Luke 16:13
In an old Jack Benny routine, a thief puts a gun in Benny’s ribs and says, “Your money or your life!”
Jack Benny doesn’t answer.
Again the thief says, “Your money or your life!”
Jack says nothing.
The thief, becoming very impatient, says, “Answer me. I said, ‘Your money or your life.’”
Then Jack replies,”I’m thinking, I’m thinking!”
Jack Benny is probably one of the best examples in terms of portraying a character who was as devoted to his money as anyone. In real life, he was much the opposite. But the character portrayed on stage gave us an opportunity to laugh at ourselves, and laugh at the ways we hold on to some things with too much tenacity.
But the laughter has to lead us somewhere. We have to allow it to penetrate to the point in our lives that makes us willing to do something that opens up our grasp from what we are clutching so tightly. Because, the truth of the matter is, if we don’t do something about our clutching, God no longer takes it as a laughing matter. God will not allow us to compromise our time, or our attention, or our loyalties that should be reserved for God alone. Our God is a very demanding God.
For Jack Benny’s character, it was money. For others it could be a whole host of things. I had our scripture read from the King James Version, because I like the word, “mammon.” It doesn’t mean just money, as some of the modern translations have rendered it. It can mean wealth and riches in terms of all your “things.” We need to see this word, mammon, in its widest possible light. We may not have the problem of giving our money a loyalty beyond it’s due. But there may be other “sacred cows” that we pay way too much attention to.
I could lay out a shopping list of sacred cows, and a few of them might hit home with you, personally. I will let you do that kind of evaluation yourself in the privacy of your own head. What I would rather spend time doing is making some comments on the assumptions I see behind Jesus’ words. Jesus seems to be very concerned with the seriousness with which God approaches the person who has allowed some thing or some one to veer their attention away from God. God doesn’t like a divided loyalty.
II
Jesus makes the simple and logical statement that a slave cannot serve two masters. A person can not divide their primary loyalty. Jesus’ words are less a command than they are a statement of fact. It would be like saying, you can’t walk both east and west at the same time. To go one way would be to turn your back on the other.
In Jesus’ statement, let’s assume that one of the masters in the little parable is God. If that is so, then one of the assumptions Jesus is making is that there is the possibility that God can get the short end of our stick, when a choice is made. But as Jesus says, it’s not a matter of just getting the short end of the stick. It is a matter of love and hate, holding to or despising. There’s no middle ground, no varying degrees. It’s either one or the other. The fact that we can treat God that way should be alarming.
God is easy to slight. If you aren’t entirely convinced of God’s existence, then it’s easy to push God to the side for something else. If you aren’t entirely convinced that God cares about you, then it’s easy to move on to someone else whom you think does.
But, if you have gained a firm affirmation that God really does exist, and then moved on to the fact that God cares about you so strongly, then you are standing on shaky ground if you take God for granted. You might find that God has decided that turn-about is fair play. Which means you’d discover that you have been taken, for a period of time, chosen out by God and left desperately alone in facing life. God will not punish you for your divided loyalty. God will just leave you to yourself, and let you find out what that’s really like.
A group of high school seniors went to New York City for their senior trip. When they arrived in the city they went to the hotel and registered. They were assigned rooms on the 30th floor of the hotel.
On the first day they went to Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building. Finally they got back to their hotel. The desk clerk said, “I’m sorry, the elevators are not working. You will have to walk up or wait until the elevators can be repaired.” The students had visions of their beds awaiting, so, tired as they were they decided they would climb the 30 flights of stairs. You, know. They’re high school kids.
One of them had an idea. He said, “On the way up, as a distraction, each of us will tell the funniest story we know.” The others in the group agreed and they started the climb. When they reached the 10th floor, they were still going strong. When they reached the 20th floor, their legs felt like tree stumps and they were panting for breath. The one whose turn it was to tell a funny story said, “I’m sorry, I’m just too exhausted to speak.” They trudged on in silence.
When they reached the 29th floor, one of them began to laugh. He sat down on the steps and almost went into hysterics. Finally, he got enough of himself together to say, “I’ve just thought of the funniest thing that can top all the other funny stories you’ve told.” They asked him what it was. He said, “We forgot to pick up our keys at the front desk.”
That’s a good illustration of what happens when God lets us go our own way, when we leave God in the lobby of our daily living. God is the key we decide we don’t need. We go on our merry way, and then find ourselves far away from the one we need to unlock all the doors in our future. Remember, it isn’t God who was the one who put the distance between us. It is our own choices. Then we have to back track that distance and make a new choice which will make God predominant in our lives.
III
A second assumption I see behind Jesus’ words is a fairly evident one: you are going to serve some thing or some one. Whether you are willing to admit it or not, you are going to put yourself into the service of some god. It’s not a matter of “if.” It’s a matter of “when” and “what” and “how.” Edwin Arlington Robinson once remarked, “The world is not a ‘prison house,’ but a kind of spiritual kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell ‘God’ with the wrong blocks.”
People want to give themselves to something that will bring meaning to their lives. If we find something or someone who holds the promise of doing that, we begin to relinquish ourselves in little, and then larger and larger ways. If we are going to do that as a matter of natural consequence, then why not give ourselves over to our Lord and Maker? If it is meaning in life that we are looking for, why not turn to the Author of Life as it is meant to be lived? The thing with God is, if we find our meaning in the Lord, then we will be able to recognize everything else that is also truly meaningful. But if we give ourselves over to that which is not God, then the opposite is not also true. It will be much harder to find God by giving ourselves over to that which has nothing to do with God.
The philosopher Plato told the parable of the four prisoners who were chained together in a cave since childhood. In the cave they stood apart from but faced a wall where shadows were cast by the firelight behind them. All they knew about the world was the shadows on the wall.
One of the prisoners was released and realized that the shadows he once thought to be the only thing of substance were actually imitations of a far greater reality. He tried to share this discovery with his fellow prisoners. But they rejected him and wouldn’t believe the truth he told. The prisoners were incapable and unwilling to distinguish between the shadows and reality.
How long would it take for someone to see that they’ve been buying into the imitation, the shadow world, the semblance, but not the reality? How long would someone go before they discovered that what they thought was meaningful, was in reality a “shadow on the wall”? How long would someone stare at the shadows, and think they were seeing something of substance, something that was full of meaning? And how would they respond to someone who tried to present the case that they have been duped, and their “meaning” has been, all along, based on phantoms?
Sam Levenson once wrote, “I set out in life to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now I’m eighty and all I’ve got is the pot.”
You are going to search for meaning somewhere. God, worthily and abundantly, fulfills all lesser loyalties we have, IF they are all put under his ultimate grace-full control. That’s what I’ve come to, after thinking about my message a couple of weeks ago, about having to turn my back on family for Jesus’ sake. I think the answer is, if I choose anything else, including my family, my kids as first in my life, I lose God. BUT, if I choose the Lord, even above my family, my son and daughter, I get God; but I also get to keep everyone else under God’s hierarchy. Jesus didn’t say that, but I think it’s the surprise if you take the chance, and make the commitment to our Lord as number one in our lives.
IV
Related to this is the third and final assumption I see behind Jesus’ parable. And that is, there is a fight going on for who is going to have ultimate control over you. Here’s the interesting part of this: the two opposing forces--God, and whatever else--have no idea which way the outcome will be.
The reason for that is because you must ultimately decide for or against God, for or against mammon, whatever that might be for you. Jesus recognized that people have a hard time making up their mind about this one strategic matter. So he made it easier. He took away the whole middle ground and left it an either/or choice.
A psychiatrist once asked a patient, “Do you have trouble making up your mind?”
To which the patient replied, “Well, yes and no.”
There are only two choices Jesus gives us. We will all end up, one day, choosing one or the other. That’s the way it is with God. There is no middle ground in terms of who we will give our ultimate and undivided allegiance too. Either God or false-god. Either God or self. Either for Christ or against Christ. Either hot or cold. No middle ground. No half way with God.
There’s a story about two sailors adrift on a raft in the ocean. They had just about given up hope of rescue. One of them began to pray, “O Lord, I’ve lead a worthless life. I’ve been unkind to my wife, I’ve neglected my children. But if you save me, I promise…”
And just then the other sailor shouted, “Hold it! I think I see land!”
Serving God, giving yourself over to God is not just a sometime thing or a quick-fix or a rescue deal. God will not be half-served, or prayed to in half-hearted commitment.
V
The Rubicon is a small stream in central Italy. Julius Caesar was forbidden, by the Roman Senate, to cross the Rubicon. His crossing of the Rubicon with his army would have initiated civil war. So the phrase, “To cross the Rubicon” has come to mean taking a step of full commitment, with no turning back, no compromise as to purpose or goal.
We must decide, faced with our own crossing of a Rubicon-of-sorts, as to whether we will single-mindedly serve God or not. “No servant can serve two masters; for either she will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
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