“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.”  Matt 6:24

             Here are some interesting reflections on this passage taken from a book by Charles Lane, titled,  Ask, Thank, Tell (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006, pp.34-36, 44). 

            “Jesus wants your heart.  Jesus wants nothing more than to be in relationship with you and to have your heart turned towards him.  Jesus and others in the New Testament see money and possessions as threats because they can turn one’s heart away from Jesus.

            “When one has wealth, one is tempted to trust in that wealth.  When wealth becomes the object of one’s trust, then wealth has taken the place of Jesus Christ, who is the only worthy object of a believer’s trust.

            “You are wealthy by any standards.  Historically, it has been observed that sometime in the 1950s, western society achieved a standard that has never existed in the history of the world… Fifty years later, this situation has obviously expanded.  The majority of people in the western world have considerable discretionary income, and they have more than enough to cover the costs of food, clothing, and shelter.

            “We in the western world are also wealthy globally.  One of the shocking realizations of people who travel to third-world countries is just how poor most people are… I have more in common with the very wealthy of my own country than I have in common with the average citizen of a third-world country.

“Jesus said, ‘You cannot serve God and wealth.’  I am convinced that in the United States we try to do precisely that which Jesus says we cannot do… Of course we want to serve God, and we also want to place our trust in the security that we think can come from wealth.  Dare we call this the American heresy?

            The New Testament offers us a way to start the process of overcoming this threat---through generous giving.  The New Testament, like the Old Testament, tells us that giving of one’s wealth to help another who is in need is the duty of a child of God.  This duty can become a way of life.  Generous giving can break the power of wealth.  By giving money away generously we put money in its proper place, and place our trust with the only one ultimately worthy of that trust, Jesus our Lord.”