God and Mammon

Passages: Isaiah 49:8-16, Psalm 131, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, Matthew 6:24-34.

Roman coin of Augustus, circulated at the turn of the 1st century AD

No one 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. You cannot serve God and wealth. ²⁵ Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? … But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today. –Matthew 6:24-25, 33-34

In a modern society that demands investment for retirement, a society driven by money and wealth (mammon), these are challenging words delivered by Jesus in the Sermon of the Mount. These words represent a significant shift from the Hebrew Scripture themes of wealth, which often emphasizes wealth as a blessing from God and, through the prophets, continually called for the just distribution of that wealth. However, in the Jewish confrontation with the Roman Empire, there is a drastic shift in the way wealth is both viewed and quantified. Before the Roman occupation, wealth was conceived in terms of land, livestock and harvest, but Roman economics and currencies changed the financial landscape and, predictably, attitudes toward wealth. Jesus, in this passage and several others in all four Gospels, warns of money as an obstacle to salvation and knowing God. The two are put at odds; mammon is not a gift from God, but is antithetical to the Kingdom of God – No one can serve two masters.

Obviously people cannot survive unless their material needs are met. Globally, billions of people live on less than $2 a day and millions die every year from causes directly related to that poverty, mainly starvation, lack of sanitary water and preventable diseases. Jesus, in the tradition of the prophets, calls those with the capacity to help these neighbors to do so with care and compassion. Today’s lection is not an outright dismissal of material ministry, or a denial of material necessities.

Too often passages such as the one preceding today’s lection in the Sermon on the Mount – “store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes” (Mt. 6.20) – are used to spiritualize Jesus’ message entirely and distract from the material ministries. Here, Jesus is addressing wealth as a master, something that consumes and enslaves you. In fact, Jesus is trying to quell the anxiety about self-preservation that prevents them from being good stewards to their neighbor and therefore poor servants of God. For when you are caught up in a selfish desire for security, and do not trust God to provide for you when doing God’s work, you are serving the interest of mammon.

Matthew 6.25-33 is also found in Luke 12.22-31, almost word for word (this is the part from “do not worry about your life” to “strive for the kingdom first”). Both times it immediately follows a warning about the consuming effects of wealth and greed. In Matthew it follows the famous teaching “no one can serve two masters,” and in Luke it follows the parable of the rich fool (Lk. 12.13-21) which tells of a man whose land produced abundantly, and in this abundance decided to build a larger barn and enjoy the security of many years of ample goods. But God tells the man: “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Lk. 12.20).

The teaching “Do not worry,” is a fitting teaching to follow the parable. The rich fool hoarded his goods and did not share his harvest with the hungry, choosing to bask in his security and “relax, eat, drink, be merry” (Lk. 12.19). He allowed his anxiety about the future to overcome his trust in God and obligation to the community to share his abundance. He literally stored up his treasure for himself, but “was not rich toward God” (Lk. 12.21). In Luke, unlike in Matthew, Jesus expands on this teaching and describes what it means to be rich toward God: “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Lk. 12.33-34).

This is challenging to us in modern society, when investments (particularly for retirement) and saving is so heavily emphasized and encouraged. I do not think Jesus is calling for us to ignore the need to prepare for tomorrow, but rather warning of the peril of wealth. It has a consuming nature, and in putting our trust in our savings we are prevented from doing God’s work and ministry on Earth. The economy of Rome – the economy of empire – has prevailed for the past two thousand years, and the idea of wealth as currency has increased and solidified. This makes the New Testament shift in emphasis on money as “the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6.10) even more applicable today then when first spoke. The pressure to serve mammon is even greater, and is perhaps an even more cruel and powerful master than in the first century.