophetic language in order to give hope to followers of Christ and call out the exploitative practices of the Roman world.²⁹pp.250, 266-67.

Conclusion

So what can we say about money and possessions in Scripture, as we reach the end of this review? Regardless of how we come into possession of wealth, it is seen theologically as a gift from God. Ultimately, it still belongs to God and is “held in trust by human persons in community.”³⁰pp.1-4. This is probably the claim that most strongly supports Christian language of financial stewardship. Sadly, “Money and possessions are [also] sources of social injustice.”³¹p.5. It seems unfortunately true that humans are predisposed in this fallen world to destructively oppress others in order to gain money and power. Because of this, the Bible strongly connects remembering God with treating neighbors justly on the one hand, and forgetting God with falling into greed and idolatry on the other.³²p.5 For me, Brueggemann successfully demonstrates in this book that faith and money can’t be kept in separate spheres of life without doing damage to the flourishing of Christian life. How should this impact the lives of Brueggemann’s readers? Surely in many ways. Reading Money and Possessions reminded me of C.S. Lewis’s words on charity in Mere Christianity:

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little.³³C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2002), 77.

Lewis’s words may be specifically about personal giving, but they do a good job of smashing through the defenses we often put up in order to keep discussions about money and possessions “safe” and unchallenging. Some might fear that Brueggemann’s reading reduces the Bible’s concerns to merely economic matters; I think that is far from true. However, it does highlight the material dimensions of faith in Scripture. I’m glad I read Money and Possessions, but maybe more importantly, I’m challenged to live like I read it, both personally and in community.

*Disclosure: I received this book free from Westminster John Knox Press for review purposes. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review.