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Sunday, June 21, 2020
“We are confronted by
an either/or” in Christianity.[i] If our lives are lived according to New
Testament teaching, if we desire to walk in the way of Jesus, we must choose this,
and reject that. It’s clear and
decisively obvious.
Some teaching are not
as black and white. In Mark 9:40, Jesus says, “Whoever is not against us is for
us,” and in Matthew 12:30, “Whoever is not with me is against me.” Matthew
5:20, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Yet in Luke 23, one of the criminals on one of the crosses next to Jesus
admits he deserves his fate. He is
guilty. Jesus promises him, whose
righteousness certainly does not exceed the scribes’ that he will be with Jesus
in paradise that very day (Luke 23:41, 43).
The Bible contains nuance and mystery. We spend our lives interpreting
it.
Matthew 6:19-24 is not
one of those contradiction passages hard to understand. Jesus’ words here are clear. The difficulty of Matthew 6:19-24 is we have
to deal with it. “Do not store up treasures on earth; … store up treasures in
heaven. … Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” “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”.
Jesus does not mean
slaves have to love cruel overlords.
Every black slave during the first centuries of American history up to
the Civil War was a victim of kidnapping, and every white person who
perpetuated the institution perpetuated crimes against humanity akin to
genocide. Jesus promised liberation to
people in chains (Luke 4:18). Yet, he
also declares all of us are slaves to something. If we soften the term to “servant,” we gain
nothing and miss what Jesus is really saying.
You and I and every person will serve God as master or serve money as
master.
Does Jesus have the
right to do that? America is a land of
choices. How many fast food places are
there? You could get your burger at
Burger King, your fries at MacDonald’s, and your milk shake at Chik-Fil-A. Jesus may be Lord, but are we willing to
submit to this bipolar set of options he’s foisted on us? Must we agree that it’s either Jesus or
money? Must we adopt that mindsight to
be Christians?
We like the idea of choosing how we worship. I told I guy I had just met I was a
pastor. He brought our entire
conversation to a grinding halt by saying, “I follow God in my own way.” What does that even mean? When Bill Bradley opposed Al Gore in the
Democratic primaries in 2000, he was asked about his religion. He put a hard stop to the question. “That’s personal, he said.” Jesus has no use for self-made religion or
unexpressed faith. If we want to follow
him, sometimes we have to come to grips with polar opposite choices. “You cannot serve God and wealth.”
If we accept Jesus’ authority to impose the “either/or”
on us, then we have to respond. Our response
is not seen in statements we write. Our
response is how we live, and especially in how we think about money and use
money.
Some very wealthy Christians attempt an end run
around Jesus’ extreme teaching by insisting their priority is faith and love,
and their riches serve faith and love.
In some cases, it’s true. Read
Luke 8:3. Among Jesus’ followers were a group of affluent women who underwrote
Jesus’ ministry out of their own funds.
The reason they could give the money to Jesus is they had it. In our own church’ story, God has blessed us
with an anonymous donor or donors. In
the past 7 months we have received two separate significant financial
gifts. We’ve also been able to refinance
our building with the North Carolina Baptist Foundation. The reason?
Wealthy Christians donate to the foundation and make their work
possible. We received big gifts is because
someone had money and wanted to give it.
The serving God v. serving money
dichotomy is not as simple as declaring wealth evil. But, as Hauerwas writes,
“Jesus is very clear. Wealth is a
problem.”[ii] Too often, people have a lot of money or come
into a lot of money and their lives begin to shift. The money starts determining how they make
life decisions, instead of existing to bring glory to God. Preservation of their wealth, not
discipleship, shapes their lives. When
that happens, their service to God is made subject to the whims of the true
master: the wealth itself. Often, driven
to hold onto their riches, wealthy Christians exhibit anemic discipleship in
which Jesus is hardly seen.
If we’re reading the
Sermon on the Mount then we’re taking discipleship seriously. This sermon is for disciples of Jesus. If we take discipleship seriously, then we
have to face up to the confrontation.
Jesus has put it before us, right in our faces. Will it be this or that? Will I be a slave to God, or will I be owned
by money?
We’ve said yes, Jesus
has the right to confront us with this either/or. We’ve agreed that in the face of this
either/or, we have to respond and our response is evident in our daily lives. How do we submit to Jesus as our overlord?
I knew two different
women who went through seasons of real poverty.
In both cases from month to month, they weren’t sure how the bills would
be paid. The first thing both women did
when receiving their small paychecks was to tithe, 10% to their church. They trusted God to cover them that month.
Whatever your economic
circumstance, are your trusting God in it?
Wealthy disciples of Jesus should be giving a lot more than 10%. All Christians, whether giving time, money,
attention, or talent must find ways to be extravagantly generous; Zacchaeus,
the short tax collector Jesus saved, offered to repay everyone he’d cheated 4
times the amount (Luke 19:8). He had
gotten rich cheating a lot of people. We
find ways we can be that generous. We
structure our lives so that there are areas where we have to trust God to make
it day-to-day, week-to-week.
Both of my friends eventually saw their
circumstances greatly improve. It wasn’t
like those health-and-wealth charlatans who promise God will give a miracle in
the form of financial windfalls. Rather,
my friends worked hard, lived faithfully, and trusted God. We have to restructure our lives so that we
can see how we trust him daily. I can’t
be more precise with your individual life because this kind of lived faith
varies in what it looks like from person to person. Do an honest assessment. Is there any area of life where God isn’t
first? That area of life must be
reordered so that the master is in His rightful place.
Finally, depending on God and seeking ways to be
extravagantly generous, we see with eyes of love. That’s the best way to understand verses
22-23, “if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” Seeing with eyes of love, we notice people
who are hurting and we help them. Seeing
with eyes of love, we recognize where God is at work in the world. We encourage those involved in God’s good
work and we join in it. Through this
seeing and the help and encouragement we give based on what we see, we store up
treasures in heaven
Yes, we are confronted by this or that. Jesus requires extreme commitment of us. It’s worth giving it. It’s contrary to our society’s values, but we
reject money and wealth as masters over us; we reject money and wealth as
organizing principles that determine how our lives are structured. We reduce money and wealth’s power. Money is a tool to be used. God is our Lord and we live our lives for his
glory.
AMEN
[i] D.
Bonhoeffer (1963), The Cost of Discipleship, MacMillan Publishing
Company (New York), p.196.
[ii]
S. Hauerwas (2006), Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible: Matthew,
Brazos Press (Grand Rapids), p.80.
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