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Rambling's From The Rev. |
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Pastor Jim
Johnson |
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In Luke 16:13 Jesus says, “You cannot serve God and Money.” This is true, in more ways than one.
Most sermons and commentaries focus on an either/or, like Jesus’ previous words, “You’ll either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.” So the focus becomes an issue of idolatry and observing the first commandment, having no other gods, or seeking first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you. The message from most mouths, or the point from most pens and pulpits, focuses on perspective, priorities, and purpose. Have our priorities centered on material possessions, serving the self, and has gain in this life warped our perspective on our God-given purpose in life? Have we become consumed with the consumerism of penultimate things and developed little regard for ultimate things? Has our interest and obsession for temporal things blinded us to the value of eternal things? Then, the point is, we must prioritize God first, faith first, church first. We must get our priorities straight, otherwise, these things that are meant to serve us, we end us serving as unfulfilled masters with insatiable appetites; we end up enslaved or in bondage. But for freedom Christ has set us free, we should therefore not submit again to a yoke of slavery (Gal. 5:1).
While all of that may be true, what if it’s not a matter of an either/or? In fact, when we make it an either/or, we end up serving the one at the expense of the other. Are we not called indeed called to serve both? Love the Lord your God AND your neighbor? Is not the closest neighbor the self, then immediate family, then those whom I come in contact with in daily life, and finally all people of this earth, as well as the earth itself? Is not providing shelter, food, clothing, and necessities in life the most important way I can serve my neighbor? And how do I do this but through the means of money? To serve or work for money for the sake of the neighbor is a calling from God. And to serve God is to serve the neighbor. It doesn’t seem to me to be an either/or, but rather we’re called to do both. But again, one may contend that it’s more a matter of priorities that Jesus is addressing.
What if the real problem Jesus is attacking is our desire to serve in the first place, whether God or money? Maybe it’s not the actual serving that’s the problem, but the motivation or desire behind the serving that Jesus attacks. For the Pharisees and the Scribes (the “lovers of money” in 16:14, as well as those grumbling that Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors – people who’ve made their wealth with dishonest means and offended that Jesus would befriend in 15:1-2, the context for which Jesus speaks these words about serving God and money) serving God and money was of utmost priority in life – we are indeed called to serve or love God and neighbor, and money is often the vehicle by which we accomplish this. But what was their motivation? Do we serve God to justify ourselves, or show some worthiness, or intent for worthiness to God by our efforts, good deeds, or goodness? Do we serve money in order to justify ourselves to others, to show our importance, value, worth, or seek praise for how successful we’ve become or generous we are to others? If we serve God or money to justify ourselves, whether in heaven or on earth; if we serve God and money to seek God’s approval and praise in heaven, or people’s approval and praise on earth, then these holy things we have been called to do (serving God and money) have now become perverted, sinful, and distorted into something that is self-serving rather than pleasing to God.
The Pharisees and Scribes, the good religious folk, who try to justify themselves in their goodness and service to God, and in their good successful use of money, cannot stand these parables and actions of grace that embrace the lost of the world, that welcome sinners who have not been faithful toward God or the neighbor, or that befriends people who have gained their wealth in dishonest ways like tax collectors. The result of justifying ourselves before God and the world is that we become judgmental, unforgiving, and ungracious toward others. Ironically, after all our attempts to serve God and the neighbor through our goodness and success, we end up serving the self and not the neighbor; puffed up with pride we lack compassion toward sinners.
You cannot serve God and money until you begin to realize that God and money first serve us. When we begin to realize that it is the shepherd who first seeks and finds the lost coin, the woman who does the seeking and finding of the lost coin, the father who comes to the lost son to welcome him with open arms before the son can come to the father with his rehearsed scheme, and the debtors whose debts are cut down by the shrewd steward without which they would have been buried in their debt, then we begin to realize that God first serves us, that we are saved by God’s grace alone through the sending of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. When the shrewd steward in Luke 16:1-8 cuts down the debts of the debtors/sinners, all for the purpose of working his way into their homes and hearts, they become indebted to him not out of obligation, but out of gratitude and desire. Likewise, when we begin to realize how much we have been forgiven, it becomes our desire to give. When we realize how lost we are if it were not for the seeking and finding of our gracious God, we become more compassionate to the lostness of the world around us. When we have been given to so generously and graciously, how can we help but be generous and gracious toward others?
You cannot serve God and money
if the motivation is to justify yourself, whether to God or to the
neighbor. But when you begin to be grasped by the revelation that
through Christ you have already been justified, then our desire to serve
is no longer for our own advantage, whether in heaven or on earth, but
for the sake of the other’s advantage. We begin to realize we are
already blessed, in order to be a blessing. To ask the question: “if
everything is already accomplished for me, then what can I do for you in
return?” that is living in the freedom of the gospel; that is God and
money not out of fear or obligation, but out of gratitude and joy. Peace be with you.
Pastor Jim
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