The Curious Case Of The Millionaire Who Thought He Was Poor

This sermon was first preached 3rd July 2025 at St Grabriel's Acton. It builds on some of my previous sermons on the topic preached elsewhere especially "Frenchie upsets his dad"; "Baking bigger cakes - wealth creation the Wesley Way" and "Generous Wallet Happy Heart"

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A very wealthy man came to his vicar and said, “Father, I’m having a problem with this tithing thing. You see I made £500,000 last year. If I gave 10% then I’d have to give….”

No - before I finish that anecdote - lets do a poll- who here thinks they are rich and who here thinks they are poor?

- hands up for rich ?

-hands up for poor?

OK those of you who didn’t put your hands up – I’m not going to let you chose in between – on balance do you think you basically poor or basically rich?

Frank Frulio is someone who thinks he is poor. He was really worried. This year his employer didn’t pay him any bonus. His basic pay just wasn’t enough. How was he going to pay his bills? How was he going to survive? He was so desperate that he took them to an industrial tribunal.

The judge I am afraid was not very sympathetic to Frank. This could be something to do with the fact that Frank’s basic pay was £250,000. (1)

"Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’

Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

[Luke 12:13-21]

‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’

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For one year I was vicar of St Peter’s Church in Eaton Square Belgravia. Many of the people in the congregation thought of themselves as not very well off. Almost all of them lived in properties costing around £1-£2 million pounds each. They earnt salaries with probably an average of £70-80,000 per person (not per household per person) But they thought of themselves as poor. I even had someone on a salary of over £50,000 try to apply for a bursary from a charity I was a trustee of. They thought of themselves as poor

Why? Most of the congregation came about 5-10 minutes away from the church from Pimlico. There flats cost astronomical sums - £1-2Million (and this was eleven years ago) but they were ex council flats in an expensive area.

The church itself was situated in Eaton Square – full of mansion flats belonging to Russian Oligarchs, the formula 1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone, the TV megastar Nigella Lawson and the like – each flat costing £7-8 million pounds or more – and each earning seven or eight figure salaries a year.

The Pimlico folks who came to church didn’t compare with themselves with the average person worldwide or the average person in the UK – or even the average person in London. They compared themselves with super rich people whose houses they walked past on the way to church and in comparison they felt poor.

A very wealthy man came to his vicar and said, “Father, I’m having a problem with this tithing thing. You see I made £500,000 dollars last year. If I gave 10% then I’d have to give…. £50,000! I can’t do that!”...

The average salary in Mozambique is £1,800 a year

The average salary of the bottom 10% of people in the UK is £10,600 a year – six times what middle-income Mozambicans earn – and that is the poorest people in the UK

The average (median) salary in the UK is £31,600 – three times as much again.

And how about a salary of £70,000 a year – well even today that places you in the top ten percent of wealthiest people in the country – let alone what it did in 2014.