[With this passage of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses one of the most topical problems of everyday life: the problem of managing our material goods, let's say: money. It's a tricky and uncomfortable issue, because usually no one likes to let others look in their wallets, but Jesus has the power to do that, and that's what he wants to do with us. His word always judges and lifts us up, but it also gives us the solution. If only we could receive the solution to our financial problems from Him now! The danger Jesus warns us of here can be expressed in one word: neglect. It is one of the most acute dangers in the world today, along with war.The danger of war is already felt by all, and great forces are gathering and fighting against it, fortunately. But the other looming threat, the threat of neglect, is still barely visible, and that is why it is coming almost unnoticed. Because it is upon us, and it is becoming ever more threatening.Let me illustrate with an example. Recently, in a foreign newspaper, an advertisement for a large car dealer appeared with the following text: life's goals: to satisfy hunger in 1945; to own a bicycle in 1948; to be motorised on two wheels in 1953; to have a car in 1955. It could be said of this advertisement that this particular company has devised a clever advertisement to sell as many cars as possible, and it is doing a good job of it. But this advertising text not only propagates a car, it also propagates a certain world view, a world view that cannot be ignored. Is it really the aim of life to own a car? And the problem is that for a great many people, that really is their life's ambition, or at least something like it. A Dutch newspaper organised a survey among young people, asking them to answer the following question. The responses received pointed in the same direction as the previous ad. Most young people have only material wishes as their main goal in life, such as a car, clothes, jewellery or a lucky hit on the Toto. And only 6% mentioned spiritual values such as contentment, solid character, peace of mind. I think if the same survey had been conducted with the older generation, the results would not have been much different. Yes, the danger is that it becomes a life's ambition to collect treasures on earth.
So don't misunderstand, the problem is not that you want something better, something more. It's not at all about pleasing God more blindly without a car than behind the wheel. Nor is Jesus trying to dissuade anyone from opening a savings account at the OTP and putting their savings away. In fact, he is very right to do so. The pursuit of material well-being is not at all anti-Christian, it is a necessary duty. Jesus does not say: do not store up treasures on earth. No. But this: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth." (Mt 6,19a) This "for yourselves" is the key to the whole problem. So that particular earthly treasure gathering is dangerous when it so occupies "yourselves" = us that we sacrifice higher values for it. If it occupies our hearts. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Mt 6,21), says Jesus. And this is the great temptation of earthly treasure, of Mammon, of money: it binds the heart, all one's thoughts, aspirations, desires, emotions, moods, so that it becomes a goal, a purpose in life, to which everything else is put in the service. It takes possession of man, and the soul becomes its slave. Money does not serve man, but man serves money.
It is astonishing how Jesus attributes to money such enormous power over man. In this juxtaposition, "You cannot serve God and Mammon" (Mt 6,24c), he almost makes Mammon appear to be man's rival to God. Is this not an exaggeration? Certainly not, because, let us observe, we are all by nature inclined to put our real trust in our monthly salary, or in our bank deposit book: money. Money, in whatever form of earthly treasure, is, in fact, practically God's great rival for us when it comes to whose heart we have. God wants us to love Him, trust Him, believe in Him. And money says: love me instead, I am a surer foundation for your life than any fine speculation about divine providence! Through me you can get whatever you want. I can grant all your wishes. Money can buy everything. Love me, get me, and you'll be well off. Who hasn't heard the whisper of Mammon somewhere in his heart? The whole world lives under the spell of this power.
And indeed, money is a mystical power. Just take out a hundred-farthing note. Imagine what that money could tell you if it could speak! How many secrets could be hidden in its folds! How many people's sweat is on it! How many hours of toil are in it! He may be burdened with the death of some one who has worked himself to make it his for a few hours! How much pain he must have gone through! And what he has done on his long, long journey! He may have delivered white roses to a bride beaming with happiness. Or sweet mignons for a christening party. Or bread on a family's table, or cheering up a sad person, or maybe paying for a doctor's visit to help someone, or books for a schoolchild. Perhaps it was the price of a child's death in the womb. Or it paid the price of the drink that made a family suffer so. Or it made someone a thief. It bought a woman's body for a few hours. Or it paid for the gun that killed someone. Maybe it was given to them for a coffin. How many happy or sad mysteries there are in a coin! And what power. How much good and how much evil it can do! Oh, if it could speak, then we might really see what Mammon is. And now it's in your hands. What are you doing to him, or what is he doing to you? Well, Mammon is indeed such a menace, such a mysterious power, that there is no other way to deal with it but to bring it under the dominion of another, greater power. You cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon! And the only way to counteract the pernicious influence of Mammon is to serve God with Mammon. Thus Mammon becomes a means to good instead of an end.
I once read about a Hindu doctor who, before starting an operation, always lifted the operating instruments up in the air, held them up before the healing Jesus, prayed, and so started the operation. If a man lays every penny, every material possession he has, before Jesus and says, "Lord, all this shall be Thine, and Thou shalt tell me what Thou wilt do with it," he is no longer storing up treasures for himself on earth, but in heaven. Jesus does not want His follower to turn away, despising earthly goods, and immerse himself purely in some abstract spirituality, but to use earthly goods spiritually. He is also to use his earthly goods as a means to the ends of the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God, as you know, is love, justice, goodness, joy - pure joy - and peace on earth for men. That is what it means to lay up treasures in heaven. It's not that if you give to charity, distribute your money to the poor, you will be rewarded handsomely in heaven. No. But to store up treasures in heaven is to manage all our material possessions and income with a holy responsibility before God, to use Mammon for something better for eternity than to hoard, to enjoy, to always want to get more. To turn Mammon into a blessing instead of a disaster. Because it can be a blessing, but only under the rule of God.
That is why God long ago wished His people in the Old Testament to tithe, that is, to give a tenth of all their income to Him, to His service. In this way, God was appealing to the faith and trust of His people, whether they would dare to entrust themselves to His care. Read Malachi 3:6-12. "(Mal 3,10) It is like a challenge, as if to say: 'Do you dare to believe in me so much that if you give me a tenth of your income, you will not fall short? Even today, there are believers who consider tithing to be an obligation to themselves, and do so by giving a tithe of all their income to the service of God's cause, to church causes, or to help others who they would not otherwise be obliged to care for. And that is right. Others say: tithing cannot be made a law. That is also true. Only then it should not become almost a matter of tipping God. For in the New Testament, tithes were not abolished, but raised. The tithe is not God's, but the whole! And if anyone thinks that if he has paid his tithes to God, he can do what he likes with the rest, he is not yet freed from the power of Mammon. And again, anyone who argues against tithing, on any grounds, should consider carefully the words of Jesus, "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness is more than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." If our sacrifice is less than this, Jesus says we are not very good in the faith.
Sacrificing for the things of God, whether it be a contribution to the church, or money dropped into a bushel; whether it be direct help to a needy person (but not to someone who is otherwise to be cared for); whether it be a donation to any truly good and noble cause: such a sacrifice is not a law, but a help, a means of exercising, living, proving to oneself one's independence and freedom from Mammon. So it is not a few forints of tip, but a serious material sacrifice of faith that testifies that I am free, not a prisoner, serving God, not Mammon. I care not only for myself, but also for the other person. Jesus urges us to try to live less egocentrically, or even family-centredly, and to come to the liberating realisation that one lives truly when one lives with another, that one is truly happy when one brings joy to another.
God is saying to us now: 'Try me with this'! By not clinging to your material possessions so stubbornly, but by releasing them and putting them at my disposal. Whoever dares to do this, out of faith, out of gratitude to Jesus, out of love for God, will most certainly experience immeasurable blessings in every aspect of his life, and will see a whole new perspective of the life of faith. It is also a form, and a very vital form, of practising our faith, of practising ourselves in Christianity.
Amen
Date: 31 January 1965.
Lesson
Mal 3,6-14