9th Trinity III, 2020, Money As Servant

9th August Trinity

Matthew 6:19-34 

Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes, and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where you have gathered a treasure, there your heart will bear you. 

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole body is lighted, whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark, what great darkness! 

“No one can serve two masters: either they will hate one and love the other, or they will put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [Mammon, the spirit of hindrances or avarice]. 

Therefore I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink

Jan de Kok

or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life? 

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, O small in faith? 

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well. 

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today. 

9^th August Trinity

September 20, 2020

Matthew 6:19-34

The question of our relationship to money is well worth looking at more closely, especially here in the western world. In this Gospel reading, Christ makes it quite clear what our relationship to money needs to be. 

Shirley Markham

Notice that Christ is not saying that money itself is evil. The traditional word Mammon in verse 24 comes from the Chaldean, and means avarice. Christ is pointing out the tendency we human beings have of allowing money to take over as our first love. He is saying that if money and material concerns take first place in our lives, two things will happen: 

First of all, our relationship with the divine world will be crowded out. For, as He says, there is really only space in our souls for attention to one thing at a time. True devoted attention means shutting out everything else. "You cannot serve two masters; you will love the one and despise (that is, neglect) the other." (Matthew 6:24) And whatever we spend the most time giving our devoted attention to will, of necessity, become the most important thing in our lives. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be too," He says. (Matthew 6:21) How many of us can honestly say that we spend most of our devoted attention to God? 

Secondly, whatever we are most devoted to, whether money or God, will become our master. God is the master teacher who respects our freedom, who encourages our development and integrity, who helps us build confidence and trust in the universe. 

Money as master aims itself toward our lower desire nature, whipping up our desire life. It encourages our dissatisfaction and greed, creating the need for more, bigger, and better stuff. Money as master enslaves us. It is the enslavement, not the money itself, about which Christ warns us. "You cannot serve God and be enslaved to the Almighty Dollar" (Matthew 6:24). But, difficult though it is, we can serve God and, at the same time, find a right relationship to money. 

Tissot

We do so by making money itself into our servant. We make money our servant when we recognize that all wealth, all richness, all possessions come from God. It all belongs to Him, not to us. He gives it to us to administer, to take care of, to pass along to others. Money is not ours to own and hoard. 

The right relationship is God first, and then our needs (not our egotistical desires) will be filled. And if God should choose to send us more than just the bare necessities, then we are in a position to ask Him what He wants done with it. Money as a servant is the means by which much good can be done in the world, for others. 

"So," to quote Matthew (the tax collector, who knew something about money,) "do not make your soul small with worry [be anxious], saying. 'What will we drink? What shall we wear?'… your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God's kingdom and its harmonious order. Then all these other things will be yours as well." (Matthew 6:31-32)

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