Trinity 15 (Two Masters)

1. Adf

a. You will live in fear of the things that master you…so do you own your stuff, your wealth, or do those things own you?

2. So our text invites us to a new way of life but there are times where people misuse the radical language. People bring an agenda to the text and might try and guilt behavior into people. Specifically guilt people with wealth into certain behavior.

a. Let us look at the text keeping in mind the context that Christ gives to it.

b. The first verse [24] “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.

i. Slavery for us is somewhat foreign. If you grew up in a black context you probably are more mindful of it that those of us who did not, but even knowing someone currently enslaved is very rare in our modern context. In Jesus day the Roman empire ran on slave labor. So we hear Jesus say you cannot be a enslaved by two masters or serve two masters we probably think about how we use slavery in our dialect, I am enslaved to sweets, or binge watching, but we probably have to stop and ponder to think about a slavery where there is an actual master who holds legal ownership over another human. They herd Jesus’ warning and thought about how if money holds you God cannot, and of God holds you money cannot. For us we probably think am I giving too much of my loyalty to money and how do I cultivate changing my loyalty.

ii. Like I said earlier some folks who are critical of even having wealth have used verses like this to bludgeon others who have a high standard of living. As if the having of wealth violate what Jesus demands of us. Let us get some further context to see if it is having wealth that Jesus is critical of?

c. Verse 26 and 27

i. [26] Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? [27] And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

ii. To verse 25 Jesus encourages we behave like verse 26 and 27. It is not that the birds lack access to what they need, it is that they do not worry. They are free of anxiety. The focus of the animal is not cultivating enough to be secure; animals seem to just instinctually trust that what they need is at hand.

d. So what do I not see I do not see a critique of having wealth, I do see a critique of obsessing in money and wealth. The worry of what will you do to meet your needs. It lacks trust in God to provide what is needed.

i. Verses 28-30

ii. [28] And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, [29] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [30] But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

iii. Again is God critiquing the having of clothes? Is he telling us that our clothes need to be a certain way…No instead he points us to the natural world. He does not say they are without clothing so should you be. He is sayng that they are not worried about how they are arrayed, and yet they are beautiful. Not only that they are not eternal…you are eternal. The lilies of the field have not the image of God, you have the image of God on you. God will take care of those who bear his image to a greater extent than even the lilies.

e. Verses 31-34

i. [31] Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ [32] For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. [33] But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. [34] “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (ESV)

ii. Though wealth and outward appearance can be things caught in our net of anxieties, this is not about wealth and outward appearance. This is about fear and lack of trust in God. This is about cultivating a heart that distrusts God’s provision and expects to have to take care of its self. Yes We can in those times become greedy about money and that is a sin, and we can become vain about appearance and that is a sin, but this is about the root, fear, lack of trust in God.

iii. The Gentiles, those outside God’s family are justified in those fears, they know not the God of provision. But those in the family should be free of those fears. God makes good on his promises.

f. You will live in fear of the things that master you…so do you own your stuff, your wealth, or do those things own you?

3. An important aside.

a. We should take a moment and remember our neibors who live with anxiety every day, not just the fear that comes from choosing to trust in our own energy over trusting God, but fear that is wired in through illness in the brain that controls even our own will.

b. In my own journey I was diagnosed with Attention deficit disorder when I was in 8th grade and to get through school easier I took medicine will college and was for the most part a successful student. What I didn’t know was that when I was off medicine, I coped by controlling very specific parts of the world around me. I became a desperate people pleaser. In my 30s the anxiety of that became so exhausting to my brain that I started to lash out in anger. A little at first then more and more. Learned some techniques to control some of it, but in the last year so many things in my life had been so up in the air I found I was losing my grip. So in the last 90 days I have been taking an anti-depressant that has not only helped with the focus issues in my ADD but calmed the people pleasing, eased the anxiety I trained into my brain and helped me deal with the anger. I knew that it would have been sin to refuse to get help and live in fear that I would lose control of how people felt about me and to allow that to become anger. So repentance for me was to seek help. Sin would have been to deal with it alone and only come to God after I fixed myself. And I have a pretty easy and mild case. We live in a country where 1 in five people have a diagnosable anxiety disorder. It is not the work of the church to take Matthew 6 and beat them over the head with it, but to move towards them in compassion, to walk with them through the journey of healing. To remind them of Matthew 6 pastorally, that God takes care of his creation including them.

c. Because we live in a fallen world, there is serious illness that effects every part of the human body, including the brain. If you feel the need for help, or you feel some desire to help folks who are walking through this, just a reminder that our church is involved with these friends.

4. Okay back to the texts for today. If you remember back to our Epistle reading we get from Saint Paul a farewell and a summary of the book of Galatians.

a. Galatians 6:12–13 [12] It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. [13] For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. (ESV)

b. The whole book St. Paul is warning church members that a Gospel that demands faithfulness to the Law is different than the Gospel he preached of Jesus’s faithfulness being applied to us. Saint Paul had preached to them that those who trust only in Christ and his work would be saved. In come men who are telling them that you have to trust in Christ and be faithful to the OT law and do this through circumcision. That you trust in Christ and in your own efforts together. He is saying one motivation is fear that if the community does not do what is expected by the local Jewish population they will be persecuted. They are afraid to trust in God alone. What if God does not protect us in persecution?

c. St. Paul asks us for what Christ is asking. They both ask that we would trust in Jesus to take care of us. To take care of us money wise. To take care of us in appearance to others, to take care of us from persecution and for salvation. They are both saying that it is not of God to take back the reigns of that trust and to trust in self.

d. You will live in fear of the things that master you…so do you own your stuff, your wealth, or do those things own you?

5. Let me finish with a warning and reminder. The warning is this. We who live in a wealthy part of the world are at serious risk. It is very available to us to thrive in the marketplace here in the west. Getting lucrative work especially in the last few years has been very available. We can trick ourselves into thinking that our success is our own and we trust in that success for a good life. But we must remember that it is God we serve with our money and not our money that we serve with Godly principles. I grew up well to do and have been given much. So I warn my fellow friends who also have much, remember to steward wealth as something to use in God’s service.

a. As to looking good in front of others, how easy is it to get credit in our day, curate our look with the right clothes and cars, put on airs. But that is investing your effort in things that will not last.

b. The truth is that we all do it. We all forget to trust God and trust in money and our own efforts to attain it. We all worry what others will think and over extend in service to that.

c. But Jesus faithfully trusted God. He let God know of his own desire at Gesemene, and yet trusted God that the better thing would be his death on our behalf. He was hungry in the dessert but told the devil that There is a higher food. That faithfulness of Christ has been put on our shoulders, and our lack of trust put on his shoulders. On the cross he accomplished the ultimate act of trust so that we can have the wealth of everlasting life. We can be clothed in the Spirit, we can have the greater circumcision.

d. I wanted to close today in prayer for our neibors and friends for whom anxiety is not a choice but a cross to bear, that God would show us how to love them…