“Financial Advice from God, Part 1: God’s Investment Strategy” by the Rev. Don Wahlig, October 25, 2026, Year A / 21^st Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 26) – Psalm 25:1-10 • Matthew 6:19-24

THEME:  Use the material wealth that God has invested in us to serve the needs of others. This is how God realizes a return on his investment.

Have any of you ever been to Atlanta?

I will never forget my first time in Atlanta. I drove out of the airport in my rental car and got onto the highway. The first thing that struck me was how bad the traffic is. Almost immediately, I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. So, I started looking around.

I noticed something odd. All the bushes and trees by the side of the road seemed to be covered by a green vine. It climbed up even the tallest trees. It was like someone had thrown a great big green blanket over all of them.

When I finally got to where I was going, I asked someone what it was. They said, “Oh, that’s Kudzu. And it’s eating up the South.” I was a little alarmed by that. So, I did some homework.



I found out that Kudzu is an invasive species from Southeast Asia. 100 years ago, the US government distributed millions of Kudzu seeds to farmers. The farmers planted the seeds to provide shade and prevent soil erosion. Before long, Kudzu grew out of control.

The most striking thing about Kudzu is how fast it grows. It grows up to a foot a day. The problem is that, wherever it takes hold, it chokes out everything else.

That is the danger Jesus is warning his disciples about when it comes to money.

Today’s reading comes from the very heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Next to the Great Commandment, most Christians would point to this as the most important of all his teachings. It defines not just who we are, but whose we are, and how we should live.  In short, it is the revelation of God’s will for all of humankind.

       Over these three chapters in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches radically new understandings of blessing, scripture, and discipleship.

       It is chick full of surprises. Maybe most surprising thing of all is the list of those whom Jesus calls blessed. In the Roman-occupied world of 1^st Century Palestine, this list could hardly be more counter-cultural.

Those who mourn.  The meek, and the merciful. The poor in spirit, and the pure in heart. The peacemakers and the persecuted. Above all, those who thirst for righteousness.

This is a vision of the Kingdom of God, and a guide for making this life look more like it.  Everyone in Jesus’ audience knows from experience that this vision stands in stark contrast to their lives under Roman rule. Under threat of violence, Rome imposes an uneasy and fragile peace on the people of occupied Judah. 

Any disruption of this tentative peace is immediately and brutally crushed. The risk of being labeled a troublemaker is high. The penalty is death. In the Roman Empire, violence and power go hand in hand, and wealth is the one sure way to status.

Only a tiny percentage of the people were wealthy.  90% of the population of Judah had only enough to survive.  Many of them went to bed hungry every night.

So, can you imagine how Jesus’ audience felt when they watched a wealthy landowner or an important Temple official strutting around in their fine clothes?

You can bet they were envious.  They would go home and dream of what it would be like to be rich. In their heads, they would envision a big house, lots of land, a bumper crop of wheat, and massive barns to keep it secure. 

They would imagine wearing the finest linen tunics. They would picture their wives wearing precious jewels, the latest Roman sandals, and the finest Egyptian-made shawls.

 But Jesus says whoa! Careful there. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. As you and I remember from last week’s sermon on the Great Commandment, the heart is where our deepest desires are born.

But the human heart is a funny thing. It has limited space. Our hearts have room for only one great desire. And Jesus tells us, that one great desire must be God. Disciples have to be committed to doing God’s will above their own. They have to seek what God seeks, and live as God would have us live.

       Now, Jesus knows this is not easy. Afterall, he was human like the rest of us. He knows full well that there are any number of other desires that we are tempted to allow into our hearts.

Of all those possible temptations, one in particular is especially dangerous. That is the desire for money. The trouble with accumulating material wealth is that it has a sneaky way of captivating our hearts and excluding everything else. 

Studies have shown that as our income and net worth rise, our mental concept of how much is enough expands along with it. We typically consider "enough" to be double whatever wealth we currently hold. 

No matter how much we have, we never feel like we have enough. The more we have, the more we feel we need. 

In other words, the desire for wealth is like kudzu. The seeds are everywhere. If we let it take hold in our hearts, it will take over. It will crowd out everything else, including our love for God and neighbor.

 But Kudzu bears no fruit. Its flowers are not particularly beautiful. It is edible, but it’s not very tasty. And, once it takes over, it takes a monumental effort to eradicate.  

It’s the same way with the desire for money. It we let it take hold of our hearts, it will take over our lives. When it does, we no longer bear the fruit that God expects from us.

Jesus is not saying that God want us to starve. Nor is he saying that merely having wealth is a sign that money has captured our hearts. God wants us to have enough.

Jesus is saying that money is a good servant, but it makes a lousy master. He is inviting us to use the resources we have to serve God. 

God wants all his children to flourish. Whether we have a little wealth or a lot, he wants us to use it to serve him by serving the needs of others.

This is God’s investment strategy. When God entrusts us with material resources, he is making an investment in us. The return he expects on his investment is the fruit we bear, both in our own lives and in the lives of others.  

I recently came across someone who has turned this understanding into a literal investment business. His name is Henry Kaestner. I am a little biased here, because, like me, Henry is a graduate of the University of Delaware. After college, Henry created several successful financial businesses, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. 

He is a serial entrepreneur. The upward trajectory of his career has been paralleled by a similar increase in his faith. His quest has always been to integrate the two.

His most recent venture is a non-profit organization for faith-driven investors. He is building a movement to solve the biggest social problems of our day. He does that by counseling and connecting Christian investors with faith-driven entrepreneurs.

He describes his mission as “helping Christ-following investors believe that God owns it all, and that he cares deeply about the how, where, and why behind our investment strategies . . . we are called into partnership by God to work for the flourishing of humanity.”  

Jesus would be in complete agreement with that mission.  

Friends, that is our mission, too. We may not have the funds of a Wall Street Investor, but the resources we do have are given by God. And God holds us accountable for the way we use them. 

Over these next 3 Sundays, as we move into this Season of Commitment, we will ask God to be our Financial Advisor.  We will ask him to guide us in using our resources in ways that are pleasing to him. 

Today, let’s start by taking inventory.  Let’s ask ourselves these three questions:

·      What gifts has God given me to serve him?

·      What skills has he given me?

·      What financial resources has he entrusted to me?

Whatever these are, let’s remember why God has given us these blessings. He is looking for a return on his investment in us. The return he expects is for you and me to use his gifts to help others flourish, especially those in need.

That is what makes God happy. When we help others flourish, we flourish, too.

May it be so.