Sermon for Trinity 15 2008 - Matthew 6:24-34
Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
Trinity 15 (August 31, 2008)
Text: Matthew 6:24-34
SOME of you may have noticed that the opening verse of today’s text is translated a little differently than you may have heard it before. The English Standard Version, what we use now in our lectionary, reads, “You cannot serve God and money,” but most of us are familiar with the older translation that reads, “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Mammon is going to be pretty important in our sermon this morning, so I’d better tell you what exactly “Mammon” is. It’s more than just money. Mammon is wealth. It’s property. It’s all your possessions. We all have Mammon, and that’s not a bad thing. Mammon isn’t always evil-but it can easily become evil. It all depends on how you approach your possessions, your Mammon.
THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO APPROACH MAMMON: THE HEATHEN WAY, AND JESUS’ WAY.
I. The heathen way is to serve Mammon as a god and master.
II. Jesus’ way is to put Mammon into the service of the neighbor.
I.
The heathen way, serving Mammon as a god, is understandable. It actually kind of makes sense, because it’s based on experience. Experience tells us that people who lack wealth tend to have a hard time getting the necessities of life. Food and clothing cost money, after all. We see that people in the poorest countries do actually starve to death. If you watch television, you’re bound to see charity ads with heart-wrenching images of naked children, their bodies racked by starvation. Experience teaches us that people starve, and reason tells us that if we don’t take care, we’ll starve too.
And where does experience teach us to look for salvation from nakedness and starvation? Wealth. Possessions. Mammon. When you get a paycheck, that’s your assurance that you and your family have that much longer to live in security and confidence that there will still be food on the table and clothing on your backs. Experience teaches that if you can’t get money from a paycheck, you’d better find it somewhere else, like from the government, or by borrowing from a credit card company, or even by dishonest means. Whatever happens, you have to get wealth. You have to get Mammon. If you’re not in Mammon’s good graces, you won’t get food, you won’t get clothing, you won’t get healthcare, you won’t get a thing. You’ll die. Your life depends on Mammon and on Mammon alone.
And so the heathen cry rings out: “Our help is in Mammon.” In time of prosperity, “Thanks be to Mammon!” In time of distress, “Would that Mammon would deliver us!” You see, it’s not just the super rich who worship Mammon. It can also be the very poor, those who know that if they just had wealth, if they could just gain Mammon’s favor, then they could get out of the trouble they’re in. The heathen in all walks of life are Mammon’s faithful servants.
So what does this Mammon worship look like? Well, of course we have the crass variety, the kind that’s scorned even by virtuous pagans. The classic example is Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, who despises reputation and honor in favor of material wealth, and who openly devotes his entire life to the increase of riches. Just about anyone you could talk to recognizes this as a wretched existence, and stands in righteous judgment against such openly wicked men. You also have the consumerist American families, the ones that drive themselves deeply into debt all for the sake of needless luxuries. America’s debt culture forms the butt of some of our most biting satire. The world for the most part recognizes it for the irresponsible sinfulness that it is, and even if most of us have a hard time seeing it in our own families, it’s still easy to see it in our neighbors’.
Most Mammon worship, though, flies under the radar, so to speak. It takes place behind the closed doors of public righteousness. Some of Mammon’s most faithful followers even go to church. A secret Mammon worshiper might say, “I don’t want to be rich. I want to have just enough that I don’t have to worry about the basics anymore.” Did you catch that? He doesn’t trust in God to provide the necessities, he trusts in money, in Mammon. He doesn’t expect too much of Mammon-he doesn’t want to tax his god too much-but he trusts in Mammon to give him the basics, the things he really needs. If he didn’t have that modest amount of money, he’d be worried. Then there’s the one who puts money in the offering plate-just enough not to seem stingy. But when it comes to real sacrifice, when his neighbor’s in need and he has something to give, he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t want to give so much that he’d feel it, he doesn’t want to give so much that he’d have to cut back in some area of his own life. If he were forced to be generous to his neighbor, he’d be worried about his own needs.
And then there’s also the one who says that “what I get in church is all right, but I need something that’ll help me in my daily life. Pure doctrine doesn’t pay the bills. Word and sacrament don’t make me healthy or feed my belly or clothe my back. What I really need is good, practical advice on how to live a fulfilled life.” Such a person doesn’t see the Gospel as enough. If all he had were the Gospel, he’d be worried.
You should be able to see a pattern here. All the behaviors I just described have worry behind them. Worry, or anxiety, is a surefire sign of Mammon worship. If you see someone wringing his hands over food or clothing or health or any other earthly need, you can be sure that you’re looking at a servant of Mammon. The anxiety might come from fear that the money might run out, or uncertainty as to where the next paycheck is going to come from, or fear that the person himself may not be capable of doing what he needs to do to survive. Anxiety comes from doubt-doubt that your god, the thing you trust to protect and provide for you, can really do what it’s promised.
The servants of Mammon are plagued with doubt and anxiety, because Mammon is a pretty shaky god. He often fails to provide the things his followers expect of him, like security. Mammon is supposed to be able to protect his worshipers from all sorts of harm and danger, but he seldom keeps his promises. In fact, Mammon’s worshipers often find themselves spending more time protecting their god than being protected by him. They have to keep him safe in the bank, and if they don’t pay close enough attention to their god, they may turn around one day to find that he’s vanished altogether. There are even forces completely out of their control that might take their dear Mammon away from them. A waning economy, robbery or theft, a natural disaster could come out of nowhere, at any time, and sweep their god away in an instant. No, Mammon isn’t very good at providing security. Others think that Mammon will give them freedom, freedom to enjoy life, freedom from care, but that doesn’t last for very long. After a little while of enjoying an abundance of the pleasures of this life, they may find their god Mammon demanding something in return. They may have to slave for long hours at the workplace to keep him well fed. And at the end of it all, death claims every one of them. Mammon may be able to keep death at bay for a while, but every one of his worshipers will one day go down to the grave, where there will be no Mammon to comfort them. The only possession in hell is a wealth of misery, agony, and despair.
II.
Jesus’ approach to Mammon is completely different from this. His way forces Mammon into submission and puts Mammon into the service of the neighbor. This is a tough thing to do. It takes superhuman courage and strength. In fact it takes so much that there was only one Person who’s actually managed to do it, who’s gone all the way in giving up all He had, all His wealth, for His neighbor, and that’s Jesus Christ. St. Paul preaches in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich.” Jesus was rich beyond the wildest dreams of man. He had everything. He had heaven and earth and all that is in them. He had a perfect and sinless human nature, and all the fullness of the Godhead. He had perfect righteousness, a right conscience before His Father-and He gave it all up on the cross. He was stripped of all His earthly possessions, even the clothing on His back. He gave up His life, and He who was immortal suffered death. And the greatest mystery of all is that He gave up His righteousness. He gave it up and took on Himself the sin of the whole world. And He suffered all of sin’s consequences: His Father, the righteous God who cannot abide unrighteousness, forsook His Son, and His wrath blazed against this world’s sin as it hung there bleeding on the cross.
Jesus didn’t do all of this to no purpose. He did it to benefit the sinful world. He did it for us. He who suffered nakedness on the cross promises in our text that our heavenly Father will clothe us. He who suffered death has given us mortals immortality. He who exchanged perfect righteousness for the sin of the world has given us sinners His righteousness. Jesus gave up everything, all that He was and had, for us, so that all who believe in Him may have Him with all His wealth, His righteousness, His life. And once a poor sinner has been given all this, once he’s been forgiven all his sins and accepted into eternal life for Jesus’ sake, he begins to undergo a miraculous change. Before there was nothing but sin and hate, but now there’s the beginning of love, love of God and love for the neighbor. The Holy Spirit works through the Christian’s faith, faith in the grace and mercy of God in Christ, to bring about a new life of willing obedience. This new obedience doesn’t seek God favor, because it’s the favor of God that brought it about in the first place! The new obedience, given by the Holy Spirit, is what enables the Christian to make at least a beginning of putting his possessions into the service of his neighbor.
Yes, the Christian does have possessions. There are times when God’s people have to suffer material poverty, even starvation and nakedness, but generally speaking, God promises to provide for the earthly needs of His dear Christians, as Jesus says in our text. In fact, our heavenly Father often blesses us with more than we need to support this body and life. So what do we do with this wealth? Well, we don’t need it for ourselves, because through faith in Christ we have all we need, forgiveness, life, and eternal salvation, so we use our earthly wealth for the good of our neighbor.
St. Paul summarizes the Christian approach to wealth in Ephesians 4:28: “Let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” The Christian labors in this life, not so that he can satisfy his own desires and seek security and freedom in riches, but so that he can provide for his neighbor’s needs. A father labors so that he can feed and clothe his wife and children. A church member labors so that he can support his congregation and provide for the preaching of God’s Word and the administration of His sacraments. And every Christian labors so that he can give to those in need.
That’s an important thing to note about today’s text. Jesus here forbids anxiety, but He doesn’t forbid labor. After all, God told Adam, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” But Adam wasn’t to worry about bread. He put in his time, according to God’s command, but that was it. He worked the fields and then left the rest to God. It was God who sent the rain, God who caused the sun to shine, and God who brought forth a harvest to feed Adam and his family. That’s still how it works today. What does it help to add worry and anxiety into the mix? As Jesus says, “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” Not only is anxiety sinful, it doesn’t even accomplish anything. Worry doesn’t help the neighbor. Honest labor does. And where honest Christians work faithfully in their callings, there our heavenly Father feeds and clothes His children.
So there you have it, the difference between the heathen approach and Jesus’ approach to Mammon. The heathen worships Mammon as his god and depends on him for all he needs, but the Christian trusts in his heavenly Father to provide for every need of body and soul, and so he puts Mammon into the service of his neighbor. Now, to be honest, no one really manages to follow Jesus’ way all the time. Only Jesus Himself managed to do it perfectly. That’s because every Christian still has an anxious heathen in him who worries and doubts God’s providence. The Holy Spirit has only begun His work of renovating God’s children, and sin still clings to us until the day we die. But that sin no longer condemns us. As St. Paul says in Romans 8, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Jesus has purchased forgiveness, even for our Mammon worship, at the price of His own blood, and that forgiveness is freely given in God’s kingdom. That’s why Jesus tells us in our text, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Seek first forgiveness. Seek first the righteousness of Christ. What more do you need than that? Amen.
