This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am
Grace, mercy and peace be to
you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Prayer: May the words of my
mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our Gospel reading today is a very well known passage of the Gospels, that in known by both Christians and non-Christians alike, and also it is so incredibly rich. It comes to us from the passage in Matthew’s Gospel, which we call the Sermon on the Mount, which takes up the whole of chapters 5, 6 and 7.
Chapter 5 begins with the famous beatitudes, or blessing of Jesus, which he speaks. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the kingdom of heaven, and so forth. He then speaks about his disciples as salt of the earth and the light of the world. He speaks about the law, and also preaches very specifically about the law: about anger, lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and also about loving our enemies. Jesus preaches the law in such a way that he holds it right up to people’s faces, so that we don’t run away from it and try to escape from it, but examine ourselves by it, and let the law pierce right to our hearts.
In Chapter 6, where our reading comes from today, Jesus teaches about giving to the needy, about prayer—including where he gives his disciples the Lord’s Prayer—and also fasting. He also speaks about laying up treasures in heaven.
Then we come to our reading today, where Jesus speaks about God and money, and also about not being anxious about our life.
In chapter 7, we also read about where Jesus teaches us not to judge others, to ask, seek and to knock, he teaches us about doing to others as we would wish they would do unto us, and about entering through the narrow way. He also warns us against false prophets and teaches us to build our house on the rock.
So you can see in the Sermon on the Mount, there are many well-known passages. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that the specific part of our reading that we read in church comes from a larger whole and forms part of a bigger picture. It’s worth our while sometimes to go to these chapters of Matthew, and read them in one sitting, because there often insights that we gain from doing this, and common threads that go through the whole sermon.
Anyway, let’s come to our passage today, which begins with Jesus saying the following words: No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Jesus, first of all, is telling us about having two masters. Sometimes a person might work for a company that is run by two people, and these two people are completely of the same mind about how things should be done, and there’s no problem with working for two bosses. However, Jesus is talking about two masters, where they are completely opposed to each other. Imagine being in a workplace, where instead of having one boss, you have two bosses, and the two people have completely different ideas about things, completely different philosophies, completely different approaches to how things should be done. One day, you’re told to paint a wall black, the next day you’re told to paint it white. One day, you’re asked to build this thing, the next day you’re asked to tear it down. For most people, this would be a completely intolerable place to work, a terrible, frustrating, annoying work-place.
Jesus says: No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. If you had a crazy place to work like this, eventually you would find that you agree with one of the bosses, and you would be happy to do some jobs, but then when the other boss asks you to do the opposite, you would be frustrated. Actually, the picture Jesus is planting is one where the two bosses are actually against each other.
And so, after painting this strange picture of working for two masters or bosses, Jesus tells us what he’s really talking about. He says: You cannot serve God and money. Actually, the word here for money is an Aramaic word, “mammon”. And mammon includes a little bit more than money, but includes possessions and things and stuff. It’s probably quite a good translation for us to say, “You cannot serve God and stuff”.
Let’s have a look at the Ten Commandments. When we talk about serving God, we’re essentially talking about the First Commandment, where it says: You shall have no other gods. Luther in the Small Catechism, gives a really helpful and simple explanation, where he says: We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. In Romans, St Paul talks about people and how they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. When it comes to having a “god”, we have to understand that no-one is really without a god. No-one on this earth really is an atheist. They might not believe in the one true God, but they believe in something. They fear, love and trust in something—they attach their heart to something. It’s just that that something is not God. St Paul says that you either serve the Creator of the world, or you end up serving the things that he has made, and serve the creature rather than the Creator. And in our reading, Jesus gives us a very strong warning about a particular thing that has a real palpable danger of standing in the way of us serving God, and that is money.
Now, on the other hand, we’re allowed to have money. In the seventh commandment, we read: You shall not steal. If we’re not allowed to steal from people, it means that people are actually allowed to have things, and have possessions, and that it’s important that we realise that these things are theirs, and not ours for the taking. Luther writes his little explanation as follows: We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbour’s money or possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income.
Now, money is a very difficult thing to talk about, because depending on people’s situation in life, we sometimes have quite different views about money. Sometimes, people have been brought up during hard times, either in a time during Australia’s history where things were a lot harder than now, or from another country, where they had to learn to be quite frugal. Sometimes, people have grown up in a situation where they received government welfare. Sometimes, people have pulled themselves up “by the bootstraps”, as they say, and have gone from rags to riches. Sometimes, people are the other way, and have been wealthy, and then have found themselves in financial hardship, and have gone from being comfortable to then having to make financial sacrifices. Sometimes, people are quite comfortable in life, and have always had everything they need. Sometimes, people are very wealthy, and really have much more money than they really need, but are quite at luxury to use their money in really whatever way they please. Some people don’t really understand how money works, and some other people have a real head for money and really do understand how it works. There are people who struggle to work for a living, some people work well for a living, some people who run their own business, some people who invest their money. All these people have to deal with money, and sometimes think about it differently.
Now, you might think about these things, and think: yes, I probably fit in there or there. But no matter what our situation in life, the temptation to serve money instead of God is there for all of us. And sometimes, it looks quite different for different people. For example, poor people sometimes look to rich people and despise them for having money. Rich people sometimes look at poor people and despise them for not having money.
When we’re in need, we can often think that all our problems just have to do with money, and we forget about God, and we can forget to ask him for our daily bread. But when we’re in plenty, we can so easily relax in our comfort and forget about God, and forget to thank him for our daily bread.
We also learn from the bible some principles when it comes to money which go against the normal way that people think. For example, St Paul says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. We should remember this. Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. This passage causes some despair to the disciples, who ask: Who then can be saved? Jesus says: With man this impossible, but with God all things are possible. We should really think about this passage. But then also Jesus shows his disciples other things to do with money, where, for example, when he is asked about paying a tax, he sends Peter to catch a fish and open the fishes mouth and take out a shekel, and to give it as the tax. We also have Jesus talking about tax in the temple, and says: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. We also read the passage where a poor widow puts all that she had to live on into the offering bowl at the temple. Jesus says: Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. There are many different things that Jesus teaches about money.
But what we learn here from Jesus is that it’s okay to have money, we need our daily provision, and Jesus actually teaches us to ask God for our daily bread. We shouldn’t steal from others, and this also implies that God is happy for people to have money and possessions. But Jesus says you cannot serve it. Money can serve you, but you cannot serve it. In the meantime, all of us have a tendency to serve money and mammon, and that this attitude of our heart forms a hindrance to us in serving God. So whatever we have in our life, we are called to thank God for it, and to place it into his hands. That way we serve God with out money and things, and not serve our money instead of God. But it goes against the grain, it goes against the sinful human flesh that we constantly carry around with us. So when Jesus says to us: You cannot serve God and money, these words are always a call to repentance. As long as we have to deal with money in this life, we always have the constant temptation to turn away from God. Even Jesus says: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. Anyway, money only belongs to this life. When we die, we can paint our coffin with gold like the Pharaohs in Egypt, or even papier-mache our coffin with $100 notes. Whatever we have in this life will be useless for us once we’re dead. We can’t buy our way into heaven—only faith in Jesus Christ saves us. Turn away from serving money, stop serving it, stop loving it, stop devoting yourself to it, and instead love God and be devoted to him. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. Jesus is a faithful Saviour, who has died for you and paid for your sins with his blood. Trust in him, and commend yourself to him.
Now, I’ve devoted a lot of time so far to this one verse at the beginning of our reading, which is so important. In fact, this verse provides the basis and the foundation for everything that Jesus says next. He talks about this life. He knows that we need our daily bread, and he knows that we need money to buy things, and all that kind of thing. So if he calls us to stop worrying and serving money, what then?
Jesus says: Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow not reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of your by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you nee them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
There is so much to think about in these verses, and we don’t have the time to consider it all carefully today. We pray that God will give another occasion for that! But I’ll make some more general comments.
You know: when Jesus points us away from money and mammon, and points us to God, he is pointing us away from trying to solve our problems in life ourselves. When we’re dealing with money, and we’re counting it out, we think that we’re in charge. When we’ve got clothes on our back and a roof over our head, we think that we don’t have anything to worry about. But as soon as we have some problem, we often try to solve it ourselves, and rely on our own means and our own brains to do what we think needs to be done. But then, for some reason, the problem is not solved, and we become much more anxious to solve it.
Many people in our country and our world are highly anxious at the moment. I’ve been anxious too. There are all kinds of things going on that we can’t control and can’t fix by ourselves.
There’s been great chances in our society since the Corona Virus started, and then there’s also the problems to do with civil freedoms and liberties, which have taken many people by surprise too. People ask the question: are the government and the police on our side? Do they have our best interests at heart? When will things go back to normal? Are things already back to normal, really? Many people are tired and exhausted. Many people just don’t want to think about anything, and want to put their head in the sand. Many people have realised, some for the first time in their life, that the way in which we receive our daily bread, the way in which our daily bread comes to us, is a fragile process. God preserves it, and he preserves people in various vocations and jobs to do various things, so that we are able to have what we need in this life. But when that process and that system is shaken up a bit, what then?
All of that aside, we actually have no need to be anxious in our life about anything at all whatsoever. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we don’t genuinely feel anxious, and that we don’t actually feel genuine anxiety. After all, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus knew he would be tortured and crucified the very next day, and he trembled and shook and sweated drops of blood. He was anxious too, and when we feel anxious, we should commend ourselves to him, who knows our hearts much better than we do.
But there’s a reason why we don’t need to be anxious about our life. As soon as we start to serve and be devoted to money and things, we will find ourselves being anxious about our life again. No—we have no need, because we have a faithful God, who has created us. He has sent His Son into the world, to take on a human body like ours, and to suffer, to experience all kinds of anxieties and troubles, to suffer, to die, and to pay for and atone for our sins on the cross. He has risen again from the dead, and is alive, and sends upon his church his living Holy Spirit. And this wonderful God, our wonderful heavenly Father, knows our needs. He knows what we need to live a life on this earth. He knows what your family needs. He knows what you worry about, and he cares for you. When things happen in the world that we can’t control and that rock our world and that shake our existence, we must always keep in mind the fact that God has not changed, he is still there, he is still just as much in control of things as he was before, he still holds us in his hands, he still love us, he still cares for us, and he is still leading us. So we have a very good reason and a solid basis and firm foundation why we can seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and have a firm trust that all these things will be added to you. We have a solid and firm grounding and footing in Jesus Christ, so that we don’t need to be anxious about tomorrow, because we are only here today. Jesus is already there tomorrow, before we have arrived.
In the meantime, we take our stand in the waters of baptism, where we have received the kingdom of God and the righteousness of Christ. We receive the forgiveness of sins in the words of absolution, spoke by the pastor. We receive the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, commending our sins and our troubles to him, our worries, our needs, our anxieties. We come to him in our weakness, and pray to him for his strength, that his strength may be made perfect in our weakness.
So let’s commend ourselves to Jesus, and ask that may shape and form us in his image by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we may love him and be devoted only to Him. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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