No one can serve two masters, 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. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.
Jesus of Nazareth
Last weekend, we reflected on what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount about his disciples' relationships with each other. He went on to describe how we are to relate to a wide circle of people. This is how Christians are to live shrewdly by the ways of the Kingdom of God, not the ways of the societies in which we live. It is what it takes to be 'Kingdom shrewd'.
There are various ways to unpack what Jesus taught but I find this division helpful when reflecting on the financial implications: sex (Matthew 5:27-32), integrity (Matthew 5:33-37), unreasonableness (Matthew 5:38-42), rivals (Matthew 5:43-48) and good works (Matthew 6:1-4). This Reflection can only be a brief overview but I hope that it encourages you to re-read the Sermon.
There are various ways to unpack what Jesus taught but I find this division helpful when reflecting on the financial implications: sex (Matthew 5:27-32), integrity (Matthew 5:33-37), unreasonableness (Matthew 5:38-42), rivals (Matthew 5:43-48) and good works (Matthew 6:1-4). This Reflection can only be a brief overview but I hope that it encourages you to re-read the Sermon.
Sex. Christians tend to think they do well guarding against society’s attitudes to sex but in my experience that usually applies only to the more visible, undeniable acts, like prostitution and adultery. Secret behaviour tends to be ignored as readily as avarice and covetousness. Although in this passage (Matthew 5:27-32) Jesus is talking primarily about faithfulness in marriage, it has implications for people who are not married.
We live in a society where lust is a primary means of selling goods and services and this reaches deep into our unconscious minds. It is much more subtle than marketing images of glamorous, charismatic men and women . The consumer society actively provokes dissatisfaction to provoke and entice us to buy what we think we need to make our lives better. The unnatural preoccupation with body shape, for example, exploits the natural desire to be accepted, liked and satisfied. Sex is demoted to a pleasure as accessible as alcohol or drugs and, on the whole, with no greater stigma and no 'hangover'. The illusions of happy families are crafted to manipulate people into buying the household items, cars and holidays that will make their families appreciate them more.
We live in a society where lust is a primary means of selling goods and services and this reaches deep into our unconscious minds. It is much more subtle than marketing images of glamorous, charismatic men and women . The consumer society actively provokes dissatisfaction to provoke and entice us to buy what we think we need to make our lives better. The unnatural preoccupation with body shape, for example, exploits the natural desire to be accepted, liked and satisfied. Sex is demoted to a pleasure as accessible as alcohol or drugs and, on the whole, with no greater stigma and no 'hangover'. The illusions of happy families are crafted to manipulate people into buying the household items, cars and holidays that will make their families appreciate them more.
Integrity. When Jesus says, ‘Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil’, he’s going beyond any sense of superficial honesty. After Immanuel Kant persuaded people that it's better to maintain a commitment to the truth rather than to lie in a worthwhile cause, we’ve started to believe that to mislead with the truth (or partial truth) is not somehow dishonest. I'm sure it isn't what Kant intended but today we blag, distract, trick, mislead, misdirect, distort, evade, fabricate, exaggerate and embellish but we do not lie.
Unreasonableness. Just as he had told his disciples not to respond to each other in anger, so Jesus now tells us to show the same restraint to anyone else who insults or abuses us. He is not, as we have seen in previous Reflections, advocating passivity but ingenuity in the face of abuse. He's not suggesting that we accept all ‘legal’ injustices, only that we act more creatively than to ‘fight fire with fire’ and stay true to his way of life.
Rivals. Jesus’ comments on abuse lead into the obligation to love our enemies but 'rival' is a better word to use today to identify the unscrupulous business rivals, devious work colleagues and difficult neighbours we all have to live with from time to time. Jesus' way shouldn't expose us to preventable fraud or other harm, for we need to be real about the motives of people who use and abuse us, but like the Samaritan who helped the injured Jew, we must help when a need is clear.
Good works. Jesus saw the importance of doing good discretely and not for public display. If we do seek to impress others, like many of the Pharisees did when donating to the Temple, then the public acclaim may be all the reward we get and we miss the opportunity to accumulate treasure in heaven.
After teaching about prayer and expressing our dependence on God alone, Jesus then gets to the issue of trust and the quotation at the start of this Reflection. Do we rely on God or money to meet our daily needs and to fulfil our ambitions for the future? Do we serve God in the ways we live or do we, in fact, serve money because earning it is our unconscious lifestyle priority? Do we spend to 'keep up' with others, to remain one of the 'in crowd' or to bolster our own ego? Do we find ourselves doing righteousness, as Jesus described it, only when we think we can sustain the financial cost?
Treasure in heaven is responsibility in the Kingdom of God and Christians who are shrewd realise they can’t accumulate both that and treasure on earth. The choice is unavoidable.
© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.
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