Sunday, September 23, 2007
By pastor John Jorgenson
Jesus used stories based on current life experiences to help people learn about what God has done and what God expects of us. Today we learn that we cannot serve two masters. That creates a bit of a problem. In our world today, you can have two jobs. Some people even have three. However, things have changed since Luke wrote what Jesus was explaining.
At Jesus’ time you were either a slave or a master depending on your family history. Independent freedom like we enjoy did not exist for the majority of people. As a slave you had no time of your own. The master determined what you did with every moment of every day. So one could not serve two masters.
Today things have changed somewhat. We do have a bit more to say about our individual lives. However in terms of values we have not changed very much. Either we serve ourselves selfishly or we reach out and share what we have, leading others and doing things together to achieve a common goal.
So in that sense we cannot serve self and another at the same time. In a sense we already know that and Jesus reinforces a lot of what we are already aware of and then tend to ignore it, thinking we can do without God.
One way of bringing that idea into today’s world and into our current thinking, I guess if we were to try to serve two masters in our culture we could have someone create a new technology and we might have access to some sort of dual computer chips that we cold have installed in the back of our heads.
Then we would have some computer tech reprogram us so we can respond to different systems. Like my Mac laptop, which can run Microsoft programs as well as its own Apple designed Unix programs. Even so someone has to make the decision about what ever motivation or leader to whom we respond. However, we in our world are not computerized to that degree, yet anyway.
So I suggest that maybe we better check our faith-based operating system that God installed when we were created and make sure we understand how it functions when we get involved with the projects of life that we make use of every day. It is a tremendous resource that we make far too little use of and it was given to us for free and God keeps it free of all viruses except the ones we install for whatever reason.
Anyway as I was reading over what Luke wrote in this morning’s lesson, I was wondering if Luke had been reading the current business pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Wall Street Journal. The abuse of honesty in the corporate and government arenas is simply absurd. Don’t these people understand the importance of being honest and open?
Jesus reacts to the world he lived in and stated that the sons of this world are much wiser in their life style than are the children of light. As a result if our ambition is to simply be wealthy and have access to power over society, then the results of our motives depend on how world like we are. Our faith motivation will grow only as we invest as much time in it as we do in our more worldly activities. That is not so easy.
A second lesson from verse 9 suggests that our use of material possessions can cement friendships in a very wholesome way as people realize our faith commitment is not limited to Sunday morning. A rabbinical saying suggests that the rich help the poor in this world and the poor help the rich in the world to come. In other words we can use what we have for our own benefit or we can use what we have to make life easier for those around us. This is not a new thought.
In June 1889 Andrew Carnegie wrote a little 24 page book entitled “The Gospel of Wealth.” He suggested three alternatives for those who are able to accumulate great amounts of wealth. One is to pass it on to one’s family. However Carnegie suggests this is not a good use of the accumulated wealth as it tends to destroy the lives of ones family members. A second suggestion is to pass the wealth on to the community after death. However this is not a good idea as the taxes assessed at death mean that a growing amount goes to the state without adequate oversight. His third suggestion is a biblical one, provide modestly for one’s family and use the remainder to provide opportunity for the community, like schools, hospitals and programs to care for the poor to enable them to participate in the wealth accumulation process. This expresses the gospel of wealth, “peace on earth, among men, good will.”
A third lesson from Luke from verses 10 and 11 suggests that we develop a reputation as faithful believers. He who is faithful in little is faithful in much. This is a lesson that we still experience in our world as we work together to achieve goals and make things better.
A fourth lesson from Luke from verse 13 clearly states that we cannot serve two masters. We either love one and we hate the other. In essence we cannot serve God and serve ourselves selfishly.
Finally, when I read the business papers, I wonder how long it will take us to get people to see what results can be achieved when we make use of God’s plan for leadership as Jesus taught it so long ago. Carnegie gave us a suggestion to consider. We have the opportunity now to do what he suggests on a world wide basis. So we sure got a lot of work to do and maybe with globalization and the appropriate use of technology we can achieve what God has intended for a long time.
Amen.