Jeremiah 8:18-9:1;
Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13
Preached by Rev. Deacon
John Warner
God or Mammon?
Let
the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
I was 30 year old,
married with a new born baby girl, recently hired by the local community mental
health center, and a rising star. I was initially hired to work with
individuals with developmental disabilities but felt that I could have greater
impact in their lives if I moved into management. Within approximately ten
years, I was promoted into positions of increasing responsibility and salary
until I was selected by the governing board as the center’s new Executive
Director. Promotions have their downside. As you climb the corporate ladder,
the positions become more political. When the mental health center encountered
difficulty in managing increasing state demands with diminishing resources, I
began to see the worse for my future. The board lost confidence in my ability
to lead the center and requested my resignation. Although I was able to find
another position, my salary was reduced in half. Having become accustomed to a
particular lifestyle, I was worried how my family would make it. I asked Marsha
if she thought I should find a second job.
She wisely advised me that we should look at our budget, cut where we
could, but delay the decision about a seeking a second job. As I look back upon
this painful life experience, I am amazed that when you have your back against
the wall, how well you can prioritize things, what is important and what isn’t.
Our scripture
readings this morning include people who have felt overwhelmed by events and
find their respective backs against the wall. Although Biblical scholars
disagree on whom the speaker in the Old Testament reading is - possibly
Jeremiah, Jerusalem or God – there is no doubt the speaker is experiencing
despair, “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.” One has to look
hard to find anything but despair in Psalm 79 in which the speaker cries to the
heavens questioning when the Lord’s anger will be replaced with His compassion.
And then we have the
parable of the dishonest steward or manager in our Gospel reading. It’s
a tale about a steward who has been managing a rich man’s estate. His master
has called him “on the carpet” to account for his wasteful spending. He sees
the “writing on the wall.” He believes that he is about to be fired. Like me
after my resignation, he is scared for he doesn’t know what the future holds.
Possessing little marketable skills he begins to plan on how best to transition
into unemployment. It is a sure bet that
he won’t be receiving a letter of recommendation from his boss. “What about
those vendors who owe money to my master?” he ponders. “If I reduce their debt
significantly, one might be so grateful that they will take me into their
home.” He then proceeds to reduce each debtor’s bill by 20-50%.
The term “wealth” used in today’s Gospel may not define in the way that
you think. The King James Bible uses another word for wealth, mammon, which I
believe communicates better. Mammon is derived from the Hebrew for “wealth or
possessions in which one puts his or her trust.” During the Middle Ages,
Christians began depicting mammon as any false god. John Milton carried this
theme into Christian literature when he portrayed mammon has a fallen angel who
worshipped earthly treasure over all other things.
According to the theologian William Barclay, there are three attitudes
that we can take toward money:
a)
We can regard
money as the enemy and have nothing to do with it. This is what the desert
fathers (and mothers), the hermits, did when they, viewed material things as
tainted by human sin, refused to possess anything. This attitude if practiced
widespread would be detrimental since the hermits depended on the generosity of
others.
b)
We can regard
money as our master in other words to be a slave to it. The image that comes to mind is Charles
Dickens’ character, Uncle Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, a miser
whose obsession in accumulating riches
was so strong that he didn’t care how he obtained it or whom he ruined along
the way.
c)
We can regard
money as our friend, not to be avoided or to be worshipped, but to be used
wisely and unselfishly.
How many times did Jesus talk about money? Well it is true that he
talked more about the Kingdom of God than money. Not the Kingdom of God future
but the Kingdom of God present - the Kingdom of God outside of the church
doors.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying
that money is evil. Money by itself is not good or evil; it is just a thing. It the
person’s intention regarding the money that intrinsically makes it good or
evil. Some might reply angrily, “Money
is the root of all evil,” as a Biblical support for their argument; however,
they would be misquoting scripture. The correct quote is “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of
evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith
and pierced themselves with many pains. (1 Timothy 6:10 NRSV). I believe money and the accumulation of
wealth can become evil when its acquisition and maintenance becomes all
consuming – when it becomes your mammon, your God worshipped.
Jesus’ last
words are very demanding. “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate
the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.” We
cannot be slaves to both God and mammon. Psychologist terms this behavior
as “divided consciousness” or more commonly known as “multitasking”, a
situation that can lead to disastrous consequences as some may have encountered
if they attempted to text on the cell phone while driving a car. We cannot multitask God and mammon or wealth.
Wealth is not a guarantee for salvation.
Again, I’m
not being critical of wealth and an individual’s acquisition of it. After all,
I am a fan of capitalism and the free market system. However, taking liberty
with the Spiderman comic series, “With great wealth comes great
responsibility.” Therefore, I leave you this morning with three questions to
reflect upon:
1. How
possessive are you of your wealth?
2. In what way
might your wealth benefit the disadvantaged, those that the church is charged
to serve through our baptismal covenant?
3. In what we
have we benefited from our economic system and does this make us responsible
for any who may have suffered from our success?
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