Word of Wisdom: Money

“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” Benjamin Franklin

Recently I had a conversation with a friend about his circumstances. He’s a brilliant guy and seasoned professional, but some setbacks and disappointments had him unsettled, and particularly dissatisfied with his financial state of affairs as he slogged through the very early stages of a new venture.

At a certain point, I noted that in the span of just a few minutes he had used the word “money” and the phrase “making money” numerous times, to which he replied that he’d been told that before.

In considering this, and his problems “making money”, it occurred to me that making money—in the sense of earning an income—was not the real issue: his skills and experience made going out and finding a salaried position fairly straightforward. When I pressed as to what he really meant by that phrase, we quickly got to the answer: launching and scaling a business then successfully exiting.

It hit me in a new way in that moment that “money” can mean entirely different things to different people. To one it may mean a wage, to another it might mean a certain sum, to yet another it might mean a sum with several more zeroes behind it. Similarly, the phrase “making money” can mean a sufficient salary to one person and a successful venture to another.

Why this is important is because it reveals a truth about the things we tell each other—and ourselves—about money: sometimes we don’t really mean what we say when we talk about “money”. Or, put another way, we say “money” but mean something other than simply a medium of exchange.

Sometimes we say “money” but are really referencing wealth, or, more broadly, success. At other times we may mean investment, or simply provision. We may actually be speaking of power, or just a search for favor in the form of others’ approval.

Money matters…but differently to different people. Or, to the same person at different times.

When my wife and I were first married in our early twenties, having “enough money” meant income sufficient for a small rental, groceries and utilities, and a month or two of emergency savings. Decades on, “enough money” certainly means something different, and not only because of increased family size and decreased purchasing power of the currency.

“Money”, not just price, seems to have elasticity.

Yet, money matters. I remember as a young man hearing a ministry leader say that “money makes the world go ‘round”. While I doubted the theological accuracy of the remark, I understood the essence of what was really meant: that financial resources are necessary, and whatever the top and middle lines were, there was a bottom line that ultimately mattered in any undertaking.

But even fictional caricatures like Gordon Gekko recognize that the desire for money, per se, is in actuality a means, a mechanism, a motivator…a mask for the search for something else.

For what? Let’s look to the word itself.

The English word money came to us from the Old French monoie, meaning “coin, currency, change”. That term originated in the Latin moneta, meaning “place for coining; a mint”; in several modern languages moneta is still the word for “coin”. Not necessarily a surprising discovery, though reflecting on the physical, tangible history of money can give us moderns new perspective (or pause) as we stare at accounts and portfolios essentially consisting of bytes and pixels.

The origin of moneta, however, is another matter.

The Latin word was derived from Moneta, a name—specifically, a title of the Roman goddess Juno, known as the protectress of funds. Accordingly, coins were minted near if not in her temple on the Capitoline Hill. In this, the Romans followed other polytheistic societies in storing metals and minting coins in temples under the auspices of the temple priests.

Money, it turns out, is literally an idol.

Of course, keeping banknotes in a wallet doesn’t make one an idolator any more than being alive on a Wednesday (Woden’s Day) does. But it does beg the question: to what degree is money—whatever I might mean by that term—an object of my worship, my desire, my longing?

In our worship, we humans are notorious for deceiving ourselves, proclaiming praise and allegiance to one but in actuality giving our heart, our energy, our thoughts, wishes, and dreams to another. And in this mortal age of the world, where scarcity seems supreme and poverty a persistent premonition, wide and broad is the path to believing that in money is salvation—that all one’s problems would be alleviated by some sum of currency or sense of social standing, however denominated.

How to escape the pull toward this deification of dollars, deutschmarks, or denarii? Freedom is found in the move from servant and hired hand to son and heir.

A servant, an employee, is one whose identity is transactional; it’s established by an exchange of time and labor for a wage—a payment of certain monies. This can be a rewarding identity, for a time—doing, striving, earning has a particular appeal, even in our spiritual endeavors. But that identity is not solid, and ends poorly.

A son, however, is one whose identity is secure because it is relational—not based on performance or fulfillment of duties, but on relationship with a father who identifies himself with that son and heir. One who was there from the beginning, protecting, providing, partnering, and when necessary, pursuing to bring back once again into his presence, where everything is freely given…if it will be freely received.

In short, it’s an identity rooted not in making money, but making all things new. And that you can take to the bank.

“The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.”
Luke 16:14