I am very glad to be preaching today, because this sermon practically writes itself. We all know this gospel story. Jesus tells us that we cannot love God and money. Period. End of story. Preachers for hundreds of years have looked at this text and called it an open and shut case. Don’t hate God and love money. Love God and hate money. It is an either/or and you must choose God.
I won’t ask for a show of hands, but really, would anyone here publicly choose money over God? No one, of course not. So, we all get the point. As I said, this is an easy sermon.
But wait a second. As I think about it, in just a few minutes, we are going to pass the baskets and ask you to put money in them. We just said that you should love God and hate money. Yet, we are about to ask for the very thing we told you to hate. Does that make us hypocritical? The answer is yes. And no.
It is yes if we look at this story as an absolute. If we believe that the choice between God and money is truly an either/or, then our asking for money is indeed hypocritical. For we are telling you to believe one thing and then do another.
Well, nobody wants to be a hypocrite, so maybe we need to look at the Gospel again. Perhaps all those other preachers were a bit lazy in taking the story at face value. “No slave 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.” It certainly sounds like this is an
either/or, but there is an important difference.
The story talks of two masters who are equals, who both hold the same position of power and have an equal claim over the slave. But God has no equal. God is God and there is nothing and no one who can be God’s equal. God is the creator of everything. In our eucharistic prayer we say, “At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.” God did that, and no one or nothing in our existence can equal that feat. There is nothing that can equal God. Unless of course we choose to create that equality. Money is not God’s equal unless we choose to make it so.
Money is not a creator. It is a means of exchange, a tool, a way of equating value to goods or services. We use it to buy things, to acquire the trappings of wealth, affluence, respect. By itself money is nothing more than mere paper or bits of metal. It is only the value which we ascribe to it that gives it power. But we do give it power, oh how we do!
Take heart though- this is not a new concept. We aren’t the first people to turn money into an idol. The reading from the book of Amos talks proudly about making the shekel great and practicing deceit with false balances; of buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. It would seem that even in 750 BC, humanity had already begun to turn money into a
sort of deity.
Fast forward to the new testament and we hear Jesus talking about money. A lot. In fact, Jesus talks about money in nearly half of his parables, and money is mentioned more than any other topic. Why is that, you ask? Look back from the days of Amos and all the way up to this very day. Humans have always had the capacity to turn money into a type of God, and it is that
penchant that Jesus is addressing in today’s gospel.
Jesus is not telling us that we can only love God if we hate money. What he is saying is that we should not confuse money with God. They are clearly NOT equal, and we need to stop making them that. God is God and there is nothing and no one like God. God created the universe and all that is in it, including each one of us. God loves us intimately, despite our all too human
faults. Money does not create and does not love; so, it can never be the equal of God. It is we who try time and again to inflate money to the status of God and Jesus is telling us that is impossible.
We are called to love God, and to use money. For money is merely a thing, it has no power unless we give it some. God and money are not equals, so it is very possible to love God and use money. The trick however is to be sure that we are not loving money and using God.
Returning to the prayers at the Eucharist, we will shortly say, “deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal.” This is a reminder that we are not here to use God for the hour we spend in church, and then return to the world to love money for the rest of the week. We should be coming to
the Lord’s table in love, seeking strength, renewal, and grace to help us love God and love one another always, for that is how we bring God to a broken and hurting world.
So, no, we are not being hypocritical when we pass the plate and ask for money. For the money you give is an offering to God and is a tangible expression that you have things in the right balance. That you love God, but merely use money. Using money as a way of giving back to support the church’s mission helps to bring God to the world. For the people who love
money and only use God eventually find that they are not fulfilled. Money is a false god as it cannot love us in the good times and the bad. God alone does that, and when we bring that message to those who don’t know it, they too can be healed. They too can learn to love God, and only use money.
So as you go back into the world that teaches you to deify money, remember the words of the prayer we used to begin our worship today, Grant us Lord not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly and while we are placed among things that are passing
away, to hold fast to those things that shall endure.
