Jesus Needed Money

I very frequently get an email or a comment from someone saying something like:

doesn't it embarrass you to make money here by selling your drawings which are precisely criticizing how some churches and pastors try to make as much money as possible from their followers?

That's a quote. I've had other comments like, "Jesus wouldn't sell his art. He'd give it away. You should too." I've posted quite a bit about my own spiritual struggle with money. My years and years in the church gave me a rather unhealthy attitude about money that it was evil, I would be weak to need it, and that it is selfish and greedy to earn it. I didn't feel this way about other people, but I did about myself. You can read my "Money Confession" here. Now that I've been out of the ministry for a year and a half, and also having talked with a counsellor about it, I'm feeling much better and thinking much healthier. I want to tell people who challenge me on selling my art, etc., that I am selling actual products. I'm not asking for your support. Although if someone offers it I'm happy to receive it. I would love to be doing nakedpastor full time. I'm not nearly there yet. But that is a dream I have that I work hard to see fulfilled one day. So, lightheartedly, I imagine these people talking to Jesus:

1. Why did you accept gold, frankincense and myrrh as birthday presents?
2. I can't believe you received financial support, especially from women.
3. You should've had your own house instead of staying in other homes all the time.
4. Would it have been too difficult for you to eat your own food?
5. Isn't a seamless robe a bit showy?
6. Couldn't that expensive perfume be given to the poor?
7. Why borrow someone else's donkey? Use your own!
8. You shouldn't have been friends with rich people.
9. So why did you have Judas act as treasurer if you didn't need money?
10. A hole in the ground should have sufficed, not a wealthy man's hewn sepulchre.

I don't suppose these people have heard about how much money the Buddha required for his ministry, even accepting huge donations of money and land from the wealthy. Or how it is said that it took a lot of money to keep Gandhi poor. Or how many millions of dollars Mother Teresa's ministry generated. I could go on. This isn't to question the value of these people or their ministries. It is only to point out that money is necessary. (On another note, the back end of that kind of attitude suggests that, psychologically, some of these people believe the poor shouldn't need money either. But that's a whole other post.)