Trinity 9 July 24, 2016
Trinity 9
Luke 16:1-13
July 24, 2016
“Master over Mammon”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus says, “No servant can serve two masters. It doesn’t work. 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.” Now the English Standard Version that we use has the word money. But many of you remember the King James Version better, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Mammon is simply a transliteration of the Greek word. In other words, the Greek word is mammon. And so they just keep that word in the English—mammon.
Now the word mammon is more helpful here so that we all realize we’re not just talking about serving green dollar bills. We’re not just talking about physical money that you and I serve—coins and paper. We’re not just talking about you sitting at home in a dark room counting your dollars and cents. No, when Jesus says mammon here He’s talking about everything that has to do with money and everything money can buy. All of it is mammon. Instead of mammon we might say stuff. You cannot serve God and stuff. Mammon is money, possessions, power, fame. All of the big, glorious, pleasurable things of life that come with money.
Now why is God so hard on mammon? This must be another one of those cases where God just doesn’t want you to have any fun, right? Another one of those cases where God is just a mean ol’ jerk who takes away all the good stuff of life, right? Doesn’t want you to have that new house or vacation home? Doesn’t want you to go on that shopping spree? Is that what this is about? God keeping you away from fun and pleasure because He wants you to be miserable?
Hardly. We need to get over ourselves here. The reason He says that you can’t serve two masters is because it’s true. And He knows that if you try to do it—you will lose. Big time. And God loves you dearly. He doesn’t want you to fall prey to that horrible, monstrous master called mammon. He knows that if mammon becomes your master, then you will end up pushing God aside completely. And that means you will lose.
This is a 1st commandment thing, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Why does God say that? Well, the same reason. Because He loves you and doesn’t want you to get burned when you follow other false gods. God is the true, good and gracious God who loves you. Mammon is a false god who doesn’t love you. And mammon also happens to be a god that every one of us is really enticed by. Boy, do we like our stuff. Our mammon. We love it. And money gets the best of each one of us nearly every single day. We want this. We want that. We overspend on this or that. We covet this or that. We get jealous. Prideful. Anxious. All over the great god Mammon.
So let’s talk about what life is like when mammon is our master. When mammon is in charge, what kind of demands does it make of you? What does it tell you to do? What does mammon give you?
Well, for one, mammon demands your time. All of that stuff that you have—it all wants you to spend time keeping it up. Your house and your cars need lots of your time. Cleaning, maintaining, fixing. How much time do you spend keeping up your stuff? A lot. And if you buy it, you feel like you need to use it. And if you don’t spend the needed time keeping all your stuff up, then it starts to lose value. And we can’t have that, right? All this mammon that you have will keep demanding your time until, finally, it takes every last bit of your time and you die. Mammon is a time-demanding master.
But what about when God is our Master? God is the exact opposite. He actually gives you more time. To be precise, He gives you eternal time. Now we might say, “Wait a minute. God demands my time on Sunday morning and demands my time to study His Word and demands my time to pray.” Yes, this is true. But these gifts of God don’t take our time away—they lead us into God’s eternal life. Furthermore, worship and prayer and devotions actually open up our time by focusing us and giving us purpose and meaning in the minutes and seconds of our day. God is a giver of time. Mammon is a time-leech.
Mammon is also a god that will never leave you content but will always drive you to get more, more, more. No matter how much stuff we seem to pile up, there’s always something else we’re convinced we need. The more we have, the more we want. It leaves us constantly anxious and upset and full of worry. We’re always worrying about the next thing, the next purchase, the next paycheck. Mammon is a god of anxiety.
But what about when God is your Master? God never demands more, more, more. He gives you absolutely everything you need and says, “Don’t worry about anything.” “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall want for nothing.” “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” When God is your Master, you are content. You have all that you need for this life and for the life to come. God is a God of peace. “Do not worry,” He says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Mammon sends you fretting for this, that, and the other thing. God says, “I’ve taken care of everything.”
Mammon is also a god that demands your protection. You must protect your mammon. Protect it at all costs. Get insurance on all of your mammon so that nothing can ever happen to it. Home insurance, car insurance, renter’s insurance, liability, flood insurance, you name it. Protect your mammon! Don’t let anything happen to it! Only put your money in banks that are federally insured. Make sure you spread your mammon and investments around a bunch of different places so that it’s better protected in the case of trouble. Mammon is a god that demands you fight for protection.
But God…! God is a God who protects you. He doesn’t need your protection. Are you kidding? “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” “God is our refuge and strength.” “Our Fortress”. Are you kidding? God fights to protect us. He fights against our enemies—sin, death, and the devil. He IS our insurance. He says that nothing in all of creation will separate us from His love. Mammon is weak. God is our refuge and strength.
And mammon is, finally, a god that forces you to compete with others. See, there’s only so much mammon to go around in the world. So, inevitably, for you to get more mammon means taking it away from someone else. I’m not saying this is all bad. I’m just saying that if mammon is your god—then you will always be competing with others. Mammon will always have you in a race to be the best and have the most. And it will eventually bury you.
God, on the other hand, is a God of abundance. God doesn’t breed competition. He has so much grace to give that there is always plenty and plenty. His grace and love overflows. He loves all His children with the same deep love. You and I don’t have to compete against each other for God’s love. There is so much grace and forgiveness with God that we can rejoice with each other instead of compete with each other. God is a God of plenty. Of abundance. Mammon is a god of competition.
It’s a tale of two very different masters. Mammon may be an appealing god. But it only leads to despair and death. God leads to life and joy.
Jesus is, of course, the One speaking to you today in the Gospel, saying, “You cannot serve God and money.” Jesus didn’t serve money. Think about it. Jesus could’ve rode high on mammon. With His fame and His power, He could’ve been the richest, most successful, most sought-after, most famous person in the world. Instead, He died poor and alone on a cross at just 33 years old. And yet. Yet He had more joy than the richest, longest-living person in the world. He has the joy of serving a Master who loves Him and loves the entire world. So He told mammon to take a hike and He held on to you and me so that He might serve God and serve us by giving us eternal life by rising from the dead on Easter morning.
You live in Jesus. You are baptized into Jesus. That means mammon doesn’t have any power over you. Just like Jesus your Savior, you have died to mammon and you have risen to life in God. God is master over all mammon. All mammon belongs to God anyway. He’s in control. All of that stuff you and I worry about—all that mammon—it’s all under God’s control anyway. And because of that, you can be master over mammon too.
Money doesn’t tell you what to do. You tell money what to do. Because we live in Christ, who is Lord of all, mammon becomes a gift of God for us that we can use for the good of others in this world. It doesn’t have to be something that demands our time and makes us anxious and demands our protection and our competition. No, God has taken care of all those things. Mammon—money—is a servant to us. We put it to work for the good of our family and the good of our neighbor.
This is where the parable comes in that Jesus tells today. He commends us to be shrewd with the unrighteous wealth—that is—money and mammon. To be master over it and to put mammon to work for the good of others. We don’t have to clutch onto money with a death grip. We, like the unrighteous servant, can be shrewd in giving away God’s blessings. After all, that’s what God wants. He wants us to be gracious as He is gracious. Merciful as He is merciful.
We will never out-give our gracious God. He is a Master full of eternal life. A Master full of peace and contentment. A Master full of protection. And a Master full of abundant grace.
He is your Master. Your good and gracious God who gives you all that you need. In Jesus’ name. Amen.