Matthew 6:24-34
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘No one can be the
slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or
treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave
both of God and of money.
‘That is why I am telling you not to worry about
your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to
clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing!
Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet
your heavenly Father feeds them. Are we not worth much more than they are? Can
any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? And
why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they
never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his
regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass
in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he
not much more look after you, you men of little faith? So do not worry; do not
say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?” It
is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father
knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his
righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not
worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough
trouble of its own.’
Food for thought!
This gospel makes us turn our thoughts to the place
which material possessions should have in life. At the basis of Jesus' teaching
about possessions there are three great principles.
(i) All things belong to God, as the Bible puts it:
"The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; the world and those who
dwell therein" (Ps.24:1). "For every beast of the forest is mine, the
cattle on a thousand hills.... If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the
world and all that is in it is mine" (Ps.50:10,12).
In Jesus' teaching it is the master who gives his
servants the talents (Matt. 25:15), and the owner who gives the husbandmen the
vineyard (Matt. 21:33). This principle has far-reaching consequences. We can
buy and sell things; we can to some extent alter and rearrange things; but we
cannot create things. The ultimate ownership of all things belongs to God.
There is nothing in this world of which we can say, "This is mine."
Of all things we can only say, "This belongs to God, and God has given me the
use of it."
(ii) The second basic principle is that people are
always more important than things. If possessions have to be acquired, if money
has to be amassed, if wealth has to be accumulated at the expense of treating
people as things, then all such riches are wrong. Whenever and wherever that
principle is forgotten, or neglected, or defied, far-reaching disaster is
certain to follow.
(iii) The third principle is that wealth is always
a subordinate good. The Bible does not say that, "Money is the root of all
evil," it says that "The love of money is the root of all evils"
(1Tim.6:10). It is quite possible to find in material things what someone has
called "a rival salvation."
A man may think that, because he is wealthy, he can
buy anything, that he can buy his way out of any situation. Wealth can become
his measuring-rod; wealth can become his one desire; wealth can become the one
weapon with which he faces life.
If a man desires material things for an honourable
motive, like helping his family and like doing something for his fellow-men,
that is good; but if he desires it simply to heap pleasure upon pleasure, and
to add luxury upon luxury, if wealth has become the thing he lives for and lives
by, then wealth has ceased to be a subordinate good, and has usurped the place
in life which only God should occupy (yesterday's Food for thought).
One thing emerges from all this: the possession of
wealth, money, material things is not a sin, but it is a grave responsibility.
If you own many material things it is not so much a matter for congratulation
as it is a matter for prayer, that you may use them as God would have you to
do.
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